A stable democracy doesn’t threaten to cut off its neighbour’s energy supplies. That is the sort of behaviour we associate with rogue states. Putin’s Russia, for example, sometimes resorts to ‘gas diplomacy’ to browbeat Ukraine and other nearby states. An energy blockade is calculatedly bellicose — if not exactly an act of war, then certainly … Read more
A health warning! Today the airwaves will be full of people pronouncing with total certainty, and often in outraged tones, on a possible trade deal text they have not yet had the chance to read. The mooted UK-EU trade deal is necessarily long – and that is a good thing. It is long because it … Read more
Even after all this time, they still don’t understand us. The European Union clearly expects Britain, once again, to surrender its fishing grounds and betray its coastal communities for the sake of a wider, post-Brexit free trade agreement with Brussels. Why else would the EU’s lead negotiator, Michel Barnier, display such intransigence as a no-deal … Read more
Even after all this time, they still don’t understand us. The European Union clearly expects Britain, once again, to surrender its fishing grounds and betray its coastal communities for the sake of a wider, post-Brexit free trade agreement with Brussels. Why else would the EU’s lead negotiator, Michel Barnier, display such intransigence as a no-deal … Read more
Yet again, the future of Cecil Rhodes hangs in the balance. Intimidated by a delirious mob, the governing body of Oriel – his and my Oxford college – voted to remove the statuette of the 19th-century diamond magnate from its niche high above the city’s high street. Yesterday, the inevitable backlash began, as a former … Read more