Publication: The Times

05.12.11 Publication: The Times

We know our traditional response, for Punch recorded it a century and a half ago: “Who’s ‘im Bill? A stranger? ‘Eave ‘arf a brick at im.” And when...

11.11.11 Publication: The Times

Nothing, as Shakespeare wrote in Macbeth, became him more than the manner of his leaving. Except that in Silvio Berlusconi’s case it should not be meant as a...

07.11.11 Publication: The Times

Nicolas Sarkozy has made it perfectly clear that he is not keen on more lectures from the “I’m alright Jacques” Brits about what needs to be done to...

10.10.11 Publication: The Times

Forget the Black Death. Forget, too, the South Sea Bubble of 1720, the Baring crisis of 1890 and even the Great Depression of the 1930s. According to Sir...

26.09.11 Publication: The Times

So now we know: “They have six weeks to resolve this crisis”, declared George Osborne, while in Washington, DC, for the mass meetings of finance ministers...

05.09.11 Publication: The Times

Do you remember the video of Osama bin Laden watching himself on television in his house in Abbottabad, which the Americans released just after having killed...

22.08.11 Publication: The Times

Here is some news that might brighten up this gloomy August: the world economy is not about to enter a new recession. The main reason for this bold, nay...

08.08.11 Publication: The Times

It was a week on the wild side, and this week promises to be a tad tumultuous too, thanks to the first ever downgrading of America’s  sovereign credit...

01.08.11 Publication: The Times

The Founding Fathers must be chuckling in their graves. They designed the American constitution, with all its checks and balances, expressly to thwart decisive...

18.07.11 Publication: The Times

It is tempting to blame Silvio Berlusconi for the way in which Italy has found itself in the financial markets’ gunsights, and like the country’s prime...

04.07.11 Publication: The Times

If you want a sense of time standing still, go to the “demilitarized zone” between North and South Korea and the place where the truce was signed between...

20.06.11 Publication: The Times

One of the great not-actually-said sayings, alongside “Play it again Sam” and “It’s too soon to judge” (the French Revolution), is the supposed...

06.06.11 Publication: The Times

This is a big moment for Italy, as two notable Italians are preparing seriously for their futures. Mario Draghi, who as governor of the Bank of Italy has...

23.05.11 Publication: The Times

In the bad old days of George W. Bush, whenever Europe was accused of being from Venus, in the sense of disliking war rather than being sexual predators, the...

09.05.11 Publication: The Times

When you are sitting through one of those interminable meetings in which the discussion rambles round and round every mulberry bush it can find, a pleasing way...

25.04.11 Publication: The Times

Gold always seems designed to catch the eye, whether on a Middle East potentate’s bath taps, a soon-to-be princess’s tiara or as the price passes $1,500 an...

11.04.11 Publication: The Times

It is barely a month since Japan suffered the worst natural or humanitarian disaster that has befallen any industrialised country since 1945. The death toll...

28.03.11 Publication: The Times

After his trial, Socrates was put to death by being forced to drink poison. His more modern namesake, Jose Socrates, the Portuguese prime minister, has just...

17.03.11 Publication: The Times

Birthdays are not always happy occasions, though you might have thought that simply to have reached the ripe old age of 150 would have brought on a smile. Not...

14.03.11 Publication: The Times

It is no coincidence that the internationally accepted word for a wave caused by an earthquake is the Japanese tsunami, formed from the characters for harbour...

28.02.11 Publication: The Times

The Arab awakening is an unfolding story that is barely two months old and which will most likely continue unfolding for years to come. But it is beginning to...

31.01.11 Publication: The Times

It is a sobering thought, for any European or American prone to proselytising for democracy and human rights, that this month´s events in Tunisia, Egypt...

17.01.11 Publication: The Times

Here is a number that should be memorised by all those who sneered last week at the French prime minister, Francois Fillon, and his request to Britain to...

03.01.11 Publication: The Times

The past few years have been hard for lovers of democracy, and this one also starts awkwardly. Freedom House, the New York-based think-tank that monitors...