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EditorialThe Guardian |
Political scientists have long argued that a defining characteristic of populism is the distinction between a “pure people” and a “corrupt...
On Friday, MPs voted to advance legislation on assisted dying in England and Wales, reflecting polling that shows widespread public support. However,...
It started with “chav” and has included “carbon footprint”, “omnishambles” and “selfie”. The Oxford word of the year campaign...
“To look at the Earth from space is a bit like a child looking into a mirror and realising for the first time that the person in the mirror is...
Britain’s election system is working well, and voters retain high levels of confidence in it. That’s the good news from a report this week from...
More than a century of burning coal, oil and gas has fuelled intense heatwaves, prolonged droughts, heavier rains and devastating floods. To prevent...
More than a century ago, the 1911 Parliament Act restricted the House of Lords’ powers under threat of a flood of Liberal appointees. The act boldly...
For any government contemplating NHS reform, the 2012 Health and Social Care Act is a textbook case of what not to do. Despite promises of “no more...
China faces what the economist Albert Hirschman noted decades ago: explosive growth is unbalanced, and success embeds that unevenness into political,...
Predictions that this will be the first calendar year in which the 1.5C warming limit enshrined in the Paris agreement is surpassed provide a stark...
“To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff,” Donald Trump told business leaders in October. “It’s my favourite word. It needs...
Spying a possible silver lining to events in the US, some commentators have speculated that the re-election of Donald Trump may at least concentrate...
Poetry has a big debt to nature, its muse and source of metaphor for centuries. As the UN climate conference begins, it is time to pay it back....
The reasons for poor attendance at English schools, high rates of psychological distress and illness among young people, and a rising number of pupils...
This is an exceptionally bleak and frightening moment for the United States and the world. Donald Trump swept the electoral college and is on course...
One of Labour’s first acts in government was to lift the de facto ban on new onshore windfarms introduced by the Conservatives in 2016, which closed...
The last two presidential elections have raised serious questions about the strength of American democracy and, unfortunately, Tuesday’s election...
The announcement that the tuition fees paid by English students (but not Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish ones) are to rise next year is a response...
Following a pivotal week, the contours of Britain’s post-election landscape are more sharply defined, and its dividing lines more vivid. Last...
No woman in 2024 can be surprised to learn that Donald Trump is a misogynistic bully. In 2016, he defeated Hillary Clinton, who would have been...
According to one of the great 19th-century champions of municipal government, a well-run town was “a solemn organism through which should flow …...
The death toll from floods in Spain’s Valencia region has topped 200. A huge clean-up is under way amid desperate conditions, with severe weather...
This Halloween, it seems, is all about the “hag”. Overshadowing the axe-wielding clown in Terrifier 3, a dark-web serial killer in Red Rooms and...
The 1970s are making a notable comeback – not necessarily in reputation, but certainly as an object of interest. Rachel Reeves’ budget is poised...
Rishi Sunak has kept the lowest of public profiles since leaving Downing Street in July. As leader of the opposition, he has made only essential...
The regulation of internet gambling was left out of the last government’s online harms bill. So far, Labour’s plans for the industry are opaque....
In the big picture of global security, a single factory making gun barrels for tanks, due to open in 2027, doesn’t change the balance of power. But...
Among the most famous definitions of narrative comes from EM Forster. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story, he said, while “The...
These are tough economic times for small-scale craft breweries, as recent closures have sadly illustrated. But the ethos of creative defiance and...
This spring Josep Borrell, the EU foreign affairs chief, warned bluntly that Europe should prepare itself for potential war: “Maybe, depending on...
You can say that the evidence of Labour volunteers dipping into America’s election to campaign for Kamala Harris may not do the Labour...
When London’s new 73-mile Elizabeth line won the prestigious Stirling prize for architecture last week, the judges’ choice proved a popular...
The often denied but obvious involvement of foreign powers in Sudan’s deadly civil war is now firmly in the spotlight. Tens of thousands of...
The former Labour chancellor Denis Healey famously quipped that the first law of politics is “when you’re in a hole, stop digging”. That advice...
Around 1 million soldiers are believed to have been killed or wounded in Russia’s war in Ukraine. In addition to the vast Ukrainian civilian and...
Last month’s report on sentencing from a group of former heads of the judiciary ended with a stark warning that the country faces a future of...
At a book launch in the late 1980s, Kazuo Ishiguro quipped to Martin Amis that all the greatest novels were written by authors in their 20s and 30s....
When the Football Association made Sven-Göran Eriksson the first foreign manager of the England men’s team in 2001, the widespread reaction was one...
The United Nations is supposed to be above the fray – a forum for and facilitator of peaceful resolutions or, at the least, the minimisation of...
Denis Healey is often misquoted as saying he wanted to “squeeze the rich until the pips squeak” in the 1970s. He never actually used that phrase....
Labour’s general election manifesto said the government would introduce its workers’ rights package within its first 100 days. On Thursday, on day...
Ahead of the budget at the end of this month, the liveliest debate is over how much Rachel Reeves will set aside to invest in infrastructure. As the...
If the purpose of a long Conservative leadership contest was to facilitate an audit of what caused July’s catastrophic general election defeat and...
The family of Maeve Boothby O’Neill, who died aged 27 after suffering from myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) for many years, is not the first to reach...
When Joe Biden last week said that his administration has been “discussing” possible Israeli plans to attack Iran’s oil industry in retaliation...
The government has yet to respond in detail to the latest, shocking findings about the poor performance of for-profit social care providers, and what...
Disenfranchised youth, a dangerously divided society and existential threats to humanity: Look Back in Anger seems ripe for a revival – with...
More than five decades ago, Britain began forcibly displacing an entire Indigenous people from their Indian Ocean archipelago so that it could build a...