3 h. ago Is Britain really the new North Korea? Let us consider the evidence | Martin Kettle

Yes, there were some serious problems for Labour this week, but overblown claims in the press undermine what remains of our political debateSign up for our new weekly newsletter Matters of Opinion, where our columnists and writers will reflect on what they’ve been debating, thinking about, reading and moreTell me, fellow Brits, how are you getting used to our island version of North Korea? How are you coping with life, now that we are a global pariah alongside Pyongyang? How do you feel about modern Britain having to vie with North Korea, Myanmar and Afghanistan for the wooden spoon on every international index of oppression?For that is the country Wednesday’s Daily Mail front page insists we have now become. It is tempting to laugh off a headline that asks “When did Britain become North Korea?” as just another here-today-gone-tomorrow piece of journalistic hyperbole. That’s even more the case when you read the cobbled-up pandemonium of provocations that form the contents of the hea...

Politics

16 h. ago Nigel Farage compares Britain to North Korea in 'free speech' warning to US politicians in Washington

The Reform UK leader told US lawmakers the Online Safety Act is a danger to trade between the two countries

Events

44 h. ago Kemi Badenoch says Britain MUST get more oil and gas out of the North Sea amid fears 80% of fossil fuels will need to be imported by 2030

Kemi Badenoch vowed to bring 'common sense' to the Net Zero drive as she addressed an industry conference in Aberdeen.

Politics

50 h. ago Art and politics are not the same thing – but the Anna Netrebko case shows what happens when they collide | Martin Kettle

The arts and politics are bound to mix, but they are not the same thing. In the cold war, Soviet artists performed in the west. Should the Russian soprano, who has condemned the Ukraine invasion, be blocked from singing in London?It is one of my very earliest concert memories. In October 1965, my father drove us to Manchester to hear Mstislav Rostropovich play in the Free Trade Hall. Rostropovich played Dvořák’s cello concerto with the Moscow Philharmonic, who began the concert with a symphony by Tikhon Khrennikov and ended it with one by Brahms. I was smitten by Rostropovich’s noble playing. I had never heard a musician like him before.This was, though, a concert taking place slap-bang in the middle of the cold war. The Cuban missile crisis had taken place less than three years earlier. The Berlin Wall was still fairly new. The Vietnam war was deepening. That summer I had read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. The movie version of Le Carré’s novel, with Richard Burton, was due out...

Politics

4 d. ago Badenoch pledges to maximise North Sea oil and gas extraction

Kemi Badenoch said Britain ‘cannot afford not to be doing everything to get hydrocarbons out the ground’ to boost growth

Politics

7 d. ago As Putin’s bombs fall on Ukraine, the Royal Opera House had a call to make about Anna Netrebko. It made the wrong one | Martin Kettle

The Russian soprano says she has condemned the war and has no affinity with this Kremlin. But hosting her still seems unwisePuccini’s Tosca is high on the list of operas I don’t much care if I never see again. So the fact that the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, unquestionably one of our era’s exceptional opera singers, is due to sing Tosca in a new production at Covent Garden next month does not present me with a dilemma. I won’t be there anyway.It might be more difficult, I admit, if Netrebko was singing Verdi, where she is so outstanding. But this column is not about my taste in opera. It is about something of wider moral importance. Netrebko’s London performances pose complex questions but require straightforward answers. First, is it right for a prestigious British institution, the Royal Opera House, to be hiring Netrebko while the Ukraine war continues? The answer could in theory be yes, were she to repeat her opposition to the war, but on the current evidence it is no. Continu...

Politics

3 w. ago Nicola Sturgeon’s immense political talent is undeniable. The nationalism was the problem | Martin Kettle

Many of her admirers gloss over her desire to break up the UK as Scotland’s first minister. But in her open and touching memoir, it plays a starring roleNicola Sturgeon was – and still is – important, talented, personable and, to many, inspirational. She was also extremely lucky and often wrong, sometimes seriously so. There are examples of all these qualities in her newly published memoir, Frankly. Sturgeosceptics should concede at once that it contains much that is fascinating, especially about her relations with her charismatic mentor turned vengeful enemy Alex Salmond. Starry-eyed Sturgies should equally admit she made several deep and lasting errors that have left behind a divided nationalist party and movement.The book is more open and touching about private issues than most political memoirs, although Sturgeon deploys these qualities selectively. Many of the intimate reflections are about being a woman in politics. Other memoirs by female politicians – including those of Marg...

Politics

3 w. ago BP reopens mammoth North Sea field after Donald Trump warned Britain was wasting 'a treasure chest' of oil and gas

The British energy company is reopening the Murlach field, 120 miles off the coast of Aberdeen, after it was declared uneconomic and taken out of use in 2004.

Events

3 w. ago Rents on newly let homes ‘pause for breath after five years of relentless rises’

Rents on new lets have dipped for the first time since 2020, as falling mortgage rates ease pressures, Hamptons said.

Society

4 w. ago The biggest problem for Starmer and co: the machinery of government is broken and they can’t fix it | Martin Kettle

The prisons crisis is symptomatic of a dysfunctional system that is defeating these ministers as badly as those before themIn one of my favourite Seinfeld episodes, George Costanza is sitting in a New York diner and – this shows how long ago it was – reading his morning paper. Suddenly he folds the paper up, sets it down on the table and looks across to his companion with weary exasperation. Why, he asks, does the high-minded New York Times refuse to accept that China is a turn-off?Just like George, many readers will at some stage probably have experienced a similar feeling. Perhaps it was about China, but perhaps about something completely different. Call it the “not right now” syndrome. It is the syndrome that recognises that a subject might be important, but reading a lengthy report about it can be another thing altogether.Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Politics

4 w. ago Met Office warns of major weekend weather split as 'warm sunshine' returns to parts of UK

Britain is set for a weather divide between the north and south this weekend

Events

4 w. ago Best places in Britain to buy a cottage: from London commuter towns to remote Scottish villages

Zoopla said its data ‘shows a clear and sustained appetite for the cottagecore lifestyle’.

Politics

4 w. ago North Lanarkshire named the best place to buy a cottage in Britain

Another Scottish council area was among the most expensive places to buy

Politics