Новости за 24.08.2015

The latest attack on Jeremy Corbyn’s candidacy comes from Chris Leslie, Labour’s shadow Chancellor, who has appealed to party members “to look at the small print and make sure they are making an informed choice before voting for Mr Corbyn”. In other words, Leslie claims that Corbyn’s numbers don’t add up.

Dear Jeremy,

A notable anniversary falls this week, one which may be of interest to the BBC executives who have just decided to dispense with the UK Met Office as the provider of their weather forecasts. It is the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the mammoth storm of August 2005 which wrecked the city of New Orleans, drowned more than 1,800 people and was the costliest natural disaster ever to befall the United States.

It’s tempting to chuckle at One Direction’s inconsolable fans throwing themselves on the pop pyre over news of the band’s forthcoming “hiatus”. Not an official split, I hasten to add. More a 12-month break with no plans to tour their next album, which to my ageing ears sounds like, “We are sick of the sight of each other. In fact, if we have to meet one more time at 5.45am in a Kuala Lumpur hotel lobby to do a breakfast-telly promo performance, someone might get  strangled.” Not a divorce, more of a “conscious ungrouping”. Читать дальше...

"I once thought that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose – not one has been able to do it, and why should I expect to?"

The greatest surprise in David Cameron’s post-election reshuffle was the reappointment of Iain Duncan Smith as Work and Pensions Secretary. I do not mean to be personal about Duncan Smith. I have a higher opinion of him than most people do. As one of the leaders of the Conservative eurosceptic rebels when John Major was Prime Minister, he was sharp, well-informed and helpful to journalists. He turned out not to be up to the task of party leader – few people are, as the Labour Party is now discovering. Читать дальше...

Stay stylish in the office with these on-trend autumn pieces

Rolanda Bell's tumble into a water jump is definitely not the way to tackle the steeplechase, but if she were in a diving contest, the Panamanian runner would have scored top marks.

Boyishly handsome, mildly laddy, and serving up material about the trials of relationships and modern technology? Within the context of the current stand-up scene, John Robins is, on paper, unremarkable. And yet the 33-year-old proves it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.

Keep Calm and Carry On: apparently no other city across the UK embodies this phrase better than London. A city that doesn’t sweat the small stuff; it just gets on with things – stiff upper lip and all that. So why, just why, when tube drivers (rightly) go on strike, does the place crumble and all the whiney cry-babies come sneaking out the woodwork, horrified that they’ve had to walk to work for 24 hours? Headlines capturing commuters’ ‘ordeals’, trending topics on Twitter, live blogs (yes, really)... Читать дальше...

If you've just run 10,000 metres, it's understandable you'd want to take your foot off the gas.

Britain’s girls are at crisis point. In terms of their mental wellbeing and self-esteem, this is no exaggeration – and their parents are ill-equipped to realise the signs. Research released today by Girlguiding UK has found that girls as young as seven are experiencing mental health problems, and these issues only grow more common throughout secondary school and into early adulthood.

Iain Duncan Smith has said in a speech today that he is planning to reform rules on sickness benefits in order to push more people into work. The Department for Work and Pensions minister has not revealed precisely what policies he hopes to achieve this by but instead has said that for now he hopes to start a “conversation” about welfare reform and disability.

I have written about The Corbyn Calamity for Politico, in which I compare the sainted Jeremy to Chauncey Gardiner, the gardener who becomes US president, played by Peter Sellers in Being There (above).

The death of at least 11 people at the Shoreham air show raises urgently the question of safety at such events. They are increasingly popular and, as with the fatal accident at the CarFest event a few weeks ago, aerobatic displays and the appearance of storied planes from times past are now something to be expected at all types of events. Indeed, no major royal or national celebration in central London seems complete these days without a fly-past by the Spitfire-Hurricane-Lancaster trio.

“My enemy’s enemy is my friend” is an extremely old diplomatic saw. Yesterday’s simultaneous symbolically powerful reopening of embassies in London and Tehran shows it is no less apposite nowadays. For it is unlikely indeed that such a thaw in relations would have been achieved so rapidly had the British and Iranians realised that they both have something of an existential enemy in common – Isis.

In the second of their three Sibelius Proms, Ilan Volkov and the BBC Scottish Symphony began with Janne, a piece in homage to the Finnish composer by the British composer Michael Finnissy. Finnissy himself describes it as “an imaginary portrait of Sibelius or, more exactly, a portrait of his music and its sources”, and the bassoon melody backed by violas with which it opened was indeed evocative both of the composer and his sound-world.

Ferrying goods along the Rhine in medieval times was an expensive business. Feudal lords who controlled land along the banks of the river (which was also the main European commercial thoroughfare in the period) had a habit of hanging iron chains across the width of the waterway and extorting a fee from anyone who wanted passage. The nobles grew very rich from their tolling activities, building fancy castles overlooking the Rhine with their ill-gotten proceeds.

There are some who still believe that Clint Eastwood is able to communicate with an orangutan. I used to, although in my defence I was only six when I saw the seminal redneck classic Every Which Way But Loose, featuring Eastwood and his simian friend named Clyde. At that age, one’s suspension of disbelief is a lot more loosely adjusted.

That’s sporting mum of the year sorted. Some would have Jessica Ennis-Hill’s heptathlon gold the greatest performance by a British female athlete in history.