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Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Boris Johnson's ex-wife urges Starmer to take ‘radical' steps to correct Brexit mistakes
Boris Johnson's ex-wife has urged Sir Keir Starmer to take a 'more radical' approach to Brexit in order to correct the errors made in the EU deal struck by her former husband. Marina Wheeler, a human rights lawyer, has announced she is writing a new book urging the prime minister to go much further in his Brexit reset mission and build closer relations with Brussels. The new book, titled A More Perfect Union, will call on political leaders to admit that 'Europe is once again central to Britain's future' and argue that Britain should 'build a union' with the bloc again. It comes just days after Mr Johnson launched a scathing attack on the prime minister's Brexit deal, which he claimed was 'hopelessly one-sided'. 'Starmer promised at the election that he would not go back on Brexit. He has broken that promise as he broke his promise on tax', the former prime minister posted on X. Sir Keir – who has made a Brexit reset a centrepiece of his administration – said last week's UK-EU summit marks a 'new era' of relations with the bloc, adding that it is about 'moving on from stale old debates' and 'looking forward, not backwards'. The deal - which was the first serious attempt to fix the harms caused by Brexit after Boris Johnson's flawed deal in late 2019 - was seen as a major coup for the prime minister, despite his failure to get concrete details agreed on defence and youth mobility. Ms Wheeler's publisher, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, said her book would compare her ex-husband's Brexit deal to a divorce settlement. 'Like a court order in a divorce, the Brexit deal contains our bare legal obligations', they said. 'Yet as dangerous forces gather and global technologies stoke animosity, we have a wider duty. If Britain and Europe can't work together, what chance do democracy and the rule of law have?', the publisher said. Ms Wheeler added: 'Nearly 10 years after Britain voted to leave the EU, the unstable state of the world is clear to us all. Less obvious is the extraordinary opportunity this presents to put right what went wrong before and build a Europe we can together defend." The human rights barrister was married to Mr Johnson for 25 years, separating in 2018 after having four children. The book's synopsis reads: 'Labour aims for a 'reset'. Barrister and mediator Marina Wheeler proposes something more radical: a roadmap towards a meaningful rapprochement. 'In A More Perfect Union, she tackles the political anxieties and identity crises on both sides of the Channel, and makes the case that transforming this relationship is now critical if our fundamental political liberties are to survive another generation. 'Concise, forensic, devastating, it is essential reading no matter which side you were on.' The government has been contacted for comment.
The Hindu
07-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
'38 Londres Street' by Philippe Sands: A Gripping Legal Thriller on Pinochet and Nazi Crimes
Published : May 07, 2025 18:10 IST - 4 MINS READ One Friday in October 1998, a little after 3 pm, an extraordinary fax arrived at Scotland Yard. It was from a judge in Spain. 'I order,' it read, 'the pre-trial detention of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte for the crimes of genocide and terrorism, issuing international search and capture orders to permit his extradition. The urgent issuance of an international arrest warrant for execution by the British judicial authorities.' This was the first ever warrant issued for a former head of state for international crimes. Pinochet ran a military dictatorship in Chile from 1973 to 1990, a brutal regime where at least 40,000 people were illegally detained or tortured and at least 3,000 killed or disappeared. When the 82-year-old arrived in London for a back operation, he had been eight years out of power but confident that his diplomatic immunity protected him. Until he was abruptly awakened in his bed by four officers (and a Spanish interpreter) who arrived to arrest him. 38 Londres Street: On Impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia By Philippe Sands Weidenfeld & Nicolson Pages:432 Price:Rs.899 The Spanish judge's two-line fax set in motion a years-long judicial saga straddling questions of international law, human rights violations, and diplomatic niceties. The big legal question that loomed was this: can a former head of state be tried for crimes in another country or does he enjoy immunity? But the broader issues raised went beyond the technicality: they encompassed ideas of justice and reparations, memory, and morality. The barrister, academic and international law expert Philippe Sands dives into this saga with verve and brio in 38 Londres Street: On Impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia. Also Read | All about autocrats This semi-personal, semi-journalistic work of non-fiction is partly about the Pinochet case and partly interwoven with a different but related storyline: an investigation into Walther Rauff, a former Nazi with a potential link to the Pinochet-era atrocities. The title, 38 Londres Street, refers to the secret detention centre in Santiago where many of these atrocities unfolded. Third in a spiritual trilogy Sands has taken big swings in his previous books; this is the third in a spiritual trilogy of sorts about Nazi war crimes. The excellent East West Street (2016) was a family memoir and legal history of the concepts of 'crimes against humanity' and 'genocide' in the aftermath of the Second World War. Ratline: The Exalted Life and Mysterious Death of a Nazi Fugitive (2020) traced the life and death of a high-ranking Nazi officer, and his impact on his son. 38 Londres Street is a similarly marbled account blending the personal and professional, memoir and reportage. In the Pinochet episode, Sands was a player. He was first approached to represent the dictator, a brief he turned down ('if you do it, I will divorce you,' his wife threatened), and later represented Human Rights Watch in the case against Pinochet. 'It offered a front-row seat in one of the most important international criminal cases since Nuremberg,' he writes in the introduction. And what a legal rollercoaster it turned out to be. No doubt Sands' direct involvement and close dealings with many of the principals gave him an astonishing level of access and the willingness of all the participants to speak to him freely. James Cameron, a lawyer on Pinochet's team was, for instance, a friend ('best friends on opposite sides'), a British magistrate who had to sign the provisional arrest warrant turned out to be a neighbour, while a Spanish victim at the heart of the extradition case was distantly related. There is a lot to admire in how Sands carefully unpacks the legal nitty-gritties, bringing an edge-of-the-seat feel to dry points of international law. In lesser hands we would have been left confused, even bored. Rauff's story Alternating with this storyline is Sands' investigation into Rauff. Sands first encountered the former Nazi in a personal archive he accessed while working on Ratline. The man had been responsible for honing the system of using gas vans to more efficiently murder Jews, probably even members of Sands' own family. Pulling obsessively at that thread, Sands traces Rauff's dubious afterlife in Chile. Pinochet and Rauff were friends, but were they also, as rumour had it, murderous collaborators? Rauff first had a day job selling typewriters and a side gig working for the West German intelligence services at the height of the Cold War. Like Pinochet, he too was arrested on foreign soil. He was sought to be extradited and tried for his role in the Nazi death camps, but was not. Later a manager at a king crab packing outfit, what was his role in Pinochet's regime? Also Read | Unmasking the true nature of the Empire This is the question Sands chases across Chile, tracing witnesses, victims and others with ties to Rauff. Two men guilty of dastardly crimes, both test cases for international law, both embodiments of impunity. We broadly know how both journeys ended, legally speaking, but that does not dim the ardour of Sands' inquiry or the questions he raises in either case. 38 Londres Street works as both courtroom drama and historical mystery; Sands has produced another compelling legal thriller with heart and soul. Bhavya Dore is a freelance journalist who writes for various Indian and international publications.
The Guardian
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
My Good Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss audiobook review – a life shaped by anorexia and literature
A haunting exploration of a life shaped by literature and anorexia, The Fell author Sarah Moss's memoir is told in the second person, as if the present-day Moss is directly addressing her past self. During her 1970s childhood, when every adult woman she knows is on a diet, Moss absorbs the message that she must be smart but quiet and amenable; she must be pretty and sylph-like but should never appear vain. Threaded through the narrative are the books of her formative years, by Arthur Ransome, Louisa May Alcott, Sylvia Plath and the Brontës, in which Moss is alert to depictions of women and femininity (her reading was done in secret, since her parents regarded it as a sign of indolence). Moss begins to see her body as a battleground, something over which she must exert control and power. This leads her to obsessively count calories, decline cake at birthday parties (for which she is often congratulated) and, eventually, stop eating altogether. The Scottish actor Morven Christie is the narrator: her reading is measured and reflective, drawing out the forlorn beauty of Moss's prose. She also inhabits the brutality of the author's inner voices, which berate her when they suspect her of disingenuousness or self-pity and hiss at her: 'Shut up, no one cares.' An eventual diagnosis of anorexia is followed by the prescribed treatment: an instruction to eat more and drink four glasses of milk a day. Little wonder Moss's illness follows her into adulthood, coming to a head during the pandemic where she becomes severely malnourished and a doctor warns her: 'If we do not feed you now, you will die.' Available via Picador, 8hr 28min A Death in the ParishThe Rev Richard Coles, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 8hr 25minThe kindly sleuth Canon Daniel Clement investigates another murder in the not-so-sleepy village of Champton. Read by the author. A Woman Like MeDiane Abbott, Penguin Audio, 13hr 27minWestminster's mother of the House reads her memoir charting her path to becoming Britain's first Black female MP, and the personal and political struggles that followed.
The Independent
03-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Books of the month: What to read this March from a twisty thriller to Julian Barnes on changing your mind
Anne Sebba's The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz: A Story of Survival (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) is a tale of endurance, revolving around the inspirational force of music and the sheer power of small acts of kindness. The book, a well-researched study that includes first-hand accounts about surviving Nazi death camps, is also a testimony to the strength of female solidarity in the most wretched circumstances. As one of the musicians puts it: 'Who can understand these people? One moment they want Schumann's 'Träumerei', the next moment they are putting people in the fire.' One of the more unusual books out this month is Willow Winsham's The Story of Witches: Folklore, History and Superstition (Batsford). Witches are believed to have helped stop Napoleon from invading England; in his book, Winsham notes that thousands of witches across the United States 'took part in a ritual against president Donald Trump' in 2017. Maybe spells just ain't what they were. The best reissues of March include Faber's paperback editions of three classic Samuel Beckett novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable. In the new introduction to Molloy, Colm Tóibín reminds readers of Beckett's ability to mix the tender and the savage in his writing, as well as his penchant for providing 'less than wholesome' humour. The autobiography, novel and non-fiction books of the month are reviewed in full below. ★★★★☆ Lucy Mangan's Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives is the follow-up to the journalist's 2018 release Bookworm: A Childhood Memoir and picks up as a sort of ongoing autobiography from her teenage years. The choice presented to adolescent girls in the 1980s, she writes, was to be placed in the 'bimbo box' (aiming to be attractive to boys by being 'pretty, booby, acquiescent') or the geeky box and endure 'the awkward teenage years for the bookish' as a result. Elsewhere, The Guardian TV critic offers interesting thoughts on how GCSE curricula can damage children's relationship with literature; she provides a solid defence of 'guilty-pleasure reading', including of Shirley Conran's 1982 novel Lace, a scandalous 'bonkbuster' of its time. I'm pretty much in agreement with Mangan about the value of escapist fiction, although we have different tastes. For example, she admits to being one of many adults who loved the Harry Potter books, confessing that when she worked at the Bromley Waterstones she waited 'as eagerly and impatiently as any of our child customers' for the next instalment in JK Rowling's series. Bookish also deals with reading when you are pregnant (can she be alone among expectant mothers who were given a copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting and then hurled it across the room?) and ends with lockdown – 'when books saved me'. Most touching are the moments in which she recalls her late father (who died in January 2023) and her memories of how he used to buy her treasured books. Bookish is certainly for the bookish – an affectionate, warm guide to the healing power of reading. 'Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives' by Lucy Mangan is published by Square Peg on 13 March, £18.99 ★★★★★ Colin McCann's Apeirogon was one of my books of the year for 2020, so I approached Twist with high expectations. They were not misplaced. His new novel, about an Irish journalist and playwright called Anthony Fennell and his assignment to write about the underwater cables that carry the world's information, is simply stunning. Fennell travels to Cape Town to board the Georges Lecointe, a cable repair vessel captained by chief of mission John Conway, a mysterious and reckless freediver who repairs shattered fibre-optic tubes at unfathomable depths. When the mission falters and Conway disappears, Fennell tries to find him in what becomes part thriller and part exploration of narrative and truth. (There are deliberate echoes of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.) The other main character is Conway's estranged wife Zanele, an actor and ocean lover who offers some stark views on what is happening to the waters that Conway inhabits. She tells Fennell that four billion tons of industrial waste is being dumped in the sea every year. 'If this was happening in a f***ing sci-fi movie, we'd get it, but we don't,' she says. 'If we had any sense, we would all die of shame.' There are vivid descriptions of the sea ('everything gets filtered out except the blue, it's like being in a Miles Davis song,' says Conway) and of the drinking that has wrought such damage on Fennell's complicated private life. Twist is a truly thought-provoking novel about truth, the universal propensity to 'misdirect' when it comes to our own character, and the shoddiness of the web age and what Fennell calls 'the obscene certainty of our days'. It is hard not to conclude that whatever benefits technology brings, internet connection comes at the price of human disconnection. The 21st-century human seems a very broken thing in Twist. And McCann's novel, penned by a brilliant storyteller at the height of his powers, has a disconcerting ability to help you simultaneously find and lose your bearings. 'Twist' by Colum McCann is published by Bloomsbury on 6 March, £18.99 Non-fiction book of the month: Changing My Mind by Julian Barnes ★★★★☆ Fellow oldies past their prime will surely offer a nod of recognition at Julian Barnes's ruminations on 'how memory degrades'. It arrives in the Memory section of Changing My Mind (a collection of essays partly broadcast on radio a decade ago), in which Barnes explains how he has altered his opinion over the years and now believes that 'memory is a feeble guide to the past'. Late in life he now believes, like his philosopher brother as it happens, that a single person's memory is no better than an act of the imagination when it is uncorroborated and unsubstantiated by other evidence. Changing your mind is a running theme across the book's four other sections – Words, Politics, Books and Age and Time – which are all provocative and entertaining. The section on politics is perhaps the most revealing. Barnes, who was born in 1946 and who remains one of Britain's finest modern novelists, writes that the only time he voted Conservative was in the early 1970s, when it was a choice between Edward Heath and Harold Wilson. He also offers an amusing account of what would happen in 'Barnes's Benign Republic'. Among his pledges are a 50-year ban on any Old Etonian from becoming prime minister and turning at least one royal palace into a museum of the slave trade. Barnes offers a sane, sardonic guide to the world and demonstrates why it is beneficial to have flexibility of thought. He changed his mind about the merits of author EM Forster, for example, after reading a delightful description of a breakfast Forster was served on a boat train to London in the 1930s: 'Porridge or prunes, sir?'. The book is perfect for a reflective hour or so of reading. Although it is slight (57 pages in a small octodecimo format), less is definitely more with Changing My Mind.
The Guardian
06-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Naming of the Birds by Paraic O'Donnell review
A companion to Paraic O'Donnell's's 2018 gothic mystery The House on Vesper Sands, The Naming of the Birds unfolds with rising tension and expert pacing. The novel opens in 1872 at a seemingly remote cluster of buildings where reprehensible adults inflict secrets and sadism on children who have survived a fire. The adults withhold the children's original names, and call them after birds. Nightingale's watchfulness is notable among her peers. She understands the children's situation: 'They are nothing now, and they are nowhere.' Flash forward more than two decades to 1894 London, and the reader encounters Inspector Cutter, his sergeant, Gideon Bliss, and their ally, journalist Octavia Hillingdon. Just as Nightingale is moulded by her isolated, nameless environment, so London shapes Cutter, Bliss and Hillingdon. As Cutter puts it: 'London is the belly of a beast that has flung its claws too wide. Its treasures are heaped on a midden, where bodies with hatchets in their backs have been piling up for a thousand years.' His language elsewhere – 'You creeping streak of nursling's shite' – could land him a role in a Victorian version of The Thick of It. Cutter declares that he might soon be London's latest victim: 'Within the next hour, Bliss, someone of our acquaintance will come through that door. He will be coming to give me the name of a dead man, and that name might well be my own.' Instead, the victim is Sir Aneurin Considine, one of several high-profile Londoners who turn up dead. Is it the privileged offing the privileged? 'There is nothing our betters enjoy more than knifing each other.' Enter Mrs Lytton, niece of Considine, who fancies herself one of the 'people of consequence'. She is blunt about how one becomes consequential. 'We have our places, because we whored out the right daughter, or we lay still under the right dotard, or we paid for the right war.' O'Donnell's virtuosic style, a mashup of Henry James and Frankie Boyle, is worth the admission price alone. Cutter, Bliss and Hillingdon press on with the investigation, pursued as much as pursuing. After a clandestine journey, the three arrive at the Natural History Museum's gallery of birds. Here life-and-death movements take place in the shadows, in obscured alcoves, with double-quick speed, preventing even those present being certain of exactly what has happened. The murderer 'pivots like a vane in a storm', possessing a 'gift for going unseen'. If only abuse of women and children by employers, politicians, the wealthy and entitled were fictional rather than perennial. The novel speaks to the present as well as the Victorian era; the 47th US president once said: 'When you're a star … you can do anything.' Nightingale retorts: 'It always comes down to mastery with men of that kind. Nothing ever left untouched.' Bruce Krajewski is translator and editor of Salomo Friedlaender's Kant for Children. The Naming of the Birds by Paraic O'Donnell is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson (£20). To support the Guardian and the Observer buy a copy at Delivery charges may apply. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion
