Innovation

Why Zac Goldsmith’s “extremism” attacks on Sadiq Khan were wrong
AS THE dust settles on Sadiq Khan’s victory in London’s mayoral election, attentions are turning to Zac Goldsmith’s campaign and his aggressive focus on his rival’s past encounters with...
Sadiq Khan will be London’s new mayor
THE official declaration has not yet taken place, but already it is arithmetically certain that Sadiq Khan has won London’s election and will be the capital’s new mayor. With...
Low expectations cloud Labour’s abysmal local-elections performance
YESTERDAY Theo Bertram, an adviser in Downing Street under New Labour, blogged on the art of spinning local-election results. He pointed to the party’s grim showing in 2007, when...
Leicester City’s success suggests globalisation is strengthening, not killing, English football
A guest-post from one of my predecessors as Bagehot:WHEN, two years ago, the bones of Richard III, a crippled Medieval monarch, were dug up from a car park in...
Guest post: Why comparing Israel to the Nazis is always anti-Semitic
A guest-post from one of my predecessors as Bagehot:THE borders between criticism of Israel, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are, like Israel’s borders, disputed. Some people believe that denying Israel’s right...
By tolerating Jeremy Corbyn, Labour’s moderates are complicit in their party’s shame
ANOTHER day, another figure in the Labour Party facing allegations of anti-Semitism. Today it is Ken Livingstone, who went on the BBC to comment on Jeremy Corbyn’s belated and...
Barack Obama is right: Britain could lead Europe if it wanted to
THE American president touched down in London last night for a three-day visit. Officially his trip has to do with wishing the queen a happy 90th birthday. In practice...
The telling sincerity of Jeremy Corbyn’s EU conversion
JEREMY CORBYN opened his overdue anti-Brexit speech this morning by observing that the venue, Senate House in London, was the inspiration for the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1984....
What the Panama papers really reveal about David Cameron
PART of the art of politics is crisis management: making embarrassments and other disadvantageous stories go away. But over the past week, David Cameron—whose antennae often seem as sharp...
Transcript: Interview with Will Straw
MY COLUMN this week looks at the Remain campaign in Britain's EU referendum. The main organisation in it is Britain Stronger in Europe, an umbrella organisation encompassing pro-Europeans from...