• OPINION

  No, Brexit Britain doesn't want its empire back

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 14/01/2019

  » Britain is moving towards an exit from the European Union on March 29, possibly with no agreement, and thus courting – according to the Bank of England – an 8 percent drop in GDP and a 7.5% rise in unemployment. A drear prospect, attended by matching drear commentaries on the stupidity of the 52 percent of the British electorate who voted for Brexit in 2016.

• OPINION

  2019 ushers in era of state control

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 07/01/2019

  » A signature theme of the new year is the possibility of a malign confrontation between the world's greatly enhanced capacity for electronic surveillance and the weakening of democratic control. The antidote to that risk is the democratic spirit and civil freedoms -- both of which are suffering worldwide. These are not dead, but they are unwell, at times untended.

• OPINION

  Beware the online culture warriors

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 22/10/2018

  » The news media in the Western world remains dominated by newspapers, magazines and broadcasters still known as the mainstream. The most vivid proof of their continued reign over public opinion is in the figure of US President Donald Trump, whose repeated attacks on "failing" publications like The New York Times and the Washington Post as "enemies of the people" is a backhanded tribute to their continued power.

• OPINION

  Anti-Trump op-ed boosts democracy

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 10/09/2018

  » The good news was well disguised in the anonymous cry of warning against the "amorality" of Donald Trump. A senior administration official, writing as an unnamed columnist in The New York Times, described how he and like-minded colleagues "are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of (the US president's) agenda and his worst inclinations." The message is that democratic habits -- and, crucially, civic decency and responsibility -- can, in step with free journalism, win out over degraded administrations.

• OPINION

  How to save the modern Catholic Church from itself

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 03/09/2018

  » When the pope is given a cool, even combative, welcome in the Republic of Ireland, the Roman Catholic Church is in trouble. The country had been -- from its founding as the Irish Free State in the early 1920s after a violent break with the United Kingdom -- deeply influenced by Catholic teaching in the framing of its laws and the management of its institutions. It is now solidly secular -- and it has a list of hard questions to put to the Church.

• OPINION

  Can Jones and Johnson be the face of 'new politics'?

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 13/08/2018

  » Two men of influence -- the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and politician Boris Johnson -- now face media bans and ridicule for what they saw as speaking their minds. Both, though quite different in background, manner and actions, are pioneers in the new politics.

• OPINION

  Steve Bannon's boost to Europe's far right parties

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 06/08/2018

  » The various movements gathered under the name of Europe's "far right" have not risen like a straight line on a graph. There have been -- still are -- lows as well as highs. Yet there is a new sense of purpose, thanks to a new movement -- called "The Movement," and launched by former Donald Trump aide Steve Bannon -- and to Hungarian premier Viktor Orban's call to the right to "concentrate our strength" on the May 2019 elections to the European Parliament.

• OPINION

  From Guernica's ruins, emerges a lesson in fake news

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 11/12/2017

  » A little over 80 years ago, on April 26, 1937, German and Italian warplanes bombed the Basque town of Guernica, razing much of it. Italian planes targeted a bridge, while the German Condor legion hit the town with conventional and incendiary bombs, and machine-gunned men, women and children as they ran from the burning town.

• OPINION

  Britain's current mess extends well beyond Brexit

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 13/11/2017

  » Britain -- ever-ready to boast stable politics and a faultless, often-called "Rolls-Royce" civil service -- is in a mess. Between scandals over sex, secret meetings, political donors and the royal family, the government is melting down.

• OPINION

  How the Catalonia vote threatens the EU

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 06/11/2017

  » The struggles for and against independence in the Spanish province of Catalonia are emblematic of the European Union's present strength and its future weakness. They also display the weaknesses, present and future, of the two leaders of the contending parties: Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish prime minister and Carles Puigdemont, president of Catalonia.

1 2 Next Last