If the UK wants to regain serious respect in the world, it needs its European leg as well as its transatlantic one
“A friend who bullies us is no longer a friend. And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward, I will be prepared to be much stronger. And the president should be prepared for that.” Thus spoke Hugh Grant, playing the British prime minister confronting the US president in a famous scene in the romcom Love Actually. Real-life British prime minister Keir Starmer has attempted to stand up ever so slightly to the current bully in the White House over the latest US war in the Middle East. Despite the British government’s right-royal efforts to flatter Donald Trump ever since he was elected US president, his response to Starmer’s little attempt has been a torrent of contempt. So the reality is not Love Actually. It’s Contempt Actually.
Asked about the British government’s subtle distinction between defensive strikes in the Gulf, which it now supports, and offensive ones, which it doesn’t, Maga ideologue Steve Bannon tells the New Statesman’s Freddie Hayward: “That’s diplomatic bullshit. Fuck you. You’re either an ally or you’re not. Fuck you. The special relationship is over.” Ah, the “special relationship”! It must be 40 years since I first heard former West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt say: “The special relationship is so special only one side knows it exists.”
Continue reading...His multi-hyphenate career has made him one of Britain’s most versatile recognisable stars – but hasn’t stopped him facing some seriously awkward moments…
Riz Ahmed was multitasking. It was February in London, and the actor was doing an interview with a men’s magazine en route to collect his kid from school. So far, so starry. “Here’s the reality,” says Ahmed today, palms slamming down hard on the table. “I’m late for the school run. I’m stuck in traffic. I’m meant to be at my laptop, but I’m having to do it on my phone, in my car. I’m double parked on a double yellow line, doing the interview, looking over my shoulder. The traffic warden’s coming, it’s rush hour. He tries to move me along. I try to get out of there while I’m talking on the phone to this guy.”
Distracted, Ahmed hit another car. The driver jumped out of his vehicle, incensed. “He’s like, ‘What the fuck are you doing?!’” says Ahmed, who had been attempting to continue the interview. “I’m now going off video, like, ‘Oh, my signal’s a bit bad!’ while going on and off mute negotiating car insurance details. On the phone, I’m going, ‘Absolutely, it was just such an honour getting to tell my story with these amazing collaborators,’” he says, his voice lowering an octave and turning smooth.
Continue reading...How infections linked to a nightclub escalated into a public health incident requiring a national response is a puzzle experts are still grappling with
Tyra Skinner had already been violently sick three times when doctors at Kent’s William Harvey hospital realised something was badly wrong. The 20-year-old was rushed into critical care, racked with a pounding headache, a stiff neck and excruciating pain – the hallmark symptoms of meningitis, the disease that had already claimed two young lives in Kent.
“She could hardly move, she was in a foetal position. She was so cramped up and sore,” her father, Dale Skinner, 42, told the Guardian. “It was horrendous, to be honest, to see her so helpless and in so much pain.”
Continue reading...Conflict has not only hit sporting calendar but laid bare weakness in plans for diversifying economies through sport
The sight of Nasser al-Khelaifi grounded in Doha when Paris Saint Germain hosted Chelsea in the last-16 of the Champions League last week provided a symbolic illustration of the fragility of the Gulf’s sports project amid the conflict in the Middle East.
Al-Khelaifi is the president of PSG, the chair of Qatar Sports Investments and, most crucially, the European Football Clubs, a lobby group that, along with Uefa, runs the Champions League. He is seen as the second-most powerful individual in world football, after the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino. Yet, with Qatari airspace closed, the 52-year-old was forced to miss his first PSG match for years.
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