The crew of the Freedom Flotilla boat, Handala, warned Israel to obey international law but are now in captivity, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

“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.

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

As Trump targets universities while Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem redefines habeas corpus as presidential deportation power, STEPHEN ARNELL traces how John Scopes’s optimism about academic freedom’s triumph now seems tragically premature