The Book of Common Prayer asks that those who ‘suffer for the sake of conscience’ might be strengthened. Those prayers were answered on Tuesday morning. Sir Olly Robbins, the not so permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office, demonstrated a calmness and strength of purpose in upholding the duties of his office which shamed the prime
Home Sir Keir Starmer tried to explain himself to parliament after Sir Olly Robbins was sacked as permanent under-secretary of state at the Foreign Office, its chief civil servant. Sir Keir complained that as Prime Minister he had not been told that Lord Mandelson had failed to satisfy UK Security Vetting when he took up
A school in Greater Manchester has stripped 193 books from its library because they are ‘inappropriate’, liable to upset pupils and thus a safeguarding risk. Among the dangerously destabilising material: Michelle Obama’s memoir and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Who was entrusted with identifying these literary IEDs? An over-zealous head? A prurient librarian? A demented child
Even the most Magaddicted Maga supporter might have had doubts about Donald Trump depicted as Jesus healing a sick man with his touch, however thrillingly realistic. The trend in Greco-Roman culture for linking mortals with gods was started by Alexander the Great in Persia. In 334 BC, Alexander took his terrifying Macedonian army into Anatolia
Balls to that Why are elections called ‘ballots’? — The word ballot comes from the Italian, pallotta, meaning a small ball. In Venice in the 16th century voters deposited a pallotta in a pot. The same system was used in an election in Barnstaple, Devon, in 1689, where voters were given a ball and asked
Flat broke Sir: John Power’s article on the property squeeze (‘Flatlined’, 18 April) identifies a symptom of a deeper problem, the overregulation of property. Buyers are deterred by spiralling service charges, which are themselves driven by layers of legislation, insurance premium hikes and rocketing labour costs. Those still willing to take the plunge are then
