Sally Rooney, Billie Eilish and George Eliot: Can we ever divorce the art from the artist? October 13, 2021 PUBLISHING a book is the ultimate act of surrender for a profession as dedicated to control as writers. Once a book is in a reader’s hands, you have relinquished your ability to shape what they think of it, how they connect with the characters, or how lost they become in a story. So too with [...]
Liz Truss must stand up to China against the genocide of the Uyghur muslims October 13, 2021 At Conservative Party Conference, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss called the UK a “lodestar of freedom and democracy” and called for Great Britain to work with allies to promote freedom around the world. “The democratic world order faces a stark choice,” she said. “Either we retreat and retrench in the face of malign actors … or [...]
Bail outs for businesses in strife only gloss over the truth, it’s time to face reality October 13, 2021 The price of both oil and gas has doubled across the world in the last year. The price of crude oil is at $84 a barrel for the first time in three years. As a result, fuel of every kind, for every purpose has become more expensive. The public has reacted in the most extraordinary [...]
Opinion-in-brief: Chancellor of the Blockchain Philip Hammond dabbles in crypto October 12, 2021 Former Chancellor Philip Hammond is following in the footsteps of many a fresh-faced tech graduate and joining a crypto start-up. It turns out a slap over the wrist from Westminster’s lobbying watchdog for hounding the Treasury on behalf of OakNorth bank was enough to leave Lord Hammond disillusioned with traditional finance. Instead, he will be [...]
It’s time to break the social housing stalemate and build affordable homes October 12, 2021 When you’re losing in a game of chess, you try to end it with a stalemate: no one wins and no one loses. The game ends in a draw. The social housing system in the UK finds itself exactly in this position. The difference is that someone is losing: the scores of families stuck on [...]
Octopus CEO: We need strong competition to insulate us from future energy crises October 12, 2021 The UK energy industry is in turmoil. The sector is currently going through its most difficult time in decades, with a handful already going bust in the last few weeks. The lights will not go off this winter: we have well-oiled processes, put in place by the government and the energy regulator, to ensure customers [...]
Moratoriums on facial recognition will do little to stem the tide of surveillance October 12, 2021 In August this year, Sophie Linden, London’s Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, approved a £3m contract for the development of retrospective facial recognition. This investment will bolster the Metropolitan Police Department’s surveillance capabilities and enable authorities to “exploit investigative opportunities.” But legal experts view this technology as a form of exploitation which erodes freedoms, [...]
Opinion-in-brief: Love the ocean? Put your money where your mouth is October 11, 2021 We may all love to be beside the seaside, as the old song claims, but we rarely recognise the oceans’ importance to our survival. They produce over half the planet’s oxygen and act as a huge carbon sink. Yet for decades, we have been continuously polluting them. We need to develop a sustainable blue economy [...]
The key to rapidly vaccinating Africa from malaria and Covid is in our hands October 11, 2021 For over a thousand years, malaria has made victims out of everyone from neolithic dwellers, early settlers in ancient China and Greece and now the poorest people in sub-Saharan Africa. In the 20th Century, it took between 150m and 300m lives. Last week, the first malaria vaccine was approved, hot on the heels of the [...]
Editorial: If the PM returns with a plan, it’s a worthwhile holiday October 11, 2021 Climbing the greasy pole of politics is fraught with risk; chief among them, the opportunity for the world to go hell in a handcart whilst you’re on holiday. See Raab, Dominic, for one recent example; a mistimed holiday to Crete and the now former Foreign Secretary ends up on the wrong side of a Cabinet [...]