@philipstephens
Writer, historian, Contrib Ed, FT, Robert Bosch Fellow, Berlin, author These Divided Isles, and Britain Alone (both Faber), British, Irish and European. philipstephens.substack.com, philipstephens.net
"On the flight out of Baghdad, he ordered champagne but was told the Iraqi airline had none on board. He then showed the air hostess a photo of himself with Saddam. Within moments, a full bottle appeared."
(for non FT subscribers)
Applications are now open for the 13th Clara Marina O’Donnell fellowship, full details below.
Start date: October 2026 for six months
Pay: London Living Wage
Applications in by: 09/04/26
@centreeuropeanref.bsky.social @brookings.edu @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social
buff.ly/3vV64SZ
Now hearing from Green Party members that we can’t save the planet until we’ve abolished capitalism…looks like we are all going to fry….
Absolutely terrific work by Jim Waterson....there are still some real journalists out there!
A great, unselfish, journalist who shared his warmth, wit and wisdom with younger colleagues...As Alain says a reason we were so lucky to work at the FT
Roger Matthews: a lovely guy and a terrific journalist, 1941-2026 RIP
open.substack.com/pub/theconst...
👀
Pity we no longer have an authentically "green" party....
In the new world disorder the markets are the strongest advocates for peace.....
FT: Middle East war live: Stocks and bonds tumble as oil soars past $100 a barrel.
Or how the Greens became the Corbynistas....
www.ft.com/content/a60e...
As far as he has fallen it seems Blair can stoop still lower....this from a week or so ago...
philipstephens.substack.com/p/the-fall-a...
Back to the beginning...thrilled to be returning to the city where I learned to love history to talk, well history - more particularly, about Britain and Ireland, past and future. @faberbooks.bsky.social
Oxford Literary Festival, March 29.
oxfordliteraryfestival.org/literature-e...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr_y...
Alex Younger, MI6 chief from 2014-2020 fascinating on incoherent/unclear objectives, how that works for the politics but is disastrous for the operations, in our podcast yesterday
bsky.app/profile/inst...
"Mr Speaker, as @GIGACHAD_1776 said to me on X yesterday"
Why hasn’t Starmer written Trumps a blank cheque and ordered the RAF to bomb Iran? …..is there anyone on the right as much as left who can imagine Badenoch as PM?
It was as if directed solely at Chris Mason’s latest article..
“Hanging on to President Trump’s latest words is not the special relationship” …a useful message there from Starmer for the BBC’s hyperbolic political reporting as well as for Badenoch.
“You cannot respond to illegality with more illegality, because that is how humanity’s great disasters begin". Sanchez has a point.....
Having handed the Canadian election to Carney, Trump now seems determined to keep Starmer in No 10 …
Persistence and resilience …
Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey:
"Tax exiles like Isabel Oakeshott and washed up old footballers who mock ordinary people who stay in the UK and pay our taxes... As we protect them, it's only right for tax exiles to start paying taxes to fund our armed forces, just like the rest of us".
Let's just hope the war does not persuade the grifters, spivs and tax evaders to return to Britain....
The Board for Peace starts its first war...
you would never guess from this that Labour got 15 times as many votes as the Tories in this (otherwise disastrous) election
I will write later on how Labour's defeat in the Rochdale by-election in February 2024 foretold the outcome of the general election result a few months later.....
The same Charles Kushner sent to jail in 2005 by a judge who described him as a "revengeful, hateful man".
the Guardian, for all its posturing, never does the basic decent thing that can really help tackle pay inequality of putting salaries on its job ads 🙄
The sooner it's a legal requirement to put salaries on job ads, the better.
