It’s a problem unlikely to trouble U.S. politicians any time soon: there’s so much common ground between Britain’s three largest political parties that they struggle to define themselves against their rivals. Yes, their histories and traditional values are quite different. But since Tony Blair led Labour to the center and …
On Sept. 13 the BBC’s main evening news flashed up a TIME cover. There’s nothing particularly unusual in our stories making headlines in other media, but this was more than three years after publication. The story in question, about why Britons appear scared of their kids, and to what extent they’re right to be so, provoked comment and …
There are several reasons one might have chosen to attend the Sept. 8 press conference at the Frankfurt headquarters of the European Central Bank: to find out what the ECB had decided on interest rates (the bank held its benchmark interest rate at 1.5%) or how it had revised its growth forecasts (down to 1.6% from 1.9% in 2011 and …
“We are not women; we will keep fighting,” vowed Libya’s elusive despot Muammar Gaddafi in a message broadcast on Syrian TV on Sept. 1. A lecture delivered in London the same evening, for broadcast on Sept. 6 as part of the BBC’s 2011 Reith Lecture series Securing Freedom, illuminated the unintended kernel of truth to the Colonel’s …
Writing about the smoking gun letter from the News of the World‘s former royal editor and convicted phone hacker Clive Goodman on Aug. 16, I observed that it was only a matter of time until Hollywood took an interest in the saga. That moment may have come even sooner than expected with the Aug. 18 arrest of James Desborough, who …
If Britain’s hacking scandal were a Hollywood thriller—and perhaps the most predictable outcome of this tangled saga is that it will be—the audience would be left guessing until a few seconds before the credits rolled which characters to believe. Should they take the word of a world famous tycoon and his clean-cut son? Give …
The French have a phrase for circumstances beyond control: “C’est la guerre,” literally “it’s the war.” They might say it, with a shrug, as they sit in traffic or wait for a bus that never arrives. But last week the expression, which dates back to World War II, took on a different inflection as residents of a village on the shores of …
At first glance there’s little to separate the riots that swept through Tottenham overnight and the street battles in the same part of North London a quarter of a century ago that reached a peak of violence with the murder of a policeman called Keith Blakelock. Both riots were sparked by fury at police after the deaths of black …
If News International holds a soirée at the Conservative Party conference this October, it’s likely to be a subdued affair. At the zenith of Rupert Murdoch’s influence over British public life, invitations to such shindigs were as sought after as Willy Wonka’s golden tickets. Would-be gatecrashers who evaded fire-breathing, …
Britain’s long-running hacking saga has finally seen one of its protagonists jailed, the first such penalty since the News of the World‘s royal editor Clive Goodman and the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were imprisoned in 2007 for intercepting voicemails intended for Princes William and Harry and their aides and friends. On Aug. 2 …
David Cameron presented himself to British voters as the candidate of change. He certainly hasn’t let them down. The Prime Minister can claim personal responsibility for triggering a series of unexpected and convulsive changes to public life in Britain that have left Britons, in the words of one habitually understated government …
The tabloid saga gripping Britain — a tangled tale of criminality and corruption, of politicians in thrall to the power of the press and of police in the press’s pay — has elements of farce but even more of tragedy. Take Graham Foulkes, whose 22-year-old son David was one of 52 people killed by suicide bombers in London six years …
In an affair that intrigues and baffles, perhaps the most puzzling question was this: why on earth was Britain’s highest-ranking redhead after Prince Harry still clinging on to her job at the helm of News International, News Corporation’s London-based subsidiary—and why did Rupert Murdoch seem so determined to keep her there? Those …
