Новости за 26.07.2015

The man who might be Labour’s next leader, Jeremy Corbyn, wants to reverse the privatisation of the railways and renationalise the energy companies. Meanwhile, George Osborne boasts that he is embarking on the biggest privatisation of public assets since the 1980s. The Student Loan Book, the Royal Bank of Scotland, the remainder of the Royal Mail, the Green Investment Bank. Everything must go! Some suspect the Chancellor even has secret plans  to privatise the BBC and the National Health Service. Читать дальше...

Without in any way wanting to seem alarmist, I begin to fear that if the Labour election keeps to its present trajectory, it could descend into internecine chaos.

For all the excitement about Barack Obama’s visit to Kenya, the home of his father, many on the African continent are asking the same question we hear from black America too: has he delivered on all the hopes we had for him when he first won the White House?

The stench of hypocrisy has long hung over the drugs debate. Politicians joke about their own use, then talk tough about the dangers and the need to crack down on criminals. This could be heard again last week when the candidates for the Labour leadership were quizzed by a radio listener over cannabis. “I’ve had a few smokes when I was at college,” replied Liz Kendall. “I did inhale... but that’s never been my favourite form of relaxation.”

In 2010 when the Coalition came to power they announced that this would be the “greenest government ever”.

“Isles of Wonder”, Danny Boyle’s masterpiece, captivated the world three years ago today. The opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics represented everything that was great about the Games: openness, self-confidence and unblemished, almost childlike joy – all fuelled by our own delight that, when the pressure is on, Britain can still produce the very best in the world.

Hitler set a bad example. He was evil. His regime was evil. His Reich was destroyed, the Nazis vanquished, the Fuhrer dying by his own hand in the ashes of the European nightmare. Bad guys lose. Good guys win. Morality, human rights, law, democracy – though with the latter, we should perhaps speak carefully – will always prevail over wickedness. That’s what the Second World War taught us.

On Friday I was on a panel at PricewaterhouseCoopers, the global accounting and legal conglomerate, discussing immigration. Afterwards two smartly dressed young women said they thought I was an impressively powerful woman. Powerful? Me? The very thought was insufferable. I frantically tried to disabuse them of the impression. I was merely a commentator. Foolish, pointless modesty. This is a female thing. Even though we women argue and fight for it, power makes us uneasy.

Accuracy is the most fundamental requirement of good journalism. But since reporting is based on human endeavour, it is impossible to rid journalism entirely of errors. As a consequence, no codes of practice require perfect accuracy per se. Rather, they demand that journalists take due care not to get things wrong. When there is a failure in that regard, a resulting mistake becomes worthy of censure.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD)'s new campaign to end the culture of silence surrounding rape in the British services is encouraging for a number of reasons.

At 11:56 on 25 April I was with a group of young volunteers in Godavari, about 14 kilometres from Nepal's capital, Kathmandu. We were doing a clean-up in the parish of St. John Vianney Pastoral Centre, and the task that everyone wanted to avoid was cleaning the toilets.

Albert Square’s most explosive married couple are set to appear on stage together next year, but in the roles of a different husband and wife.

News arrives from the charity Age UK that we’re drinking too much; this can be filed alongside revelations that the Earth is round and British summers aren’t what they used to be.

The concert premiere of five scenes from Zaid Jabri’s new opera, Cities of Salt, was an event of great potential significance. As the first opera by a Syrian composer, with a Syrian soprano – Talar Dekrmanjian – in the leading role, and based on a story filled with echoes of recent Middle Eastern history, it covered bases nobody had thought of covering before.

Simon Godwin’s lucid and compelling production begins with its own added prologue. The 10-year-old Richard is anointed and crowned with solemn pomp and circumstance on Paul Wills’s spectacularly gilded set, with its cross-shaped fore-stage. The Archbishop of Canterbury declares in the exact words later used by the monarch that “Not all the waters in the rough, rude sea/ Can wash the balm off from an anointed king”. In a swirl of gold confetti, the boy is replaced by the adult Richard, identically dressed in a rich ivory coat... Читать дальше...

Mo Farah was questioned by a United States Anti-Doping Agency investigator on Saturday over the doping allegations surrounding his coach Alberto Salazar.

The abiding staples of British small-talk – the weather and the traffic – rarely come in useful over drinks and nibbles in Los Angeles, where there’s never weather and there’s always traffic. But last weekend the two topics collided like a cattle truck with an 18-wheeler. First, on Friday afternoon, a fast-moving summer wildfire swept across the I-15 freeway in the Cajon Pass, on the mountain route from LA to Las Vegas. Some 20 cars were destroyed as their drivers fled the blaze on foot.

Remember the days when festival camping – replete with dirt, sweat and lukewarm Strongbow – was something you actively sought out? Not showering for days and flinging yourself through the mud and around the mosh pit became a badge of honour, the mark of an "authentic experience".

It was not that Naomi's life had lacked meaning prior to the birth of her twin daughters, Ceridwen and Ariadne. No, as she hastened to assure her friends, the marketing departments of West End costume-jewellery firms don't run themselves; and neither does the social committee of the Kensington & Chelsea Conservative Association.