In the real world, there is no way the Conservatives would spend their first months in power expending political capital on a referendum on Europe if Lisbon had already been ratified. As a political priority, Britain’s debt crisis puts Europe in the shade. But can they just hack the treaty? That seems unlikely too

As it is, though, Hollywood apart, most Americans seem to think that Polanski must have what is coming to him and that those who call for bygones to be bygones fail to understand that the law is bigger than any of thosewho break it.

America divides opinion, but we all have an opinion. For most of the world it is, in some sense, their second home even if they have never been there, so great is its impact on our lives. But is America in decline, finished even? Many respected intellectuals and most of the media elite seem to think so.

America divides opinion, but we all have an opinion. For most of the world it is, in some sense, their second home even if they have never been there, so great is its impact on our lives. But is America in decline, finished even? Many respected intellectuals and most of the media elite seem to think so.

WE all know that Albert Reynolds, Taoiseach from 1992 to 1994, hasn’t always enjoyed the kindest press. It’s not just The Sunday Times that has been harsh.

Drug use remains illegal in Portugal. People are still stopped by the police and have their drugs confiscated. But drug use there is seen as a health, not a judicial, issue. Crucially, anyone caught with less than what is determined to be a 10-day personal supply is not arrested and does not face jail

But antipathy to nuclear power has become a kind of secular religion, based almost entirely on superstition and bad science. It is the sine qua non of what Lenin once called ‘infantile leftism’. Nuclear power was opposed at least partly because it seemed to imply a commitment to a nuclear military industry and thus nuclear weapons

The most remarkable thing about Chappaquiddick is that Kennedy was 37 years old at the time. This was not some youthful shenanigans gone wrong. Everything about the story — the drinking, philandering, poor judgment and lies — were the man. It was entirely in character

Optimistic analysts hope the appalling suffering in Burma will inevitably lead to the collapse of the junta and its replacement by a government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. It’s a forlorn hope: the Burmese army is willing to kill civilians in large numbers. So long as the army stays united, nothing will change

Calvinism was important in that sense in forging the modern economy and contemporary society. By stressing God’s command to work, Calvinists encouraged the essential capitalist belief that secular success was also a religious imperative, and that idleness and dependency were sins