The Guardian
14 hours ago
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The Guardian view on anonymity in art: the ‘unmasking’ of Banksy and Ferrante should stop | Editorial
Our fascination with the ‘real’ identities of artists and writers is revealing about attitudes to fame and authorshipThis week, contemporary art’s worst-kept secret was exposed when street artist Banksy was revealed to be 52-year-old Robin Gunningham, thanks to an 8,000-word investigation by Reuters. This would have been big news had the Mail on Sunday not got there first nearly two decades ago. Still, it made headlines.The previous week, thousands of book lovers expressed their grief at the announcement on X of the death of Italian novelist Elena Ferrante, supposedly by her translator Ann Goldstein. In fact, it was the work of infamous Italian hoaxer Tommaso Debenedetti, who had set up an account in Goldstein’s name, and who pulled the same trick in 2022.Do 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
14 hours ago
Attacks on synagogues and Jewish shops in the UK, Europe and the US don’t hurt Netanyahu. They just hurt ordinary Jews | Jonathan Freedland
Too many want to cast acts of violence and antisemitism as blows against Israel’s government. But the fear and terror land on real people, thousands of miles awayLet us begin with a brief exchange on GB News, confirmed this week as the TV arm of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Following an attack on a synagogue last week in Michigan, in which a gunman drove a car packed with explosives through the entrance to the building before opening fire, a pundit on the channel sought to clarify what the attacker actually meant by his actions. “This was an Israeli temple,” she explained. “It was aligned with Israel.”By way of evidence, she cited the name of the synagogue – Temple Israel – apparently unaware that Jews have referred to themselves as “the people of Israel” for millennia, long before there was a state of that name, and that there are, for that reason, countless synagogues in the US called Temple Israel. No, for her, the Michigan house of worship, with its on-site school where more than a hundred children were in lessons that day, was a de facto embassy of the Israeli state and therefore an understandable, if not legitimate, target. Hold that episode in your mind.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. Continue reading...
The Guardian
14 hours ago
Vocational training should happen in the workplace, not classroom | Letter
In-service training is best for the workforce and industry, writes Alan AckroydThe government is taking the wrong approach by teaching vocational qualifications in the classroom (Editorial, 15 March). Vocational training should take place primarily in the workplace and employers should be forced to include relevant training and qualification packages for all staff.I have had two different experiences of this. When I first left school I entered an apprenticeship in my local printing firm. They made me competent in what they did but refused to allow me to take a day-release course (that I had arranged for myself) for fear that it would lead to my leaving the company. I left the industry for tertiary education. Continue reading...
The Guardian
15 hours ago
The war in Iran is ripping up the Gulf’s plan for stability | Sanam Vakil
As missiles fall from the sky and energy infrastructure is targeted, the limitations of relying on the US for protection are becoming all too obviousFor more than two weeks, missiles and drones have been crossing the skies of the Gulf, as a war many in the region sought to avoid – between the USand Israel, and Iran – continues to escalate. Airlines are diverting flights, shipping routes are being disrupted and air defence systems across the region are operating at constant alert. Now, with attacks extending to energy infrastructure including gas facilities and production sites, it is likely that the war has entered into a dangerous phase of escalation.Yet the governments now living with these risks were among those that most tried to prevent the conflict, encouraging negotiations in recent months and warning about the dangers of escalation.Sanam Vakil is the director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham HouseDo 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
20 hours ago
Behind the bombast, Trump will be worried: when he tries to stop the war on Iran, will anyone listen? | Simon Tisdall
Though the president wields great power, the conflict in the Middle East is spiralling in unforeseen ways that he may not be able to controlWhat a pity Benjamin Netanyahu remains at large after an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza was issued in 2024. Had he been detained, as he certainly should have been, the peoples of Iran, Lebanon, the Gulf – and Israel itself – might have been spared much present-day pain and suffering.The Israeli prime minister’s lifelong, passionate obsession with eradicating the real and imagined threats posed by Iran was reportedly a key factor in prompting Donald Trump’s abrupt, unprovoked plunge into all-out war. Netanyahu should be in jail, not committing more crimes while the powerful but ego-driven US president negligently looks on.Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentatorDo 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
20 hours ago
There’s nothing sinister about Muslim prayers in Trafalgar Square. As a bishop, I reject the right’s attacks on worship | Arun Arora
At a time when Britain has never felt more divided, we should draw on Christian values to reject hate and focus on what unites usWhen you think about the unedifying political furore about the open iftar held in Trafalgar Square, try to bear in mind that every year on Remembrance Day – a stone’s throw from Trafalgar Square – the bishop of London leads a public Christian act of lamentation in the open air. It is an act of religious observance which happens in cities, towns and villages across the country. Alongside the hymns sung, there are readings from the Bible and prayers made in the name of Jesus Christ, and a blessing invoking the holy trinity. In Leeds, where I have the honour of leading the service alongside the Roman Catholic dean of Leeds, I am accompanied by leaders from other faiths: Jewish, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim. We join together in this public, open-air, unmistakably Christian service.Over years of attending and conducting such services – and others like it such as those held in memory of Queen Elizabeth II – I have never heard a complaint from those of other faiths that such services represented a “domination of the public sphere” or that such services in our civic spaces were “an expression of power and intimidation”.Arun Arora is bishop of Kirkstall in the diocese of LeedsDo 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
20 hours ago
The Guardian view on the Iran war escalation: as Trump breaks things, who will pick up the pieces? | Editorial
The US president wanted an easy win, but the conflict is spiralling following Israel’s attack on a gas field and Iranian retaliation across the regionShortly after the US and Israel began their illegal assault on Iran, with the US president still preening himself over the kidnapping of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro the previous month, a state department official joked that Donald Trump had a new foreign policy credo: “Decapitate and delegate”. It was a reversal of Colin Powell’s invocation of the “Pottery Barn rule” ahead of the invasion of Iraq: you break it, you own it.Gen Powell, then secretary of state, was warning that wars can escalate beyond expectation and are harder to exit than enter. It remains unclear what precisely the Trump administration expected from this conflict – perhaps not least to the White House itself – but it is certain that the president was not paying heed when people described the likely consequences.Do 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
1 day ago
The Guardian view on Labour, liberals and the left: they agree on the problem, but not the solution | Editorial
From Brexit to fiscal rules to living costs, diagnoses multiply. Steel policy points to a missing link – the need for a strategy to rebuildThe government has raised tariffs to protect the steel industry. It also nationalised the UK’s remaining blast furnaces last year to keep them running. Both moves point to the same conclusion: the current economic model is not working. A series of interventions from Labour’s Sir Sadiq Khan and Angela Rayner as well as the Green party leader, Zack Polanski, this week suggests that an economic debate on the centre-left and left of politics is under way. The disagreement is no longer about whether there is a problem. It is where the problem lies.Sir Sadiq, the London mayor, is right that Brexit has raised costs for businesses and households. Closer EU alignment would improve trade, investment and market access. That matters. But rejoining the EU won’t on its own rebuild the UK’s domestic capability. Ms Rayner points to a real institutional problem. If the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) understates the benefits of public investment, the state may be constraining itself unnecessarily. That matters too. However, changing the OBR model is not a strategy.Do 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
1 day ago
Famed for authenticity, Farage’s Cameo scandal reveals him for what he is: a performer | Gaby Hinsliff
Taking money from just about anyone is just the latest example of Reform’s leader following the Trump school of self-enrichmentNigel Farage will say pretty much anything for money. Write him a script, stuff a coin in the slot and off he goes: the man who would be prime minister could be your personal mouthpiece for less than £100.Or at least, that’s the obvious explanation for why – until he was exposed by the Guardian – the Reform UK leader has been churning out written-to-order video messages on request for (among others) Canadian white supremacists, a man jailed for throwing a bottle during the 2024 summer riots, and someone apparently keen to hear him talk about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “big naturals”, pornified slang describing the breasts of a woman who could be running for US president before long.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnistGuardian Newsroom: Can Labour come back from the brink?On Thursday 30 April, join Gaby Hinsliff, Zoe Williams, Polly Toynbee and Rafael Behr as they discuss how much of a threat Labour faces from the Green party and Reform UK – and whether Keir Starmer can survive as leader. Book tickets here or at guardian.liveDo 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
1 day ago
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The Guardian
8 months ago
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