Le Journal

The former Tory MP and The Rest Is Politics host on a dinosaur he’d bring back to life, being thin-skinned and hating his bandy legsBorn in Hong Kong, Rory Stewart, 53, served as Conservative MP for Penrith and The Border from 2010. He was secretary of state for international development when he launched an unsuccessful bid to become Tory leader in 2019. Later that year, he resigned from the party to stand as an independent in the London mayoral elections. He co-hosts the podcast The Rest Is Politics and is the author of prize-winning and ­bestselling books including The Places in Between and Politics on the Edge. His latest is Middleland. He is married with two children and lives in London.What is your greatest fear? I become very anxious if I think I’ve hurt someone. Continue reading...

Mark Davis, running in Florida, says he bought domain because Republican party had gone ‘full fascist’A Florida congressional candidate says he bought the online domain nazis.us and set it up to redirect visitors to the US Department of Homeland Security, under whom federal agents have been carrying out brutal immigration crackdowns at the behest of the Trump administration.Mark Davis, who says he is running as a Democrat for Republican Vern Buchanan’s seat in November’s midterms, took responsibility for the ploy in a Friday X post – as polling showed most Americans believe the killing of Minneapolis woman Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent demonstrated problems with the way ICE has been operating. Continue reading...

Goaded by my colleague into a half-marathon, I can’t say I’m enjoying the training but I’m slowly improving, and at least Great Ormond Street benefitsMy name is Barry and I’m a runner. As a clinically obese 52-year-old Irishman who regularly binge drinks (the NHS’s joyless definition, not my own), I would love to be able to say I took up running for health reasons but that would be a lie. Truth be told, I was railroaded into it by my Football Weekly associate Max Rushden, who publicly challenged me to run the London Landmarks Half-Marathon after I had belittled the efforts of a friend who completed it by asking: “How hard can running 13 miles be?” To cut an already short story shorter, in April I hope to plod from Whitehall, past Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament across Westminster Bridge, along Victoria Embankment and on to Trafalgar Square in the company of more than 20,000 fellow runners, most of whom should finish in front of me if they have so much as a modicum of shame.I will be running for Great Ormond Street Children’s Charity, not because of any particularly heartwarming or tragic link I have to this wonderful hospital, but because the bloke in charge of their fundraising heard the gauntlet being thrown down and asked me first. Presumably, that’s why he’s the boss. In return for the £25,096 raised thus far due in no small part to the astonishing generosity of the Football Weekly audience, the charity has sent me a 100% recycled polyester men’s turquoise running singlet bearing a teardrop-shaped logo in which a small and presumably unwell child is smiling and crying simultaneously. It’s 2XL, the biggest size they had available. I don’t think it’s supposed to be skintight.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...

My jaw was left agape by this rich, moving spinoff. Its two lead characters have the making of a classic comic double actThe Game of Thrones franchise has fruited again, like an abundant oak. Where’s left to go? A startling opening, in which a lumbering oaf takes a dump behind a tree, gives us a clue. Chronologically, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (Monday 19 January, 9pm, Sky Atlantic) sits between the juggernaut original and its courtly prequel, House of the Dragon. Tonally, it’s in a world of its own.That oaf eventually gets a name: Dunk. Contrary to expectation, Dunk is a knight. Specifically, a “hedge knight”, a lower-status category whose kind cannot afford their keep and must sleep under trees. “Any knight can make a knight” we are reminded, by simply dubbing them. This lack of gatekeeping has resulted in a class system in which highborn valiants scorn their ignoble brethren. They are knights in name only, and only just. Of course, there’s nothing just about this. Continue reading...

From Clarissa Strozzi and Charles V to Tom Parker and Walt Disney, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz1 What did LA plumber George Holliday videotape on 3 March 1991?2 Named after a Greek god, what is Earth’s largest land biome?3 Abigail, in November 2015, was the first what?4 Which literary character says, “Come not, Lucifer! I’ll burn my books!”?5 Which Play School presenter sits in the House of Lords?6 What cricket fixture was played from 1806 until 1962?7 Which rescue organisation is based in Poole, Dorset?8 The Kanneh-Mason siblings are famous names in what field?What links: 9 Babington; Parry; Ridolfi; Throckmorton?10 Bleu; saignant; à point; bien cuit?11 Basilisk lizard; fishing spider; jacana; pond skater; Clark’s grebe?12 Virginia (8); Ohio (7); New York (5); Arkansas, California, Hawaii (one each)?13 Enhanced Fujita; Modified Mercalli; Saffir-Simpson; Torino?14 Ben Bradlee; Walt Disney; Jim Lovell; Colonel Tom Parker; Chesley Sullenberger?15 Clarissa Strozzi; Charles V with a dog; Philip II; Pope Paul III and his grandsons? Continue reading...