Drunk on hubris, the UK’s Tory party has followed a populist path to instability. The ANC and its opposition peers follow a similar path
Britain consolidated its rapacious theft of territories in Africa and Asia during the reign of Elizabeth II’s great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria
Allied forces in the two world wars were provided with cigarettes. The anti-smoking Nazis used taxes on tobacco to help fill Germany’s depleted coffers
US President Donald Trump is good at channelling voters’ anger. And anger about the effects of Covid-19 is a factor that could help him win another term
Democracy and social welfare may get a boost and blind capitalism may see that it’s unsustainable
An academic article asserting the benefits of colonialism caused an outcry and resulted in calls for its removal
A set of dentures made for Britain’s war-time prime minister, Winston Churchill, went under the hammer on Thursday.
Plans to include an Adolf Hitler figure in the new Berlin branch of Madame Tussauds wax museum are being condemned by critics, who say displaying the dictator is tasteless and could attract neo-Nazis. Madame Tussauds argues Hitler is part of German history and deserves a place in the exhibition near the Brandenburg Gate.
Britain’s Labour Party suffered its worst local election defeat on record and lost control of London on Friday, forcing Prime Minister Gordon Brown to rethink his strategy to avoid losing the next national poll. Conservative Boris Johnson, a journalist-turned-lawmaker prone to gaffes, wrested the prized post of London mayor from Labour’s maverick Ken Livingstone.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Thursday night set the seal on a new phase in Britain’s special relationship with the United States when he won ringing endorsements from the present and future generations of American leaders. US President George Bush hailed Brown as a ”good friend”.
At an age when he could be forgiven for slipping on his favourite pair of slippers, relaxing in a fireside armchair and re-watching any one of the 500 or more world-title fights he has promoted, Don King refuses to fade away. The stentorian voice still booms as it has since the days of Muhammad Ali’s Rumble in the Jungle.
”Italians lose wars as if they were football matches and football matches as if they were wars”, said Sir Winston Churchill. On matters of war and politics, he was most certainly an expert. The fact is that ever since the fall of the Roman Empire, we have been luckier at calcio than at warfare.
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/ 5 February 2008
Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll that came out on Monday, which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real. The survey found that 47% thought the 12th century English king, Richard the Lionheart, was a myth.
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/ 20 December 2007
More than a century ago, a war correspondent called Winston Churchill was dispatched to Cuba to cover the conflict with Spain. ”It may be that future years will see the island as it would be now, had England never lost it — a Cuba free and prosperous under just laws and patriotic administration, throwing open her ports to the commerce of the world, sending her ponies to Hurlingham and her cricketers to Lord’s.”
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/ 14 October 2007
”It’s not like we’re England,” said the old woman sharing a flask of coffee with her middle-aged daughter on the train from Geneva to Zurich. ”They had the colonies, and we didn’t,” she adds, to explain the nature of Britain’s racial mix and why Switzerland does not need one. ”I worry,” says her daughter, ”there will be a putsch against him.”
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Tuesday held private talks in London with former South African president Nelson Mandela, whom he hailed as ”the greatest and most courageous leader of our generation.” The meeting in Downing Street preceded the planned inauguration on Wednesday of a large statue of Mandela in London’s Parliament Square.