Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

The European Union’s overall unemployment rate is now at its lowest point  since before the continent’s financial crisis  began. But high unemployment remains a reality in several EU nations, and a growing share of new jobs in Europe are  temporary, part-time  or self-employed positions. Against this backdrop, a new Pew Research Center analysis finds that people in EU nations with higher unemployment rates tend to voice more pessimism about future job prospects in their country. The analysis also finds that  youth  unemployment rates, as well as changes in a country’s gross domestic product, are linked to economic attitudes in EU member states. Across 14 EU nations  surveyed by the Center this year , a median of 54% of adults say they are pessimistic about the future availability of well-paying jobs in their country, ranging from just 28% who say this in Sweden to 76% in Spain and 80% in Greece. These attitudes are connected with current eco...

Members of the European Parliament have overwhelmingly backed the terms of the UK's departure from the EU. MEPs ratified the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement by 621 votes to 49 following an emotional debate in Brussels. After the vote, MEPs marked the UK's exit by singing Auld Lang Syne. Several British MEPs said they hoped the UK would return one day although Eurosceptics, including the Brexit Party's Nigel Farage, used their final speeches to tear into the EU. Ratification of the withdrawal agreement, agreed by the UK and EU in October, was not in doubt after it easily cleared its committee stage last week. Signing the letter confirming the EU's consent, the Parliament's president, David Sassoli, said the two sides must heed the words of the late Labour MP Jo Cox when approaching their future relationship and recognise "there is more that unites us than divides us." "You are leaving the EU but you will always be part of Europe…It is very hard...

The crisis is not imminent. The crisis is here. The recent infernos in Australia; the storms and floods in Brazil, Madagascar, Spain and the US; and the economic collapse in Somalia, caused in part by a devastating cycle of droughts and floods, are not, or not only, a vision of the future. They are signs of a current and escalating catastrophe. This is why several governments and parliaments, the UK’s among them, have declared a climate emergency. But no one in government acts as if it is real. They operate within the old world of incremental planning for a disaster that has yet to arrive. Nowhere is this clearer than in the reports of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), the official body that began with such hope and promise of holding the government to account, but that now seems to have abandoned scientific realities in favour of political priorities. Its latest report, on changing the UK’s land use, is so unambitious that, in some respects, it would take us backwards. ...

It's only six weeks since Boris Johnson stormed to victory in the general election - winning with an 80-strong majority - but the honeymoon is over and the new prime minister now has serious government business to attend to. The coming few weeks demand some big decisions from Mr Johnson and his cabinet. So what are they - and what are the key factors at play? The Huawei question One of Mr Johnson's headline pledges in his election campaign was to increase connectivity for all, so the creation of a UK-wide 5G mobile network could play a major part in keeping that promise. Chinese firm Huawei is a leader in the field and wants to supply the kit for the network. But while the technology is recognised, there are fears about allowing a company with strong links to the Chinese government into such crucial infrastructure. The US in particular has voiced its concerns, saying it "would be madness" to use the firm's technology and warning the decision woul...

Rebecca Long-Bailey broke Labour leadership contest rules but was quietly cleared by Jeremy Corbyn’s allies who promptly rewrote them, The Independent can reveal. The episode has triggered widespread anger among supporters of rival campaigns, who have accused the leader’s team of manipulating the race to rescue their favoured candidate. Ms Long-Bailey was investigated after breaching a ban on promoting campaigns to members using party data – an offence some Labour MPs viewed as potentially serious enough for her to be thrown out of the contest altogether. Instead, party officials – including leading figures in the Unite union, which backs the shadow business secretary – decided it was “reasonable” for candidates to contact their own local members. “It’s clear the Labour Party is making it up as it goes along and deliberately engineering the rules in favour of a certain candidate,” alleged Wes Streeting, a supporter of Jess Phillips until she dropped out. A second MP said: “This...

I thought I would take as my starting points what seems to be the internal debate inside the Labour party as to why it ended up where it did in the election. Thesis number one: it was Brexit wot did it. Thesis number two: it was being too left-wing wot did it. I’m going to suggest that neither analysis, on its own, is adequate. Let’s start with Brexit. There is no doubt that Brexit played an important role in explaining the change in party support between 2017 and 2019 (and indeed going back to 2015 as well). Those who voted leave were much more likely to vote for the Conservatives or the Brexit Party than they were to vote for the Conservatives or UKIP back in 2017.  Also, on the remain side, there was a clear relationship between having voted to remain in 2016 and voting for one or other of the parties that were in favour of having a second referendum. Brexit is also absolutely fundamental to understanding the Conservative success because, at the end of the day, the Con...

One week, it’s that old Malthusian David Attenborough telling us ‘the moment of crisis has come’. The next it’s that young Malthusian Greta Thunberg telling us ‘our house is still on fire’ and ‘inaction is fuelling the flames’. Both express the key elements of today’s environmentalist script. The shrill tone. The end-is-nigh urgency. The act-now-or-else command. And underwriting this script, as ever, is the core idea of contemporary environmentalism — namely, the climate emergency. This is the idea that so imminent and ‘existential’ is the threat of climate change that world leaders need to act as if they are at war. They need to declare a state of emergency. There’s no time for deliberation or debate anymore, because, well, ‘our house is on fire’. In this state of emergency, all civil liberties and democratic freedoms can be suspended. All dissent and debate silenced. Only then will the authorities, using all force necessary, be able to do what needs to be done to protect us fro...

Not long ago there was a vogue for the work of the American experimental psychologist, Professor Jonathan Haidt. The professor writes about the psychology of moral and political beliefs. Part of his thesis is that left-wing and right-wing sentiments are not symmetrical. He says if you get a group of right-leaning folk to write down in factual terms what they think their left-leaning opponents believe, you will find they can on the whole give a passable exposition of them; they can describe views which they do not share, and identify points of difference. They can respect their opponents’ rationality, even while reaching different conclusions. However, if you ask a group of left-inclined folk to write down what they think their opponents believe, they cannot do this in factual terms, falling instead into derision and scorn. The professor claims this as more than a mere impression; he says it is an experimental finding. Can we accept the professor’s asymmetry? That mus...