3 h. ago The Guardian view on Trump and Zelenskyy: Ukraine deserves better than 'better than we feared' | Editorial

In Washington, European leaders helped steer the US president away from his embrace of Vladimir Putin’s talking points. But for how long?The verdict on Donald Trump’s meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders on Monday depends entirely upon the metric used. The great fear was that this might prove a disaster along the lines of the US president’s dressing down of the Ukrainian leader in February – a scenario so plausible that Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz and other key European leaders dropped everything to dash to the White House themselves in support.Following his red carpet welcome for Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, Mr Trump reportedly backed the idea that Ukraine should hand over the Donbas to achieve a peace deal. Even if one were naive enough to think that the Kremlin would see that as an end to conflict, rather than a staging post for a later offensive, it would not be a “land swap” but a land grab that Ukraine – for go...

Politics

27 h. ago The Guardian view on Britain’s AI strategy: the risk is that it is dependency dressed up in digital hype | Editorial

The UK’s plans seem to outsource sovereignty for phantom efficiency. Public services provide the data and power while US tech giants reap the rewardsThere was a time when Britain aspired to be a leader in technology. These days, it seems content to be a willing supplicant – handing over its data, infrastructure and public services to US tech giants in exchange for the promise of a few percentage points of efficiency gains. Worryingly, the artificial intelligence strategy of Sir Keir Starmer’s government appears long on rhetoric, short on sovereignty and built on techno-utopian assumptions. Last week Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, was promoting the use of AI-generated discharge letters in the NHS. The tech, he said, will process complex conversations between doctors and patients, slashing paperwork and streamlining services. Ministers say that by applying AI across the public sector, the government can save £45bn.But step back and a more familiar pattern emerges. As Cecil...

Events

27 h. ago The Guardian view on food and farming: climate chaos hits crops hard – and that should worry everyone | Editorial

Last year’s floods have been followed by heatwaves. Ministers must throw their weight behind resilient, adaptable agricultureBritish farmers are, of course, not the only people who are suffering from the effects of this summer’s heatwaves. Across Europe and the Middle East, record-breaking temperatures are threatening lives as well as livelihoods. France has experienced its largest wildfire since 1949, while across Europe an estimated 500,000 hectares of land have burned.But farmers are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather, which has a direct impact on crop yields. So reports of a second consecutive year in which food growers in parts of the UK are seeing dramatic falls in production should concern the British public. Access to food is frequently taken for granted in the world’s wealthiest nations. But increased food insecurity is among the dangerous effects of the climate crisis, as well as being worsened by Trump’s tariffs, and geopolitical instability including the war in U...

Events

51 h. ago The Guardian view on the Alaska summit: there must be no more gifts to Vladimir Putin | Editorial

As Volodymyr Zelenskyy heads to Washington amid talk of land swaps, European leaders must have his backHours after Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin departed from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska on Friday, Moscow officials reported that two more villages in Ukraine’s east had been seized by Russian forces. It was a grimly apt postscript to a “peace summit” that allowed a pariah leader to posture on the world stage, but signally failed to achieve the outcome that its host claimed to desire.Mr Trump had suggested that he would be “unhappy” if a ceasefire were not agreed during discussions with Mr Putin. There would, he warned, be “severe consequences” if his guest proved unwilling to end the war. Predictably, no ceasefire announcement was forthcoming, and the sanctions Mr Trump has repeatedly threatened, but never imposed, have been kicked into the long grass. Instead, the US president offered a crucial concession to Mr Putin, concurring that a cessation of hostilities sh...

Politics

52 h. ago The Guardian view on regulating cosmetic procedures: rogue operators must be tackled, but aren’t the only problem | Editorial

Tighter rules over treatments including fillers and Botox will send a message, but resources will be needed to enforce themThe enormous popularity of beauty treatments, including dermatological fillers and Botox injections, is not solely an issue for health regulators. Changing norms and aspirations about appearances, and the way that these are marketed mainly to women and girls, are a cultural and economic phenomenon that requires wider consideration. While attitudes to these procedures and aesthetics vary, many people – including some cosmetic surgeons – are concerned that younger women account for a growing share of a highly lucrative and growing market.The death last year of 33-year-old Alice Webb in Gloucestershire, after a non-surgical Brazilian butt lift, as well as multiple reports of injuries, and the deaths of at least 28 women who have travelled to Turkey for cosmetic treatments, have increased the pressure on ministers to tighten the law. Wes Streeting’s a...

Politics

4 d. ago The Guardian view on the collapse of environmental talks: petrostates blocked a global plastics deal, but we must not despair | Editorial

The failure of UN talks in Geneva should anger us all. The increasing threat to our health, our environments and wildlife must be addressed. By ensuring the collapse of UN talks seeking the first legally binding agreement on tackling plastic pollution, blockers in Geneva have failed the next generation. Most states are willing, even determined, to act. But the US joined petrostates obstructing action. Their children too will live to regret that.To say that plastics are part of our lives from cradle to grave is an understatement: microplastics have been found in placentas, as well as blood and breast milk. While we can’t yet be certain of the full impact of the substances, we know that many have been linked to health effects and that foetuses, infants and young children are highly vulnerable. Microplastics have been shown to damage human cells in laboratory experiments, and a review published this month documented how exposure is associated with increased risks of miscarriage, stillb...

Economics

4 d. ago The Guardian view on France’s wine crisis: the answer to claret could be clairet | Editorial

Consumers are drinking less red wine than ever. Producers need to revive the fresher and lighter vintages that their medieval ancestors once harvestedThese are always anxious weeks in the Bordeaux vineyards, where 15% of France’s wine is grown, including in celebrated places like Chateau Latour and Chateau Mouton-Rothschild. In earlier years, this ritual anxiety among the region’s winegrowers had a pleasingly folkloric quality. In the middle of August, the grapes would ripen and their colour start to turn. About 45 days from now, tradition dictates, it will be time to start picking the 2025 vintage. As the wine writer Edmund Penning-Rowsell put it: “To pick or not to pick is the most momentous decision in the winemaking year in Bordeaux.”This once timeless rhythm is now collapsing. Part of the problem is the climate crisis. Bordeaux still benefits from its moderate Atlantic climate. But south-west France is getting much hotter and drier. Even in the Gironde region, maximum temperatu...

Events

8 d. ago The Guardian view on RFK Jr’s vaccine cuts: an assault on science from a politician unfit for his office | Editorial

The decision by the US health and human services secretary to remove mRNA research funding is ill-informed and dangerousScience is not black and white. It’s more complicated and more exciting. It’s a constant process of exploration. An adventure into the unknown. Scientists come up with theories about what might be going on, and then test them. They don’t always get it right. Far from it. But inch by inch, testing, failing and trying again, they make progress.Robert F Kennedy Jr, during Senate confirmation hearings for the role of secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), seemed to get that. Those who feared what a vaccine sceptic might do in that role breathed again. “I’m going to empower the scientists at HHS to do their job and make sure that we have good science that is evidence based I’m not going to substitute my judgment for science,” he said.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to...

Politics

9 d. ago The Guardian view on attacking the ECHR: the real target is judicial independence and the rule of law | Editorial

The populist right sees the European convention as a soft target in a longer campaign to degrade democratic checks and balancesMost British citizens have little contact with human rights law, which is as it should be in a mature democracy. Widespread anxiety about basic freedoms is a feature of more repressive regimes.Many people will only have heard of the European convention on human rights (ECHR) in the context of the last Conservative government’s failed attempts to dispatch asylum seekers to Rwanda, or in a handful of incidents where convicted criminals or terrorist suspects have avoided deportation to jurisdictions where they might face inhumane treatment. Such cases are amplified by politicians who are hostile to the whole apparatus of human rights law. The Strasbourg court that adjudicates on breaches of the ECHR is denounced as an enemy of British sovereignty. Continue reading...

Events

9 d. ago The Guardian view on climate finance: crumbling under a second Trump presidency | Editorial

Voluntary climate commitments were supposed to be a step towards progress. A change in political climate has revealed their weaknessesEarlier this month, as Nordic countries were hit with an unprecedented heatwave and wildfires in the US began spurting “fire clouds”, Barclays pulled out of the net zero banking alliance. The story may have seemed less alarming than extreme weather, but it has existential implications, as the finance sector quietly surrenders its former climate commitments.The initiative forms part of the Glasgow Finance Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), a voluntary network of banks that Mark Carney, formerly the UN’s special envoy on climate action and now Canada’s prime minister, launched in 2021. At the time, the alliance, which encourages banks and asset managers to work towards the goals of the Paris agreement, seemed like an optimistic step in the right direction. Mr Carney described it as a “breakthrough”. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago The Guardian view on Israel’s Gaza takeover plan: a destructive act that must be stopped | Editorial

Benjamin Netanyahu has embarked on an operation that guarantees fresh miseries and will solve absolutely nothingIsrael’s planned takeover of Gaza would be an act of destructive futility. It would solve absolutely nothing. It will merely pile fresh military, humanitarian and political problems on to the mounds of those already created in the conflict. It will make every human agony worse, not better. Governments around the world must do whatever they can – the US above all – to stop it.There is still time. The plan announced on Friday is for an operation to take military control of Gaza City, home to a million displaced Palestinians. They will be forcibly evacuated, yet again, to the southern Gaza Strip over the coming weeks. Aid distribution is certain to be a secondary consideration, logistically challenging and woefully inadequate for a population where malnutrition is already severe. The threat to life in Gaza, including to the remaining Israeli hostages captured on 7 Octobe...

Politics

1 week ago The Guardian view on Putin’s propaganda: the strongman myth hides great strategic weakness | Editorial

The Russian president had a friend in Donald Trump but a paranoid addiction to war prevents him doing a dealFor a quarter of a century, Russian media have cultivated a myth of Vladimir Putin’s inspired leadership. State propaganda allows no hint of presidential fallibility. When things go wrong, official news ignores the setbacks. When problems cannot be downplayed, Mr Putin is portrayed as the wise corrector of errors made by underlings.Foreign perceptions of Mr Putin have been shaped by this image. It has been boosted online by Kremlin influence operations and embraced by nationalist politicians who admire the Russian president’s methods of domestic control and contempt for the rule of law.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago The Guardian view on the London Stock Exchange: its struggles are symptoms of a broken growth model | Editorial

The Guardian view on the London Stock Exchange: its struggles are symptoms of a broken growth model | Editorial  The Guardian

Politics

2 w. ago The Guardian view on asylum myths: when truth loses, scapegoating takes over Britain’s migrant debate | Editorial

Labour’s cautious fixes for immigration and asylum policy face a toxic public mood shaped by fear, falsehoods and far-right provocationIn politics, numbers rarely speak for themselves. They must be framed and interpreted. They are often weaponised. In Britain’s increasingly toxic debate over asylum and migration, the question isn’t just how many asylum seekers arrive on small boats. It’s what those numbers are made to represent – and why polls suggest a large proportion of the public now believes things that are simply untrue.Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has staked her political credibility on restoring a sense of grip over the asylum system: reducing the backlog by processing cases, accelerating returns of those with no legal claim to stay and launching an as yet small-scale “one in, one out” returns deal with France. In balancing operational realism with symbolic reassurance, Ms Cooper walks a knife-edge between policy and perception. Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago The Guardian view on plastic pollution: global action is desperately needed to deal with this scourge | Editorial

Delegates at UN treaty talks must not allow negotiations to be derailed again by fossil fuel interestsPlastic pollution has reached the most remote and inaccessible parts of our beleaguered planet. It has been found in Greenland’s ice cap, near the summit of Mount Everest, and in the deepest depths of the western Pacific Ocean. Nature programmes have sounded the alarm over a human-made crisis that has become an environmental scourge and a serious threat to our health. Yet global production of plastics is on course to triple to more than a billion tonnes a year by 2060, after increasing by more than 200 times over the past 75 years.This gloomy backdrop should inject a sense of urgency into UN-convened talks in Switzerland this week, aimed at agreeing a binding global plastics treaty. In 2022, when 173 countries committed to work towards such an accord, there was widespread relief that at last a multilateral route was to be taken towards solving a quintessentially global problem. Sadl...

Economics

2 w. ago Trump attacks ‘seriously woke’ Jaguar Land Rover as company names new CEO

US president claims Britain’s largest carmaker is ‘in absolute turmoil’ and criticises firm’s rebrandBusiness live – latest updatesDonald Trump has attacked Jaguar Land Rover’s divisive rebranding strategy, hours after Britain’s largest carmaker announced its new boss.Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that the auto company, owned by India’s Tata Motors, was “in absolute turmoil” and claimed that the “CEO resigned in disgrace”. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago The Guardian view on Berlin’s ailing club scene: a unique inheritance needs protecting | Editorial

The likely closure of one of Germany’s most famous gay dance venues is a depressing sign of the times, as cherished institutions struggle to stay afloatReflecting on his burst of musical creativity in 1970s West Berlin, David Bowie reportedly said that recording albums in a studio close to the Wall gave him a “sense of being on the edge I need the dangerous level, emotionally, mentally and physically”. During the 1970s and 80s, Bowie was not alone. The divided, fascinating city was famously a magnet for young people drawn by a music and club scene unique in Europe.Sadly, living on the edge has these days taken on a different meaning for Berlin clubs struggling to survive in altered times. In a sobering dispatch at the weekend, the Guardian reported that one of Germany’s oldest and most important gay dance clubs has just declared itself bankrupt. Founded in 1977 – the year Bowie brought out his classic Low album – SchwuZ became a pioneering presence in the development of Berlin’s LGB...

Politics

2 w. ago The Guardian view on an EU army: leadership and unity remain elusive | Editorial

Calls for a European fighting force grow louder, but decades-old divisions, political hesitancy and reliance on the US persistThe Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, called for the creation of a European army earlier this year, suggesting that, this time, the continent might finally be serious. Defence budgets are rising. Threats are mounting. The US is distracted. Surely now is the moment. Except, of course, it isn’t.For all the political soundbites that rattle sabres with increasing confidence, Europe is probably no closer to fielding a unified military force than it was when the French rejected the European Defence Community in 1954. The problem is not one of capacity. Europe, including the UK, collectively boasts about 1.5m active military personnel, and some of the world’s most successful defence firms. The problem, as ever, is politics. Or more precisely: who leads? Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago The Guardian view on the green transition: renewables are the future – but countries’ actions must catch up with their promises | Editorial

To counter attacks on net zero, challenges including the need for grid upgrades will have to be graspedWith net zero policies under attack from elected far-right populists as well as autocratic petrostates, and another summer of record-breaking temperatures in Europe, the failure to decarbonise the world’s power supply is as gravely concerning as ever. But the UN secretary general, António Guterres, struck an optimistic note in a recent speech in New York. The world, he said, “is on the cusp of a new era The sun is rising on a clean energy age.” Pointing to falls in the cost of onshore wind and solar, and the risk of further gas-price shocks in future, he called on big technology companies – whose datacentres are one reason for soaring energy use – to adopt a target of 100% low-carbon electricity by 2030.Given US president Donald Trump’s personal hostility to renewable energy, Mr Guterres may be right that it makes more sense to demand action from US businesses at this point. In Sco...

Politics

2 w. ago The Guardian view on statues: new monuments reflect changing values and reinvigorate the public realm | Editorial

It is refreshing to see women’s achievements celebrated, and statuary become more representative of a diverse nationEfforts to ensure that modern values are reflected in public sculpture began well before the Black Lives Matter protests five years ago. Those demonstrations saw the statue of the Bristol slave trader Edward Colston dragged from its pedestal and dumped in the harbour, while multiple Confederate monuments were removed from cities in the southern US.Statues in Britain have gradually reflected evolving social values. A statue of the suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst was unveiled in Westminster in 1930, two years after women were finally granted the vote on equal terms to men. Nelson Mandela joined Winston Churchill in Parliament Square in 2007. The nurse Mary Seacole became the first named black, Caribbean woman to be honoured with a UK statue in 2016. In the same year, the Monumental Welsh Women campaign was established. It set itself a target of five statues, and ha...

Politics