Shock and awe in Britain as it is announced that Boris Johnson’s extra-curricular earnings, since he left office in September, are approaching £5m. That's a lot of money. It breaks down like this. The former prime minister has been given a £510,000 advance for his memoir from HarperCollins, about a hundred times the advance commanded by the average non-fiction writer. He has earned £1,943 in royalties for sales of his earlier books. Johnson’s company has also been given £1m (not counted towards the £5m) by the Thailand-based businessman Christopher Harborne. For someone with a large and complicated family, whose pre-premiership earnings included £250,000 a year for an hour’s work a week at the Daily Telegraph, stumbling into such easy money must feel gratifying. But we’re not ...

Photos of Madonna at the Grammys are trending on social media. They attracted ugly and gratuitous remarks about how her face appeared altered by cosmetic work. Thankfully, many women, including Madonna herself on Instagram, pushed back against the ageism that flavoured such insults. But then the commentary took on a different tone. Across Twitter and Instagram, there appeared to be some anxiety about presenting Madonna’s decision to get plastic surgery as an empowered, feminist choice. Even women who bemoaned that society was pressurising Madonna into changing her appearance were criticised. This narrative is increasingly common in magazine and newspaper op-eds, and about whatever the du jour plastic surgery is. (This year it is buccal fat removal, which is excising fat from your ...

I preach in an Anglican church almost every week, and begin my homily either with, “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”, or “In the name of the One and Triune God”. It makes no difference at all to what I say, nobody seems to mind, and so far no lightning bolt has struck me down. According to the British press, however, that might all be about to change. It’s been widely reported that this week’s general synod of the Church of England is considering the use of gender-neutral terms to describe God. Inevitably the Daily Mail ran with screaming front-page hysteria. It went on to say, “Our non-gendered parent who art in heaven: Priests could stop ...

BERLIN – Volodymyr Zelensky’s ongoing anti-corruption push has brought down more politicians in Ukraine. After senior officials in the ministry of defence a few days ago resigned following a scandal involving overpriced food, this week a lawmaker in the ruling party claimed that Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov would be the next figure forced out. Investigative journalists have accused corrupt defence ministry officials of overpaying by between two and three times for food contracts, sparking public anger. Two of Reznikov’s former deputies, Vyacheslav Shapovalov and Bohdan Khmelnytsky, have been forced to resign following revelations that they were overseeing the purchase of rations and military equipment at inflated prices. Reznikov seems to have avoided resignation himself, however. The defence minister is one of the better-known ...

It is 28 years since the Women’s Prize for Fiction was established, in protest at the under-representation of female authors in literary competitions. It was inspired, notoriously, by the 1991 Booker Prize shortlist, which failed to include a single work by a woman. The days of all-male lists may be gone, but as the Women’s Prize Trust announces a new award for non-fiction today, there is still little room for self-congratulation when it comes to how we view writing by women. We might be tempted to see dedicated prizes for women as less and less necessary with each passing year, but it’s hard to argue with the statistics. By every available metric non-fiction books by women are given unequal visibility in ...

John Cleese is bringing back Fawlty Towers, and while it would be unfair to write him off before a frame of footage has been shot, the smart money is on it being bloody awful. In the past five years Cleese has become a self-appointed sergeant major in the culture wars, constantly popping up on social media and in interviews to complain that the modern woke consensus is the “death of creativity”, endlessly complaining about cancel culture while enjoying a series of high-profile platforms. He’s even got an upcoming show on the subject on GB News. There’s sadly zero chance that Cleese, who is writing the new show with his daughter Camilla, also set to star, can stop himself channelling these issues ...

At first the reports were vague, but we filled in the gaps. Emma Pattison, head teacher of Epsom College in Surrey, had been found dead with her husband, George, and their seven-year-old daughter, Lettie, on the grounds of the school. The story, reported first on Monday 6 February in many places as if it were some unusual occurrence, seemed suspicious. It had familiar echoes. And those who guessed that what had transpired was what it sounded like were probably right. The following day it was confirmed that police believed the husband had shot and killed his wife and daughter, then himself. News reporting must be dispassionate. Journalists can only report the facts. But at times, as a side-effect, this can serve ...

On Tuesday night (7 February) the US president Joe Biden fulfilled his constitutional requirement to, “from time to time”, inform Congress of the State of the Union and “recommend measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient”. In the annual address to the nation Biden predictably called for unity, and asked his Republican counterparts to work with him to find solutions to common problems. He spoke specifically about the economy, an infrastructure bill that will create new jobs, and reforms that have lowered immigration. The only real surprise was the president’s ad-libbed jabs at Republicans who shouted “liar” at him from the audience. In a pre-drafted rebuttal to Biden’s State of the Union, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the governor of Arkansas and a former ...