Stella Creasy and Richard Tice are pushing for Labour to allow a Brexit scrutiny committee to be formed in parliament, after the Guardian revealed environmental protections had been eroded since the UK left the EU. The Labour and Reform UK MPs argue that there is no scrutiny or accountability over how Brexit is being implemented. … Read more
Oil has made Norway extremely rich. We have the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, which was established with petroleum revenues in 1990. Headed by the wealthy banker and art investor Nicolai Tangen, the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), has a current value of more than 20 239bn Norwegian kroner (£1.4tr). With holdings in about 8,500 … Read more
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2025/aug/20/nicola-jennings-on-ukraine-peace-talks-cartoon
Uranus Was Hiding a Moon Outside Its Rings
The UK is using Brexit to weaken crucial environmental protections and is falling behind the EU despite Labour’s manifesto pledge not to dilute standards, analysis has found. Experts have said ministers are choosing to use Brexit to “actively go backwards” in some cases, though there are also areas where the UK has improved nature laws … Read more
Seven is a biblical number, a number dear to ancient Rome, and the number of Cristiano Ronaldo’s lucky jersey. Perhaps it is also now going to be the answer to Henry Kissinger’s (probably apocryphal) question: what number do I call when I want to talk to Europe? Maybe the answer is seven, like the number … Read more
Newly Discovered Origami Patterns Put the Bloom on the Fold
The verdict on Donald Trump’s meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders on Monday depends entirely upon the metric used. The great fear was that this might prove a disaster along the lines of the US president’s dressing down of the Ukrainian leader in February – a scenario so plausible that Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich … Read more
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2025/aug/19/ben-jennings-trump-putin-zelenskyy-cartoon
All the elaborate efforts of the European allies to prevent Donald Trump from prostrating himself before Vladimir Putin came to naught at their summit meeting in Alaska. Flattering, coddling and petting the big baby appeared to have been in vain. Before the 15 August summit, the Europeans persuaded Trump to impose new sanctions if Putin … Read more