Новости за 04.07.2015

Camila Batmanghelidjh doesn’t come over like your typical Whitehall apparatchik. She has a rather different dress sense and is also much more likely, post Cameron’s ill-received 2006 speech, to dish out hugs to “hoodies”. And yet, for nearly 20 years, Batmanghelidjh has been doing the Government’s job for it.

Harriet Harman opened her questions to David Cameron at PMQs on Wednesday with a tribute to England’s women, who at that point had not yet broken our hearts by losing to Japan in the World Cup semi-final. “With only a fraction of the resources that the men get, they are showing the men how it is done,” the acting Labour leader said.

A sense of unreality and  lack of seriousness flavours the British Government’s approach to bombing Isis in Syria in retaliation for the murder of British citizens in Tunisia. Give due allowance for the British tradition of procrastination and there is still something strangely languid about our lead-up to the moment when we try to kill members of the most dangerous organisation in the world.

George Osborne’s emergency Budget raises a simple question: what’s the emergency? My guess is that it has little to do with the hardships facing ordinary people, or Britain’s productivity problem, and everything to do with the craving for political positioning that is the hallmark of the Chancellor.

Not long back, and somewhat to my surprise, I found myself sitting on a platform at Wellington College in Berkshire taking part in the Sunday Times Festival of Education. The subject was the future of that tantalising abstract, and my fellow-panellists turned out to be Danny Finkelstein – Baron Finkelstein as he is now – Jenni Russell from The Times and, sitting next to me on one of the sofas from which these exchanges were conducted, the director-general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), John Cridland. Читать дальше...

It is going to be one of those weeks. On any rational tally a referendum in a country of 11 million people should not be dominating the political headlines – and certainly not the economic ones – to the extent that it has. Greece is 0.3 per cent of the world economy. But the plight of its people is symptomatic of deeper flaws in the European model and that is why their decision will have such resonance.

George Osborne has been a lucky Chancellor. This is a problem because he likes to think of himself as the greatest political mind of his generation, which means that the danger of this week’s Budget is hubris. A post-election Budget is when a new government, especially one with an unexpected mandate, can take tough, unpopular decisions. But it is also when it is most likely to make a mistake.

And now for Greece’s moment of truth. Or not, as the case may be. The effectively bankrupt country, its economy paralysed and its banks set to run out of cash on Monday, goes to the vote in a referendum that may determine its continuing membership of the euro, as well as the fate of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his Syriza government. But no one knows what will happen. Only one thing is sure. More hardship beckons.

When a slight woman with cropped dark hair walked on to a stage in a London hotel on Thursday evening, she was greeted with an immediate standing ovation. Four months ago, Rafida Bonya Ahmed and her husband, Avijit Roy, were attacked with machetes by Islamic extremists in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka. Roy died and Ahmed was seriously injured, receiving deep wounds to her head.

What's the biggest turnoff for those going in for a kiss on a first date?

The Royal Opera House has bowed to growing pressure and toned down a gang-rape scene so that the principal actress will no longer appear naked in its production of Guillaume Tell.

An editorial last Saturday delivered a humdinger of a hanging participle: “It comes as something of a shock that the Lib Dems appear on the brink of increasing their representation in the Lords … The party already has 102 peers ... Having secured less than 8 per cent of the popular vote in May it is no surprise that the Tories in particular are crying foul at any further expansion.”

Protect your skin to keep ageing at bay and avoid awkward sunglasses marks with a facial sunblock

In an alternative world, New Hong Kong would now be Northern Ireland’s largest city. As for the old Hong Kong, it would presumably be known simply as Shenzhen South.

The great Greek debt drama has been running for so long, with so many cliffhangers and deus ex machina reprieves, that it is difficult to believe that the next few days really will mark a denouement. Technically, the Greeks have already defaulted on their debts, and, less technically, still want to have it all: membership of the euro, while not honouring their debts or reforming their badly uncompetitive economy. And their banks are running out of cash.

There was a tremble in Holly Bradshaw’s hands she had never experienced before last weekend, not at the Olympic final nor at the myriad of Diamond League competitions. This was the under-the-radar Welsh Championships, but the pole-vaulter was preparing for her first competition in 16 months.

That the phrase “the end of an era” should be among the most overused in all the language is precisely because it has never in reality actually happened. There is no fixed mark at which any era comes to an end, any more than there is when one begins.

It's difficult to pinpoint the standout moment from last weekend when the new(ish) boyfriend came "up home" with me to Yorkshire to meet The Family. Was it learning that he'd accidentally stumbled upon Mum in the bathroom helping Dad to have a "good wash" because he has one arm in plaster? Or when my photo-mad Aunty Maria insisted he join all the group photos at the 40-strong family do, even though we're only four months in (he did it without so much as a flinch, FYI). Or maybe it was when my other aunty... Читать дальше...

Whenever someone announces they detest small talk, invariably I think, "Oh bloody grow up", but of course I don't say that because small talk is indeed a delicate pirouette of semi-untruths and amicable nods. I might say, "Gosh, do you mean all small talk? Why is that do you think?"– while holding my head at a coy, yet fascinated angle. Because the art of making small talk – which I see dying a grim death in the age of Twitter and Instagram – revolves a lot around posing questions that one doesn't care if they are answered properly or not. Читать дальше...