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Jonathan Freedland

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian

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From small boats to industry and science: how much evidence do we need that Brexit made our lives worse?

I t was only an aside. Keir Starmer wasn’t planning to talk about Brexit, but a subject almost as perilous for his party: migration. Still, Good...

15.09.2023 6

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on political portraiture: putting faces to history

T wo portraits, two very different stories of Britain. Saied Dai’s painting of Theresa May, unveiled this week, is the latest example of what has...

10.09.2023 30

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

Take another look at Joe Biden. His is the presidency progressives have been waiting for

T he tragedy of Joe Biden is that people see his age, his frailty and his ailing poll numbers and they miss the bigger story. Which is that his has...

08.09.2023 4

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

Corruption, policing, poverty: the TV show that could teach Keir Starmer a lot about being bold

H ere’s a suggestion for how Keir Starmer might use this final weekend of the summer recess before politics resumes in earnest on Monday. He should...

01.09.2023 4

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on the Women’s World Cup: outstripping high expectations

F or a sport touching warp speed in the pace of its development, the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand is already proving another great...

06.08.2023 50

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

Finally, three reasons for Donald Trump to be afraid: a courtroom, a jury and the truth

I blame the father. Frederick Trump raised his children, one in particular, to believe that the world was divided into winners and losers and that...

04.08.2023 1

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on Twitter’s rebranding: X marks an everything or nothing gamble

E lon Musk’s latest change to Twitter, the social media platform he has appeared intent on sabotaging ever since he was strong-armed into honouring...

30.07.2023 20

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

Israelis’ defiance of Netanyahu holds a lesson for anyone who cares about democracy

B eware the strongman leader who fears jail. Donald Trump is running for president in part because he sees a return to the White House as a literal...

28.07.2023 3

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

After the byelections, Starmer’s path to power is clear: revulsion for the Tories is essential – but not enough

W ell, that settles nothing. The night of three byelections gave just enough of a split decision for all sides to claim victory. And by all sides, I...

21.07.2023 2

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

Big oil has sold lies about the climate crisis for decades. Now we must sell the truth

Y ou may think we have all the proof we need. More of it is in front of us right now, with heatwaves scorching through Europe, breaking records,...

14.07.2023 2

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on spoken word poets: powerful voices that are needed today

N ews that one of the UK’s leading poetry prizes is introducing a category for spoken word artists is as welcome as it is overdue. The move by the...

09.07.2023 20

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

From Springsteen to McCartney, ageing rockers are teaching us about something bigger than music

I t’s a paper ticket, from before the age of the QR code, and it announces the Rolling Stones at Wembley Stadium on Saturday 26 June 1982. I was 15,...

07.07.2023 4

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The event that will decide the next election has already happened – even if Rishi Sunak doesn’t know it yet

H ere’s a parlour game for the political geek in your life. When did Tony Blair win the 1997 general election? Don’t accept the reflex answer –...

30.06.2023 4

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on the Reddit rebellion: a historic standoff

T o those who have never got round to cultivating a Reddit habit, reports that swathes of the news aggregation, content and discussion platform have...

25.06.2023 40

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

Guardian Opinion cartoon Seamus Jennings on the UK’s mortgage crisis – cartoon

23.06.2023 3

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

With even leavers regretting Brexit, there’s still one path back to rejoining the EU

L et Nigel Farage be our inspiration, let John Redwood be our role model. Not the way they would want, revered as the founding fathers of Brexit,...

23.06.2023 3

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on Colombia’s child survivors: a rainforest fairytale

T he story of four children discovered deep in the Amazon jungle, grieving, hungry and insect-bitten but otherwise uninjured despite being lost for...

17.06.2023 30

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on Trump and political violence: more than words

L ike Joe Biden’s ascent to the White House, Donald Trump’s indictment for unlawfully holding classified documents and obstructing justice offers...

16.06.2023 3

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

To save their own skin, Trump and Johnson are destroying something precious: our faith in the law

T he three tenors of showman populism, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Silvio Berlusconi, reached the top through a combination of telegenic...

16.06.2023 90

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on broken Britain: it won’t be fixed with the status quo

T he gap between the political narrative and life as experienced by the average voter is widening dramatically. The United Kingdom faces serious...

11.06.2023 100

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on muses: a regressive romantic cliche

T he death this week of the painter and writer Françoise Gilot added a full stop to one of the most flamboyant chapters of 20th-century art history....

09.06.2023 3

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

After the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, another threat lies on Ukraine’s horizon: Donald Trump

The war for Ukraine gets darker and more terrifying, and now a new front has opened up many miles away – in a US Republican party whose biggest...

09.06.2023 4

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on Manchester: doing things differently again

“I t is the philosopher alone who can conceive the grandeur of Manchester, and the immensity of its future”, wrote Benjamin Disraeli in his 1844...

03.06.2023 40

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on broken hospital promises: too little, too late

W hen the flat roof of Singlewell primary school in Gravesend, Kent, fell in five years ago, there was no sign of structural stress until 24 hours...

02.06.2023 6

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

Covid inquiry Not for the first time, Sunak has been hung out to dry by Johnson – how much more can he take?

B oris Johnson will haunt Rishi Sunak till the end. The current prime minister is desperate to put the recent past behind him, to persuade the...

02.06.2023 4

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

Climate crimes The Guardian view on water politics in Europe: a new fault line

I n April, Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, suggested that severe drought would become “one of the central political and territorial...

28.05.2023 60

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on a death of consensus: politicians are having different nightmares

D o political parties concur because they agree about their goals or their fears? Phil Tinline argues in his book The Death of Consensus that it is...

26.05.2023 6

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The future of AI is chilling – humans have to act together to overcome this threat to civilisation

I t started with an ick. Three months ago, I came across a transcript posted by a tech writer, detailing his interaction with a new chatbot powered...

26.05.2023 90

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

They’re openly saying it: Brexit has failed. But what comes next may be very dark indeed

I t lasts no more than a second, but it is a moment for the ages. Interviewed on BBC Newsnight on Monday, Nigel Farage made a confession that, by...

19.05.2023 5

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on Tory housing policy: profits ahead of people

T he leasehold system of property ownership in England and Wales is a feudal relic, a hangover from the middle ages when powerful families wanted to...

14.05.2023 90

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on the Taylor Swift book rumour: a TikTok reckoning

H as there ever been such a flutter in the pop culture dovecote as the one provoked by the “leak” that an unknown book, due to be published in...

12.05.2023 3

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

There is a clear and present danger of a new Trump presidency. Democrats must act now to prevent it

W e may come to remember this period as the interlude: the inter-Trump years. After the sigh of relief heard around the world when Donald Trump was...

12.05.2023 30

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on the coronation crowds: the public are crucial for royalty

C rowds will line the streets to take part in the coronation. But many present will later struggle to explain exactly why they were there. Witnessing...

07.05.2023 80

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

Society exposes us all to anti-Jewish tropes and attitudes. The first step is to notice them

F or a week now, I’ve been bombarded with variations on the same question: “So what do you think about that cartoon?” The cartoon in question...

05.05.2023 4

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on older artists: bridging history and personal life

T wo pronouncements this week from the world of culture might appear to strike a melancholy note: the film director Ken Loach has declared that The...

28.04.2023 4

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

Richard Sharp was Boris Johnson’s toxic legacy – never again should politicians pick a boss for the BBC

A word of advice for anyone who has worked hard to acquire a reputation they cherish: if Boris Johnson approaches, if he comes anywhere near, run a...

28.04.2023 6

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

Fox News and its audience became hooked on lies – now they can’t break the habit

I n Kansas City last week, an elderly white man who lives alone heard the doorbell ring. He didn’t need to open the glass front door to see that a...

21.04.2023 4

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on community policing: patrols aren’t a panacea

P oliticians have been calling for a return to neighbourhood policing ever since Theresa May decimated the service. This week, Rishi Sunak put...

02.04.2023 60

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

Netanyahu is leading a coup against his own country. But the threat is not only to Israel

E ven before the freshly acquitted Gwyneth Paltrow gave us what we are obliged to call the Slalom Witch Trial, she had already made an enduring gift...

31.03.2023 20

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on the SNP leadership: significant for Scotland and beyond

W here the Scottish National party goes after the departure of Nicola Sturgeon matters not just to Scotland but to the whole of Britain. Ms Sturgeon...

25.03.2023 10

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on literary adaptations: an old wheeze that works

W hile many UK theatres are struggling to woo their audiences back following the pandemic’s impact and amid the cost of living crisis, two upcoming...

25.03.2023 20

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

Why was Boris Johnson cast into the wilderness this week? Because a populist without a tribe is nothing

H ow do you kill off a strongman? How do you drain the political life from the brand of nationalist-populist leader that’s dominated politics...

24.03.2023 50

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Iraq invasion: 20 years on What can the Iraq war teach us? Be sceptical of spies, allies – and Labour grudges

I have spent the last week in the land of the second resolution, Hans Blix and 45 minutes. For much of the past seven days, I’ve been right back...

17.03.2023 8

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

Culture in peril The Guardian view on Fleabag’s fringe fund: a good deed in a bad world

T he Edinburgh fringe is a shaggy old beast with many ailments. It’s too big, too white, too expensive, according to its critics. The Succession...

12.03.2023 30

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

Don’t make this all about Lineker: focus on this cruel migrant policy – fate could have put any one of us in those boats

E ven to talk about it is a distraction, but let’s be clear: Gary Lineker is not the villain here. On the contrary, he deserves admiration for...

10.03.2023 60

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

Sunak is the Michael Corleone of the Tory party – try as he might to break free, he’s up to his neck in it

W hen it comes to on-screen charisma, Rishi Sunak is no Al Pacino, but after the week he’s had, he can authentically channel one of the Hollywood...

03.03.2023 70

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

If Keir Starmer is to win an election, he has to restore Britain’s faith in politics

E veryone will have their own moment when they concluded that things were broken, but here’s mine. I was talking to the headteacher of an east...

25.02.2023 100

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

Disinfo black ops The Guardian view on disinformation online: a 21st-century growth industry

T he healthy functioning of democracies depends on the quality of the information that frames debate within them. But digitalisation, the rise of...

17.02.2023 3

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

The Guardian view on China-US tensions: distrust? Then verify

I n the closing years of the cold war, as relations between the Soviet Union and US thawed, Ronald Reagan adopted a Russian proverb: trust, but...

17.02.2023 4

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

Nicola Sturgeon couldn’t settle the Scottish independence debate – but Brexit just might

N icola Sturgeon’s announcement of her resignation brought some lavish tributes, but perhaps the highest praise came from Donald Trump. “Good...

17.02.2023 20

The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland

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