It looks like Kwasi Kwarteng will be the shortest-lived chancellor in history. Liz Truss’s admission this morning that she had not discussed her top-rate tax cut with her cabinet is merely alarming. That the cut was ‘a decision the chancellor made’, as if she, the prime minister, had no part in it, can only mean one thing: the unfunded cut … [Read on]

Getting out and about does you a power of good – and these days there is that exciting extra frisson of uncertainty; about everything. I was going to see Richard III at the RSC in Stratford, a place which   could easily have become an international cultural hub, but didn’t, as it lacks good transport connections. It’s not even possible to … [Read on]

There are three candidates for blowing up the Baltic gas pipes, yet both the BBC and ITV have singled out Russia as the culprit. It is hardly a considered view and demonstrates the incompetence of both channels when it comes to independent reporting. There is an equal case against three suspects: Russia, the US (along with Britain) and Ukraine (with … [Read on]

To listen to the media, the EU is shocked and dismayed by the success of the right-wing Brothers of Italy party in the Italian general election, which has reportedly put Brussels in crisis mode. Much is made of the Brothers, the largest party at 26% of the total vote, forming ‘the most far-right government in Italy since World War II’ … [Read on]

We have entered an age where subjectivity trumps objective facts, where decibels outweigh debate and where rhetoric (here defined as ‘language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect, but which is often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content’) will always be superior to reason. This is the age of identity politics, ‘lived’ experience, ‘my truth’ and a … [Read on]

The Telegraph is in buoyant mood. Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini budget represents ‘a rediscovery, in modernised form, of the ideas and ideals that rejuvenated Britain, America and others in the 1980s’. At last, we have ‘the kind of radical Conservative programme that has been promised so many times but never delivered’. Telegraph commentators have never seen anything like it. Allister Heath … [Read on]

Current elections in Europe are revealing a move to the right in politics. In Sweden, the Sweden Democrats (dodgy extremist origins, now mainstream centre-right nationalists, anti-liberal immigration and somewhat EU-sceptical) are poised at the time of writing to become the largest partner in a new-right-wing bloc government, ousting the left-wing, progressive administration by the slimmest of margins. In Italy, the … [Read on]