How can we claim to be human while our countries still support and defend the massacres in Palestine, asks HUGH LANNING
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Is Britain now The Island of Doctor Musk?
STEPHEN ARNELL sees parallels between the US tech billionaire and HG Wells’s literary creation
Elon Musk listens as President Donald Trump meets with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Oval Office of the White House, February 13, 2025, in Washington
The decision highlights the tension between freedom of expression and the state’s role in shaping historical memory at former concentration camps, reports LEON WYSTRYCHOWSKI
US tariffs have had Von der Leyen bowing in submission, while comments from the former European Central Bank leader call for more European political integration and less individual state sovereignty. All this adds up to more pain and austerity ahead, argues NICK WRIGHT
This year will see a new north-east commemoration – in Sunderland – where all are welcome to join us in tribute to those who died defending democracy in the Spanish civil war, says TONY FOX
ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT delve into the technicalities of famine classification to reveal a worldview in tatters
Westminster has been forced to pay out millions over a fire started by a soldier in 2021, opening a new chapter in accountability, writes NICHOLAS KOMU
“HAD Moreau had any intelligible object; I could have sympathised at least a little with him. I am not so squeamish about pain as that. I could have forgiven him a little even, had his motive been only hate. But he was so irresponsible, so utterly careless! His curiosity, his mad, aimless investigations, drove him on; and the Things were thrown out to live a year or so, to struggle and blunder and suffer, and at last to die painfully.” — HG Wells, The Island of Dr Moreau.
The few scant weeks since the inauguration of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States for the second time have seen an escalation in the attempts of DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) jefe Elon Musk and titular employer Trump to shape the politics of Britain, and it must be said, the world at large.
A giant petri dish, if you will, for the bizarre mind games, financial chicanery and performative antics of the pair. Of course, Musk in particular was weighing in on British politics months before Trump’s election victory on November 5 2024 — an appropriate date for the bonfire of the so-called guard-rails that were supposed to hold the MAGA cult in check.
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STEPHEN ARNELL casts a critical eye over the sudden rash of challenges to the two-party system on both sides of the Atlantic, noting that today’s performative populist politics sadly lacks Roosevelt’s progressive ‘Bull Moose’ vision of the early 20th century
While Spode quit politics after inheriting an earldom, Farage combines MP duties with selling columns, gin, and even video messages — proving reality produces more shameless characters than PG Wodehouse imagined, writes STEPHEN ARNELL
The fallout from the Kneecap and Bob Vylan performances at Glastonbury raises questions about the suitability of senior BBC management for their roles, says STEPHEN ARNELL
With the news of massive pay rises for senior management while content spend dives STEPHEN ARNELL wonders when will someone call out the greed of these ‘public service’ executives
