• OPINION

  The driving force behind the modern Christian revival

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 24/12/2018

  » Christmas is invariably the time for a grouch that neither Christ nor mas(s) feature much in a festival meant to rededicate Christian believers to the worship of the son of God. Materialism, especially for children, swamps, on this view, any reflection on the meaning of a Christian -- or religious -- life.

• 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

  Europe struggles over Trump plan

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 07/08/2017

  » 'We have to understand, that we Europeans must fight for our own future and destiny," said Angela Merkel. This was the German chancellor speaking to a crowd of supporters in May, after a testy few days of a G7 summit that included reports in German news media that Donald Trump had called her country "very bad" for selling so many cars to the United States -- and which saw the US president emerge as the only G7 dissenter on combating climate change.

• OPINION

  Trump tweets show disturbing side of social media

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 06/02/2017

  » Last March, three months before Britons voted to take the United Kingdom out of the European Union, then Prime Minister David Cameron asked Daily Mail proprietor Lord Rothermere to fire the newspaper's editor, Paul Dacre. The press baron, descendant of the family which did more than any other to create the British tabloid press, refused, and did not even tell Dacre of the request until after the result of the referendum. The incident, reported by the BBC, has not been denied by any of the parties involved.

• OPINION

  Politics of confrontation heats up

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 15/10/2018

  » The next president of Brazil, Latin America's giant, is all but certain to be former army captain Jair Bolsonaro -- who was relatively unknown, even in his own country, just a few months ago, but who now has a large public profile all round the world. At 63, he has spent years in public life, leaving a mark -- but not a large one -- as a man of the far right, ready with insults for women who oppose him, disgusted by homosexuality, approving of the military dictatorship that killed and tortured leftists between 1964 and 1985.

• OPINION

  Building peace requires pragmatism and patience

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 24/09/2018

  » Doors are slamming all over the Western world; we shall not see them opened again in our life. This sentiment -- borrowing and adapting a remark attributed to British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey on the eve of World War I (his phrase had lamps going out in Europe) -- seems to me at least as defensible as Grey's prophecy.

• OPINION

  Three liberal prophets of doom

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 31/07/2018

  » Liberal democratic institutions and states are under sustained pressure, from outside and from within. The question now is how well liberal and democratic defences can withstand the onslaught.

• 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

  Migrant misery spans worldwide

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 25/06/2018

  » It's an increasingly hard world for those seeking a better life in richer countries. Immigrants aren't welcome in most states, even where demographic trends reflect the need to expand the labor force to levels able to sustain and support aging populations.

• OPINION

  What Italy's power crash means for the EU: It's all bad

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 07/03/2018

  » Power has crashed down in Italy -- in two senses.

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