Worldcrunch
The British pollsters — and prime minister — have come up short once again. The surprisingly lackluster performance of the Conservatives in Britain’s snap election yesterday has dealt a blow to Prime Minister Theresa May. Following David Cameron’s Brexit debacle on June 23, 2016, this marks the second time in less than a year that […]
-Analysis- PARIS — Just two weeks after the tragedy in Manchester, the United Kingdom has once again been hit by a terror attack. And it was carried out with a modus operandi we’ve become familiar with: A van rams into pedestrians in a busy area before the terrorists go on a killing spree, weapons in […]
“Enough is enough.” Theresa May’s remarks after Islamists killed seven and wounded dozens Saturday evening in London — the UK’s third major terror attack in three months — amounted to both a new message and a new tone. The British Prime Minister took aim at the “evil ideology of Islamist extremism” and boldly took a […]
News broke shortly after 10:30 p.m. local time Monday night: an explosion at an Ariana Grande concert in the northern British city of Manchester. At least 22 people were confirmed dead and 60 injured in an attack authorities are investigating as an act of terrorism. Islamic terror group ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack early […]
High crosses like this one were a regular feature along the road whenever we drove through the Celtic areas of Europe — like Brittany, Wales, or here in Cornwall. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
-OpEd- WASHINGTON — Late last summer, my wife and I took a ferry from Doolin, on the West coast of Ireland, to Inishmore, the smallest of the three Aran Islands. The tiny ferry, with perhaps no more than 30 or 40 people aboard, was filled with mostly European passengers.The ocean was rough; a short trip […]
-OpEd- LONDON — Who can blame UK Prime Minister Theresa May for calling an election now, as her own Conservative party mandarins have been urging? Her party enjoys a 21-percentage-point lead in the polls. The opposition Labour Party is weak and divided, and the economy has yet to register the expected wobbles in the wake of last year’s vote to leave the European Union. What better time to crush the opposition and beef up the Conservatives’ 17-seat majority? Yet her decision is as strategically flawed as it is tactically clever. First, she risks losing credibility. Having promised not to get […]
As British Prime Minister Theresa May starts the clock on Britain’s departure from the European Union, there’s no real question that the divorce is going to hurt both parties — and Britain, to be sure, much more than the EU. But this isn’t to say there’s no upside. The right kind of deal will recognize these opportunities and try to make the most of them. This whole misadventure began with historic errors of judgment — former Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to call a referendum on U.K. membership, and Europe’s decision to deny him significant concessions in the talks that […]
When Big Ben struck midnight, its bells didn’t just signal the start of a new day. They also marked a sea change in geopolitics. That was the moment Prime Minister Theresa May chose to sign a letter of intent that officially begins the UK’s departure from the EU. The date had been marked on everyone’s […]
The half-timbered Feathers Hotel in Ludlow, western England, is a gem of Tudor architecture. Strangely enough, when I took this picture, all I could think of was the time it must take to clean the inn’s dozens of diamond-paneled windows … See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
As you may remember, I used to conduct a traditional French music choir in my hometown. This shot was from a memorable trip abroad, to Wales, where we’d been invited to the famed Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod folk festival. The tall and handsome man signing autographs like a celebrity was not only a strong tenor […]
— Analysis — To be clear from the start: No, he is not Ronald Reagan and she is not Margaret Thatcher — and this certainly is not 1981. Still, any false analogies aside, today’s White House meeting between brand new U.S. President Donald Trump and newish British Prime Minister Theresa May is charged with the […]
Legendary 18th-century Scottish economist Adam Smith is buried at the Canongate Kirkyard in Edinburgh, in the shadow of the iconic cliffs of Salisbury Crags. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
On the northwestern coast of Wales, my wife Claudine was pacing the ramparts of Harlech Castle, looking out toward the peaceful Welsh countryside. Some 700 years ago, watchmen walking the same path would have been looking at the sea, which has since retreated. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
Nearly all of the data sent between continents goes through fiber optic cables that reside at the bottom of the ocean. It’s a delicate and costly, but essential, network for our daily lives and work.
Neither Thanksgiving nor the Friday after is a day off for British workers-shoppers. But there are even more reasons that the imported retail ritual is pointless.
In the heart of the colorful moor of southern England, the Postbridge clapper bridge was built with large flat stones back in the 14th century. Beauty meets utility.
LONDON — In most of the developed world, central banks are free to set monetary policy without the interference of those who depend on voters for their employment. That independence, though, is “not set in stone,” as former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan noted in his September 2007 memoirs. And there are worrying signs that, against the current backdrop of record-low interest rates, politicians are tempted to start meddling. The latest attack on independence comes from a very unlikely source. In an article for the Telegraph newspaper published on Tuesday, former U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague wrote that “central bankers […]
When I visited the prehistoric site of Stonehenge in southern England, it was still possible to walk among, and even touch, the megaliths. Not for long, though: A year later, the damage to the standing stones caused by erosion forced the authorities to start keeping visitors at a safe distance.
The quaint fishing harbor of Polperro, on southwestern England“s Cornwall coast, is having a hard time delivering on its promise: Unscrupulous parking lot owners have been known to capitalize on car park fees.
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It would not be surprising if a mural on government surveillance that went missing last month turned up for sale on the art market. The Spy Booth artwork in the town of Cheltenham in England, created by British artist Banksy, was removed from the wall it had lived on for two years. The mural, which […]
PARIS — So far, so good. The collapse of the British economy predicted by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, in a case of a Brexit victory, has not materialized. The services sector, which represents 80% of the UK’s GDP even rebounded unexpectedly in August, and business activity recovered its level of March, […]
-OpEd- As I walk through central London, I see many women wearing burqas passing me by. And as I’ve always felt in that sort of situation, I was uncomfortable. Physically and morally uncomfortable. They say you’re not supposed to feel such things. Nor to write about them. What right, indeed, do I have to impose […]
LONDON — Britain’s departure from the European Union would have immediate far-reaching consequences for the British job market as hundreds of thousands of British and European Union citizens want to leave the UK to work on the continent instead, according to a recent survey by the StepStone global private markets specialist found. Some 600,000 British-based […]
Now that two of the world’s five biggest economies – Germany and Britain – are headed by women, and the biggest one of all, the U.S., has a woman front-runner in its presidential election, the glass ceiling in politics can probably be declared broken, and it’s time to consider what kind of change this brings to the world. The overall statistics of female leadership do not look particularly encouraging. There are fewer women heads of government today than there were last year. Not even 5% of government leaders are women. Yet they are winning where it matters: If there were […]
SPOTLIGHT: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow It’s been a hairy few days in European politics. In what is being dubbed “CoiffeurGate“, French satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchainé revealed that President Francois Hollande has a full-time hairdresser who earns 9,895 euros a month (over $10,000), about the same salary as a government minister. Bemused French citizens are […]