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5 hours ago
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The Guardian view on combating Europe’s national populists: protect the less well-off from the winds of change | Editorial
As EU countries face multiple challenges in a new era, they must fight to preserve the continent’s social model. That means a new economic approachMore than a year after the election that handed Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic party has still not released its postmortem analysis. But last week, an influential progressive lobby group published its own. Kamala Harris’s campaign, its authors argued, failed to connect with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were uppermost in many people’s minds.As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a lesson that needs to be fully absorbed in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy makes clear, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties in Europe will soon replicate Mr Trump’s success. In the EU’s Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, backed by large swaths of blue-collar voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a response that is adequate to troubling times. Continue reading...
The Guardian
5 hours ago
We must not stop research on solar geoengineering | Letters
Bryony Worthington says the media should not be pushing a western attitude to climate strategies to the detriment of African nations. Plus letters from Prof Hugh Hunt, Dr Portia Adade Williams and Angela Churie KallhaugeYour editorial (8 December) says that it is “hard to disagree” with calls to ban research into climate interventions or geoengineering solutions, citing well-worn tropes about a “termination shock” scenario and a dislike of private-sector involvement in the field. The pretext for forming this opinion – and claiming it represents all of Africa – appears to be the brief reference in a joint statement earlier this year from the African environmental ministers.I can’t help feeling that the Guardian is being played. Every advance in human technology elicits cries from a vocal few that a line must be drawn that cannot be crossed. Usually seeded in the corridors of western NGOs, legitimate concerns are whipped up into fearmongering and luddism, with the goal of holding back scientific inquiry. Continue reading...
The Guardian
6 hours ago
The slow death of social housing – and its original purpose | Letters
Guardian readers respond to a report by the homelessness charity Crisis and our editorialYour editorial (The Guardian view on England’s social housing system: failing the very people it was built for, 10 December) claims that “social homes were supposed to be for those who couldn’t afford private rents”. That’s not so. Most council estates, such as Becontree and Harold Hill, were built following the first and second world wars to house ordinary working families when decent housing was in dire straits. Privately rented properties were often of poor quality and devoid of basic amenities.The governments then believed it imperative to house ordinary families in good-quality modern housing. Relying on private landlords and precarious tenancies was seen practically as an insult to the nation’s people, and even financially well-off council tenants could rest assured that their tenancy was not going to be terminated. Continue reading...
The Guardian
6 hours ago
Why did doctors reject Wes Streeting’s offer? It still fails to treat us with respect | Jack Fletcher
We can still call off this week’s strike – if the health secretary meaningfully addresses job shortages, real-terms pay cuts and the ongoing exodusDr Jack Fletcher is chair of the British Medical Association’s UK resident doctors committeeResident doctors in England have voted overwhelmingly to go ahead with this week’s planned strike, because the government’s latest offer fails to address the medical jobs crisis and does nothing to stem the exodus of medics from this country.Despite the government spin, this offer will not lead to more doctors in our NHS. It makes a start, but the proposed increase of specialty training posts over the next three years, from the 1,000 extra announced in the 10-year health plan to 4,000, simply repurposes “locally employed doctors”, rather than increasing capacity. It will not mean more doctors on the shop floor of our A&E departments – it’s just shuffling the deck chairs on a sinking ship.Dr Jack Fletcher is an acute medicine doctor working in the north-east of England and chair of the British Medical Association’s UK resident doctors committeeDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
The Guardian
7 hours ago
Around the world, anti-Jewish hate is growing. In Bondi, we see the tragic results | Dave Rich
After the latest in a series of deadly attacks on the global Jewish community, Jews are angry. And we have good reason to beDave Rich is director of policy at the Community Security TrustHeaton Park, Boulder, Washington DC – and now Bondi beach. Add the murders of Rabbi Zvi Kogan in the UAE and Ziv Kipper, an Israeli-Canadian businessman, in Egypt, and Jews have been killed on five continents since the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas upended the Middle East and unleashed a wave of antisemitism around the world. Anti-Jewish terrorism is now a global problem, as is the hateful extremism that drives it.The death toll from the appalling atrocity in Sydney is shocking enough: at the time of writing, 15 people killed, including a child, and many more injured. Awful images circulate, as they always do. The mobile phone footage of two gunmen calmly taking aim at families enjoying a Hanukah party is utterly chilling. It takes a special kind of dehumanisation, an ideology of pure hatred and self-righteous conviction, to do that.Dave Rich is director of policy at the Community Security Trust and the author of Everyday Hate: How Antisemitism is Built into Our World – and How You Can Change itDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
The Guardian
13 hours ago
The Guardian view on the Bondi terror shootings: do not let these antisemitic attacks drive division | Editorial
The beachside attack on Australia’s Jews, targeting a Hanukah gathering, reflects growing bigotry and political violenceThe shock and horror that have rippled out from Bondi Beach across the world are immense. At least 16 people died at a place packed with families. A further 29 individuals suffered serious injuries. For Sunday evening’s shootings to occur in one of the most idyllic and quintessentially Australian of locations, at one of the most joyous times in the Jewish calendar, only deepens the fear and anguish felt throughout the Jewish community, across Australia and more broadly.Authorities were quick to identify the attack as terrorism, targeting Jews as they gathered to celebrate the beginning of Hanukah on the beach. The two gunmen – one now dead, another critically injured as of Sunday night – fired on the crowds from a bridge. Parents ran with their children in their arms; elderly people struggled to flee. A car containing improvised explosive devices was found nearby and late on Sunday police were still searching for a possible third offender. Without the extraordinary courage of the man who single-handedly wrestled a gun from one attacker at the beach, and the swift response of others, this violence would probably have been still more devastating. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
The Guardian view on Thailand and Cambodia: a Trump-brokered truce falls apart | Editorial
The US president’s claims to have ended eight conflicts look shakier than ever as conflict reignites in south-east Asia and the Democratic Republic of CongoWhen the hastily confected Fifa world peace prize was bestowed on Donald Trump last week, the ceasefire in the Thai-Cambodian border dispute was among the achievements cited. Mr Trump also boasted of having ended war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He brags of having brought eight conflicts to a close and has just had the US Institute of Peace renamed in his honour.Yet the truce between Thailand and Cambodia has already fallen apart. Half a million residents along the border have fled renewed fighting and civilians are among at least 27 people killed. Meanwhile, in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, at least 200,000 people have fled the advance of Rwanda-backed M23 rebels – days after a peace deal was signed in Washington. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
Donald Trump is pursuing regime change – in Europe | Jonathan Freedland
The US made it clear this week that it plans to help the parties of the European far right gain power. Keir Starmer and his fellow leaders have to face this new realityWhen are we going to get the message? I joked a few months back that, when it comes to Donald Trump, Europe needs to learn from Sex and the City’s Miranda Hobbes and realise that “He’s just not that into you”. After this past week, it’s clear that understates the problem. Trump’s America is not merely indifferent to Europe – it’s positively hostile to it. That has enormous implications for the continent and for Britain, which too many of our leaders still refuse to face.The depth of US hostility was revealed most explicitly in the new US national security strategy, or NSS, a 29-page document that serves as a formal statement of the foreign policy of the second Trump administration. There is much there to lament, starting with the sceptical quote marks that appear around the sole reference to “climate change”, but the most striking passages are those that take aim at Europe.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.Guardian newsroom: Year One of Trumpism: Is Britain Emulating the US? On Wednesday 21 January 2026, join Jonathan Freedland, Tania Branigan and Nick Lowles as they reflect on the first year of Donald Trump’s second presidency – and to ask if Britain could be set on the same path. Book tickets here or at guardian.live Continue reading...
The Guardian
3 days ago
Welcome to the 2026 World Cup shakedown! The price of a ticket: the integrity of the game | Marina Hyde
In World Cup parlance, Qatar was Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s qualifier. Now it’s the big time for Trump’s dictator-curious protegeI used to think Fifa’s recent practice of holding the World Cup in autocracies was because it made it easier for world football’s governing body to do the things it loved: spend untold billions of other people’s money and siphon the profits without having to worry about boring little things like human rights or public opinion. Which, let’s face it, really piss around with your bottom line.But for a while now, that view has seemed ridiculously naive, a bit like assuming Recep Erdoğan followed Vladimir Putin’s election-hollowing gameplan just because hey, he’s an interested guy who likes to read around a lot of subjects. So no: Fifa president Gianni Infantino hasn’t spent recent tournaments cosying up to authoritarians because it made his life easier. He’s done it to learn from the best. And his latest decree this week simply confirms Fifa is now a fully operational autocracy in the classic populace-rinsing style. Do just absorb yesterday’s news that the cheapest ticket for next year’s World Cup final in the US will cost £3,120 – seven times more than the cheapest ticket for the last World Cup final in Qatar. (Admittedly, still marginally cheaper than an off-peak single from London to Manchester.)Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
The Guardian
3 days ago
The facts are stark: Europe must open the door to migrants, or face its own extinction | George Monbiot
Plummeting birth rates mean that without attracting immigration, many countries are sliding towards collapseI know what “civilisational erasure” looks like: I’ve seen the graph. The European Commission published it in March. It’s a chart of total fertility rate: the average number of children born per woman. After a minor bump over the past 20 years, the EU rate appears to be declining once more, and now stands at 1.38. The UK’s is 1.44. A population’s replacement rate is 2.1. You may or may not see this as a disaster, but the maths doesn’t care what you think. We are gliding, as if by gravitational force, towards the ground.Civilisational erasure is the term the Trump administration used in its new national security strategy, published last week. It claimed that immigration, among other factors, will result in the destruction of European civilisation. In reality, without immigration there will be no Europe, no civilisation and no one left to argue about it.George Monbiot is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
The Guardian
3 days ago
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The Guardian
5 months ago
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