• 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

  Is populism a disease? Or a cure?

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 29/10/2018

  » Populist nationalism is here to stay. Many still believe it a phase which, like surliness in adolescence, will pass and be succeeded by orderly, thoughtful maturity. But they will find that the political world, already changed, will disappoint them. Liberalism, however defined, is not politics' default position: mainstream politicians are in a fight ring facing young contenders buoyed by a string of victories.

• OPINION

  Sometimes 'safe spaces' harbour hidden dangers

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 08/10/2018

  » Few great social changes are wholly positive. "Safe spaces", for example. Most popular in universities, they're meant to provide a feeling of security for those who feel vulnerable, a place where students can avoid issues that might cause them distress.

• OPINION

  Why Macron's 'third way' is now the EU's best option

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 17/09/2018

  » The largest question in democratic politics in Europe is: who's in charge?

• 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

  No 'third way' in a polarised Britain

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 01/10/2018

  » The British prime minister and the leader of Her Majesty's opposition gave speeches on the same day last week, outlining their vision for their country's economy -- and by implication, its society. They had little in common.

• 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

  Imagining a post-Putin Russia

  News, John Lloyd, Published on 27/08/2018

  » It's not the week to say it, but Donald Trump has a point. It isn't original and what it proposes will be hard to do, yet when he says that "getting along with Russia is a good thing", as he did before his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki last month, he isn't wrong.

• 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.

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