Opinion

Hate-fuelled, morbid and varnished with a disturbing veneer of instability, 2016 will forever be remembered as the year the world took leave of its senses. A reality show celebrity is now the most powerful man on earth, Britain has cut ties with its biggest trading partner and Mo Farah didn’t even make it into the top three spots for SPOTY despite achieving something no Brit has ever achieved before nor is likely to ever achieve again. Like the monotonous computer fix proffered up...

A few weeks back I joked about David Davis learning of an interesting alliance called the European Union following revelations that the Brexit MP was considering paying a fee for access to the single market as well as backtracking on several other mis-truths laid out on the campaign trail which would effectively leave us in a similar position to the one we voted to leave - just a few billion pounds lighter. It's a joke that seems to be becoming less funny...

Well, it’s that time of year again. The Christmas adverts which have been up since September, like a clock that’s stopped and momentarily has its time twice a day to be bang on cue, are finally relevant; we’ve been badgered to buy cards for anyone we’ve ever met, and kept a few spare in case someone buys us one late on; and, of course, it’s time for Christmas in schools. See, SENSIBLE schools will keep the Christmas kerfuffle to a...

Just when you thought you had seen the pits of this year's Christmas ad spree Labour release a re-hashed version of Do They Know Its Christmas and take the spoils at the final hurdle. Bravo them. Just when I thought I'd had my fill of abject humiliation for this year our shadow cabinet decide to turn up the cringe one more time. And what a howler it is. To the tune of  the Band Aid classic, it goes: Christmas is hard..... On...

As a native Nigerian, Nobel Prize winner and American citizen Wole Soyinka had felt encouraged that for the past eight years those on the African continent could boast that they had a contemporary descendent ruling the United States. Barack Obama rode to election victory on the back of messages of hope, progressiveness and equality, and yet he has been succeeded by a man who is the antithesis of all those things, leaving a disenfranchised hole in the heart of America. When...

Tis the season to be jolly, tra la la la la la la la laa. Bah, humbug. Spare a thought for us front line charity workers and volunteers in the Christmas period. It may be the supposed season of kindness and giving for you but for us it’s the season of begging. We’ve got a smile on our face while we’re doing it, but don’t think we’re enjoying it. As Christmas approaches, and in turn the end of the fundraising...

Conservationists, scientists, farmers and psychologists met yesterday at London Zoo to discuss the future of our planet and its capacity for sustaining life. Despite grim forecasts of a Mad-Max-style landscape, those speaking at the event offered some hope as they outlined our potential survival strategies. The one day symposium revolved around findings of the 2016 Living Planet Report, a planetary health check carried out every two years by the WWF, ZSL and others. Published just last month, the most recent...

If you ever need an example of the capitalist decay of our society then look no further than the pagan come Christian come corporate festival that is Christmas. This weekend, buffered by Black Friday and Cyber Monday, households up and down the country erected their Christmas tree in fervent anticipation of a single day so skewed by corporate trife that it's lost any semblance of meaning. Where religion adopted a pagan festival consmerism has since wiped the floor with sparkling...

Anyone still listening to the bookmakers, papers or polls might think the Richmond by election is a shoe-in for former Mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith. Unchallenged by the Tories he only has Lib Dem newcomer Sarah Olney and Labour's Christian Wolmar to defeat. But nothing has the capability to disrupt political certainties like Britain's shock departure from the EU, and Brexiter Goldsmith is now fighting a war on two fronts. Take a walk through the leafy streets of the south West...