As reunifications go, it’s not exactly on the scale of the Germanys. Then again, if stereotypes are to be believed, a campaign to reunite Yorkshire’s various sub-divisions under a single devolved authority may be even more important than the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Much as Britain enjoys a reputation for insularity, this country still depends for a third of its national income on exporting. Our pension funds and companies are widely invested overseas, and our larger companies, financial services and property markets are intimately linked to the rest of the world. So it should be no surprise that the recent turmoil in global stock markets, though originating in China, should have had such a rapid and dramatic effect on confidence in this country, too.
As I boarded the Dubai Metro at the Business Bay station on my first day of work, I was struck by the large number of women in the compartment. A couple of them smiled at me; one started giggling. What a friendly place I thought.
The first failed drugs tests at the World Championships emerged on Wednesday when Kenyans Joyce Zakary and Koki Manunga both tested positive for an unspecified banned substance.
Greg Rutherford believes he is still a “ginger kid looking for acceptance” despite holding every global title available in the wake of his long jump gold in Beijing.
Traditionally a restless time of the year, this August has seen a new offensive in that great conflict of the moment: the gender war. Under attack, admittedly not for the first time, are male writers.
As an investigative journalist you get used to awkward encounters. Even so, the phone call I made 18 years ago counted among the most difficult.
Have you noticed how bad the weather's been since the BBC gave the Met Office the boot? Serves you all right, I can hear the meteorological boffins saying at their London headquarters. We have been your faithful servants for almost a century, bringing you the most accurate forecasts in the world (that's official, by the way), together with some moments of pure TV gold, and this is how you reward us! We can't exactly summon up pestilence and plagues of frogs, but how about rain without end, strong... Читать дальше...
A cloud hangs over the future of Britain’s young people. Are we in or out of Europe?
Keep your outside space thriving into autumn with the right kit
British sprinter Margaret Adeoye had a bit of a surprise when she turned the corner onto the home straight in her 200m heat at the World Championships in Beijing.
My Twitter feed today has been largely concerned with one subject: apparently Jeremy Corbyn is going to shut women away in separate train carriages because men are animals incapable of controlling themselves when faced with a female reading her book and eating a bag of crisps.
Mo Farah recovered from a last-lap trip to keep his tilt at another long-distance double alive on a day which saw Dina Asher-Smith and Zharnel Hughes underline their World Championship medal potential.
Usain Bolt and Justin Gatlin looked in fine form as they ran the fastest times of the 200 metres semi-finals on Wednesday to set up a mouthwatering second sprint showdown at the world championships.
The reason I moved to London was to give myself mental space after coming out to my Asian family. My parents were devastated as they had planned an arranged marriage for me, their only son, and the cultural significance of my wedding was huge. Even though they came from a place of love, these expectations were causing me immeasurable stress and upset. I had no choice but to leave the family home for the sake of my mental health.
During the course of the Labour leadership contest there has been much soul-searching within the party about what counts as a credible economic plan, leading to renewed debate about balancing the books, reducing the deficit and the national debt.
The BBC decision to drop the Met Office for its weather forecasts is short sighted and self-defeating and should be reversed. Competitive tendering is a suitable procedure in some areas, but not for a weather service that is widely acknowledged to be the best in the world, and indeed has become an international model that many others have followed.
Darren Walsh has been accused of stealing the Edinburgh Fringe one-liner that won him 'funniest joke' from another comedian.
What is your personal utopia? Peace on earth, eternal happiness, a global sense of society? Perhaps it’s universal healthcare, affordable housing, more green spaces…or living without fear and judgment. How about an altogether simpler vision of the future: to not get groped on trains?
Forget all those Sherlock fans, Benedict Cumberbatch's mum proved herself the biggest Cumberb**ch of them all at the official Hamlet press night.
I commented the other day on Denis MacShane’s Brexit, his book predicting that Britain will eventually leave the EU, which is about to be re-issued.
Tucking into chocolate cake, at least to excess, is not the way to avoid Type 2 diabetes, a disease which, Public Health England warns us, will strike one in 10 of the British population in due course. That much even the most wilfully ignorant trencherman might understand.
If Jeremy Corbyn scores a clear victory in the Labour leadership contest, a reasonable assumption at this stage, then some – but not all – of the questions about “entryism” in the leadership election will quietly melt away. The lawyers can be stood down. What will persist, however, is the re-emergence of a hard-left element in the Labour Party that has been absent for decades, and a feeling that it is ascendant again. That is the real disaster awaiting Labour, rather than a few Tories on a jape.
With his great gift for portraying the brilliant misfit and racing, ironic intellect, Benedict Cumberbatch is natural casting for Hamlet. But I wonder if a bit of him now wishes that he'd tackled the part at some point before the global success of Sherlock rocketed him into the celebrity stratosphere.
