4 h. ago The Guardian view on abortion prosecutions: decriminalisation can’t wait | Editorial

The trial of Nicola Packer shows why MPs should seize the opportunity to change the law and safeguard vulnerable women nowThe Crown Prosecution Service has yet to explain why it thought that pursuing a case against Nicola Packer was in the public interest. Thankfully, jurors last week cleared the 45-year-old of illegally terminating her pregnancy. But more than four years of police and criminal proceedings have had a lasting impact on a woman already traumatised by discovering that she was 26 weeks pregnant, not about 10, when she acted. The trial dragged her private life – even her sexual preferences – into the public eye. Understandably, she called it “humiliating”. But it is prosecutors who should feel shame.Ms Packer was prescribed abortion pills in a remote consultation, due to a Covid lockdown. Prosecutors alleged that she deliberately breached the abortion time limit. Jurors believed Ms Packer, who said that she was horrified to realise how advanced her pregnancy was whe...

Events

4 h. ago The Guardian view on Trump’s conflicts of interest: the shadow of kleptocracy | Editorial

The dissolution of boundaries between the president’s official and commercial business is a leading symptom of democracy in crisisDonald Trump’s tour of Gulf nations this week is notionally state business. The president has discussed trade, investment and defence. But the boundary between statecraft and self-aggrandisement is blurred. To honour the US president, the government of Qatar has  offered him a Boeing 747 aircraft. This “flying palace”, worth around $400m, would serve as a substitute for Air Force One as Mr Trump’s personal jumbo.The US constitution explicitly forbids anyone holding a government office from accepting any “present, emolument, office or title” from foreign powers without congressional consent. White House lawyers, obedient to their master, say the Qatari jet doesn’t cross that line. Continue reading...

Politics

29 h. ago The Guardian view on Trump’s leftward lurch: the ‘lunatics’ are running the right | Editorial

The White House says it is borrowing from Bernie Sanders and adopts rhetoric once dismissed as dangerous to lift its flagging poll ratingsIt’s striking to see Donald Trump, who built his re-election campaign around attacking the “radical left”, now borrowing some of its economic policies. In just months, he has shifted from denouncing “communist” price controls to saying he would implement them, and from defending tax breaks for the wealthy to proposing tax increases on those earning more than $2.5m a year if it benefits poorer Americans. These moves echo longstanding proposals from progressives like Bernie Sanders – despite Mr Trump’s past efforts to portray such ideas as “lunatic”. The irony is hard to miss.Consider recent policy announcements that mirror a liberal-left agenda. Capping credit card interest rates was a Sanders campaign promise before it was a Trump one. And it may happen – courtesy of an unlikely alliance between Mr Sanders and the Republican senator Josh Hawl...

Politics

3 d. ago The Guardian view on Israel and Gaza: Trump can stop this horror. The alternative is unthinkable | Editorial

The US president has the leverage to force through a ceasefire. If he does not, he will implicitly signal approval of what looks like a plan of total destructionDonald Trump would like a big foreign policy win as he embarks on his tour of the Middle East this week. He could secure one – and save lives – by demanding that Israel agree to a lasting ceasefire in exchange for the release of all hostages held in Gaza. He might prefer to avoid the issue, but no other leader has the leverage to force its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to end this war. If Mr Trump instead backs Israel’s current proposals, he will put the US imprimatur on what looks like a plan of total destruction.Israel’s attacks have already killed more than 52,000 people in Gaza, according to local health authorities – the vast majority of them civilians, many of them children. Bakeries, hospitals and schools have been obliterated. Aid has been blocked for two months. Gaza faces famine. Last week, Isr...

Politics

3 d. ago The Guardian view on a Himalayan truce: it follows a familiar pattern of conflicts past | Editorial

After drone strikes, nuclear jitters and a ceasefire, the latest fighting between India and Pakistan reveals how peace dies by routine “The arms race between India and Pakistan poses perhaps the most probable prospect for future use of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons,” James Woolsey, the CIA director, told Congress in 1993. That assessment is relevant now, after days of escalating conflict that included missile and drone strikes on military bases. It is a uniquely modern arms race: high on nationalist fervour and habitual mistrust, choreographed so that each clash is always just one provocation away from becoming the last.On Saturday, Donald Trump announced a “full and immediate” ceasefire between India and Pakistan. The truce, brokered by US officials, came amid speculation by military analysts that Pakistan was edging closer to using nuclear weapons. It was met with cautious optimism – not least as both sides accused each other of violating the agreement wit...

Events

5 d. ago The Guardian view on Pope Leo XIV: a different kind of American leader | Editorial

The first pontiff from the United States can be a powerful countervailing voice in the Trump era, and help protect Francis’s legacyTwelve years ago, in the words of the late Pope Francis, the Catholic church went “to the ends of the Earth” in its search for a new pontiff. On Thursday, after surprisingly brisk discussions, the most geographically diverse conclave in history went to the heart of a superpower to find his successor.The election of the first American pope is a remarkable moment. In part the cardinals’ choice of the Chicago-born Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, can be seen as a robust progressive response to the signs of the times. While senior Catholic figures around Donald Trump prosecute an insular Maga agenda, the new pope is as at home in Latin America, having spent two decades working in one of the poorest regions of Peru. Previous posts on a social media account under his name suggest he shared Francis’s withering views on the Trump administration’s...

Politics

5 d. ago The Guardian view on the impact of Trump’s film tariffs: a disaster movie waiting to happen | Editorial

The US president’s proposed levies will badly hit the UK industry just as it is recovering from a series of blowsBarbieland, the Emerald City and a galaxy far, far away were all built – at least in part – at film studios just outside London. Now the UK film industry has come crashing down to earth with Donald Trump’s threat to impose 100% tariffs on all movies “produced in foreign lands”. “Hollywood is being destroyed,” Mr Trump announced, like an action hero on a mission. “Other nations have stolen our movie industry.” In the UK the news was met with warnings that the British film sector would be “wiped out” by such a “knock-out blow”. Brian Cox, the Succession star, called the proposed tariffs “an absolute disaster”. Roll the opening credits.Mr Trump has a point. New instalments of Marvel’s Avengers and Spider-Man are filming around London this summer. No wonder the president wants “MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!” The UK’s generous tax incentives, skills base and state-of-the-art ...

Politics

7 d. ago The Guardian view on India and Pakistan: a newly dangerous moment in an old dispute | Editorial

Both sides believe they are treading carefully, but without intercession the military clash following the murder of Hindu tourists in Kashmir could escalateThe familiarity of military confrontation between India and Pakistan is no cause for reassurance: this is the worst violence in years. Though neither wants full-blown conflict, the dispute over Kashmir has produced three wars and multiple crises over eight decades. When two nuclear-armed neighbours clash, we should worry.One reason is that errors and misjudgments are always possible. Following its overnight strikes on Pakistan, which it accuses of involvement in the massacre of Hindu tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir last month, India said that it hit only terrorist infrastructure and that its actions were “not escalatory”. This is not a judgment that can be made unilaterally. Pakistan said India was “igniting an inferno” and that its military is authorised to take corresponding actions. Continue reading...

Politics

7 d. ago The Guardian view on bias in medical research: disregard for women’s health belongs in the past | Editorial

It is shocking that while illnesses specific to men are studied, those affecting women are ignoredSix years after Caroline Criado Perez’s bestselling book Invisible Women drew a mass readership’s attention to the long history of sexist bias in medical research, it is shocking that women and their illnesses are still underrepresented in clinical trials. Analysis by the Guardian of data gathered for a new study showed that from 2019 to 2023, 282 trials involving only male subjects were submitted for regulatory approval in the UK – compared with 169 focused on women.Health inequality is a complex and multifaceted problem. There are massive socioeconomic differences in life expectancy and infant mortality, as well as race inequalities – for example, in maternity and mental illnesses. These and other disparities, along with those relating to disability, can also be mapped geographically. Continue reading...

Science

8 d. ago The Guardian view on Germany’s political uncertainty: Merz must recover from this rocky start | Editorial

The initial failure of coalition members to back the new chancellor in sufficient numbers was a bad beginning at a treacherous moment for the nationThe election of Friedrich Merz as chancellor by German legislators on Tuesday morning was meant to end months of political instability, since the collapse of Olaf Scholz’s government half a year ago – itself the result of bitter infighting at the top. Many fear that this could be the last chance to keep out the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). But the humiliating result of the first ballot – in which Mr Merz became the first chancellor designate to fail to secure the majority needed in the Bundestag since the second world war – was a bad beginning.It was supposed to be a straightforward confirmation; instead, he was hobbled by rebels from his own coalition. Only 310 of its 328 legislators backed him, short of the 316 required. He was approved by 325 in a hastily scheduled second&nb...

Politics

8 d. ago The Guardian view on Labour’s drift and Tory collapse: Reform fills a vacuum they created | Editorial

Faragism’s rise isn’t a surge of enthusiasm – it’s a symptom of exhaustion with two parties failing to offer vision, justice or renewalSir Keir Starmer promised change – and, in a way, he has delivered it. Gone are the days of bold, expansive pledges; in their place are cautious, measurable goals: 6,500 new teachers, 40,000 extra NHS appointments a week. Yet voters, oddly ungrateful, remain unmoved. Perhaps it is because these modest gains barely scratch the surface of national decline. The government has touched lives, just not in the ways it promised. Cuts to winter fuel payments for pensioners and proposed reductions in disability benefits have landed with jarring force. Sir Keir’s managerial style may promise stability, but voters expected transformation. The result: disillusionment with a government delivering change – but not the change voters thought they had chosen.Labour’s poor local election showing could be shrugged off as low turnout in the shires. The party wo...

Politics

9 d. ago The Guardian view on Trump’s shock therapy: warehouse and transport workers are the first victims of a class war | Editorial

Behind the slogans and tariffs lies a calculated strategy – fuelled by elite interests, eroding labour rights and stoking global recessionThe White House, eager to win a trade war it barely understands, has yanked the emergency brake on China-US trade without checking who’s inside the vehicle. Donald Trump’s early April trade decree has taken a month to hit the economy – that’s how long Chinese containers need to reach Los Angeles. And on cue, US pacific ports registered a 45% drop in container bookings this week from China. When warehouses fall quiet and trucks idle in California, the silence will creep eastward. Unemployment will surely tick upwards.Even if Washington reverses course by the end of May, and Beijing plays nice, the best-case scenario is delayed damage. Some goods are being rerouted to avoid charges, but you can’t reboot global logistics overnight. This isn’t strategic decoupling – it’s economic self-harm. By the time the Trump administration notices, it will be too ...

Events

1 week ago The Guardian view on the US and Ukraine: is the natural resources agreement a big deal? | Editorial

The White House calls it ‘historic’. A more realistic estimate is that while Ukraine is glad to sign, this is not a shift in the big pictureThe Trump administration, with its customary rhetorical inflation, has hailed its mineral deal with Ukraine as “historic”. What the world’s most powerful nation says and does matters. But how much? And for how long? This is a government of caprice and chaos – losing its national security adviser, Mike Waltz, on Thursday after only three months in the job. Attempting to connect the data points can be like trying to join up the bug splats on a windscreen. The real issue is that the vehicle is still following the signs for Moscow.This moment looks like a high because US-Ukraine ties hit such a low, particularly with the Oval Office bullying of Volodymyr Zelenskyy and reports that Washington is willing to recognise annexed Crimea as Russian. Key details of this deal have yet to be finalised in a technical agreement. The idea originated with Kyi...

Economics

2 w. ago The Guardian view on Canada’s Liberal election: Carney’s triumph is a rebuff to Trump | Editorial

The US president’s territorial and economic threats have prompted voters to unite against his bellicosityCanada’s astounding election comeback by the Liberals will hearten many outside its borders as well as within. The governing party’s Lazarus moment was sparked by a man who was not on the ballot – though he took the chance to reiterate that the country should become the 51st US state, implying that voters could then elect him.By then it was already clear that Donald Trump’s threats had backfired. Monday’s result was a clear repudiation of his agenda. For two years, the Conservatives’ Pierre Poilievre looked like a dead cert as the next prime minister, assailing Justin Trudeau’s government on issues including the cost of living, housing and immigration. His party built a 25-point lead. But within four months, Mr Trudeau’s resignation, his warning that Mr Trump’s “51st state” remarks were no joke, and the imposition of swingeing US tariffs, transformed the contest. Mr Poilievre los...

Politics

2 w. ago The Guardian view on Trump v universities: essential institutions must defend themselves | Editorial

Harvard is leading the pushback because it can afford to fight. Others are realising that they can’t afford not toEnfeebling universities or seizing control is an early chapter in the authoritarian playbook, studied eagerly by the likes of Viktor Orbán in Hungary. “Would-be authoritarians and one-party states centrally target universities with the aim of restricting dissent,” Jason Stanley, a scholar of fascism at Yale, wrote in the Guardian in September. Last month, he announced that he was leaving the US for Canada because of the political climate and particularly the battle over higher education.It is not merely that universities are often bastions of liberal attitudes and hotbeds for protest. They also constitute one of the critical institutions of civil society; they are a bulwark of democracy. The Trump administration is taking on judges, lawyers, NGOs and the media: it would be astonishing if universities were not on the list. They embody the importance of knowledge, rational...

Politics

2 w. ago The Guardian view on posthumously publishing Joan Didion: goodbye to all that | Editorial

Would the legendary American writer have welcomed the publication of her therapy notes? It seems unlikelyJoan Didion entered the fray on the publication of Ernest Hemingway’s unfinished final manuscript in an essay titled Last Words in 1998: “You think something is in shape to be published or you don’t, and Hemingway didn’t,” she wrote. You believe a writer’s unpublished work is fair game after their death or you don’t, and Didion – it would seem – didn’t.Debate about the ethics of posthumous publication has been ignited once more, this time with Didion at its centre. After the writer’s death in 2021, about 150 pages were found in a file next to her desk. These were meticulous accounts of sessions with her psychiatrist, from 1999 to 2003, focused mainly on her adopted daughter Quintana, who was spiralling into alcoholism. Addressed to her husband, screenwriter John Gregory Dunne, this journal has been published under the title Notes to John. “No restrictions were put on access,...

Politics

2 w. ago The Guardian view on the coming papal conclave: Catholics at a crossroads | Editorial

Pope Francis’s progressive legacy rests in the hands of cardinal electors who will be juggling competing agendasIn keeping with the humble style of his papacy, Pope Francis did his best to dial down the pomp and ceremony that would mark his passing. In St Peter’s Basilica, where he now lies in state, Francis’s body rests in an unelaborate coffin and has not been placed on the traditional elevated bier. The tomb in which he will be buried is to be underground and unadorned, carrying only the plain inscription “Franciscus”, again on his instructions.The final grace notes of a remarkable papacy will add to the pathos of Saturday’s funeral, which hundreds of thousands of mourners are expected to attend. The Argentinian pope’s plain, direct style endeared him to millions of non-Catholics as well as to the faithful. But the ecclesiastical politics of what happens next, in a divided church, will be anything but straightforward. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago The Guardian view on the IMF’s warning: Donald Trump could cost the world a trillion dollars | Editorial

The US president’s economic agenda collides with fragile financial systems, triggering market fears, investor flight and developing nation chaosWake up! When the most sober of global institutions, the International Monetary Fund, abandons its usual technocratic calm to sound the alarm on the political roots of global financial instability, it’s time to pay attention. The IMF is warning of a non-negligible risk of a $1tn hit to global output, as Donald Trump’s erratic “America first” agenda – part oligarchic enrichment scheme, part mobster shakedown – collides with a perfect storm of global financial vulnerabilities.Such a shock would be equivalent to a third of that experienced in the 2008 crisis. But it would be felt in a much more fragile and politically charged environment. This time, the crisis stems not just from markets but from the politics at the heart of the dollar system. The IMF’s latest Global Financial Stability Report sees the danger in Mr Trump’s trade ...

Events

3 w. ago The Guardian view on Pope Francis: an outsider who was a force for good in the world | Editorial

The Argentine pontiff was a vital progressive influence on issues such as migration, and fought for a more merciful, less rigid Catholic churchDefying doctors’ orders to rest following his battle with double pneumonia, a weak Pope Francis last week visited Rome’s Regina Coeli prison, where he blew kisses towards inmates and spent half an hour in discussion with some of those incarcerated. Sadly, this Maundy Thursday encounter turned out to be one of the last acts of a supremely hardworking papacy. In retrospect, its location was entirely appropriate.Throughout his 12 years in Saint Peter’s chair, Francis sought admirably to refocus the Catholic church’s energies on the marginalised, while challenging the power of entrenched interests. Coming, as he put it, “from the ends of the earth”, the first non-European pontiff of modern times was an outsider pope and a radical one. Within the church, the Argentine was a sometimes spikily direct reformer; outside it, he was a signific...

Politics

3 w. ago The Guardian view on a new deal for travel in Europe: bring back student exchanges | Editorial

The EU is expected to push for special youth visas at next month’s summit. Sir Keir Starmer should say yesStrong hints that a rebranded “youth opportunity scheme” will top the EU’s wishlist at next month’s EU-UK summit are good news for anyone who regrets the diminished travel opportunities that were one result of Brexit. Rising expectations of new European train routes – possibly including direct trains from London to Italy – can only add to the appeal of a potential rule change.There were more consequential impacts of Brexit than restrictions on travel. The disruption of trade, which is predicted by the Office for Budget Responsibility to cause a 4% reduction in long-run productivity, is far more significant economically. Drug shortages continue to create risks to people’s health, and cause problems for doctors and pharmacists. Cancer research and trials have also been badly affected, according to a new report, because of the increased difficulty of attracting scientists and fundi...

Economics