Martin Ivens

The budget has unnecessarily annoyed pensioners, farmers and parents sending their kids to private schools.

Should Germany look east or west? Is the nation's destiny to become a European Germany or to lead a German Europe? Thomas Mann's contribution to these debates was seminal.

The prime minister has so far remained aloof from a crucial debate about morality and the state.

The James Baldwin revival continues in the 100th anniversary year of his birth. A trickle of biographies has become a flood, and the causes for

Turmoil in France should make both Tories and Labour think hard about the rise of Nigel Farage's Reform UK Party.

Having been entranced by a vision of the youthful Marie Antoinette, “glittering like the morning star”, Edmund Burke raged at the Queen of France's execution at the hands of uncouth revolutionaries: “I thought 10,000 swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult”, but “The age of chivalry was dead … That of sophisters, economists and calculators has succeeded”. That was one starry-eyed view, but there were others. In the eyes of her enemies Marie Antoinette was a power-hungry libertine, a swindler and a counter-revolutionary who deserved her grisly end. Had not L'Autrichienne conspired treacherously with her Habsburg family to mount an invasion of France? Yet the indictment brought against the Queen was foul – it included the sexual abuse of her own son (brainwashed by his captors to testify against her) – and her final hours were terrible. Charles-Éloi Vial's

Chronic indecision by Obama and Merkel left a vacuum that their nemeses quickly filled.

Chronic indecision by Obama and Merkel left a vacuum that their nemeses quickly filled.

On my first visit to Edinburgh I was taken to see the memorial erected to Greyfriars Bobby, the terrier who spent fourteen years guarding the tomb of his owner, John Gray, until his death in 1872. The Dog Aid Society of Scotland has added a headstone since then, which reads: “Let his loyalty and devotion be a lesson to us all”. Spoilsports say Greyfriars Bobby was probably a graveyard dog, one of many strays fed by visitors. Susana Monsó's

The parochial world of UK politics, however, has stayed relatively clean by comparison with the US, Germany, Japan and France. It should stay that way.