Attention Schlachtbummelers: here's an eloquent defence of Chinese military prowess, with specific reference to the Sino-Dutch war over Taiwan. I'm not sure the comparison bears as much weight as the article says. A ragtag colonial garrison at the far end...

From vomiting and food abstention to mastication and ‘reducing salons’, a new book shows that weight-loss regimes have a long, weird and unhealthy history.

If we're talking about 6.65% of the body weight gained during pregancy then that's a good thing, but if it's the amount the annual return on a pension plan missed its assumptions, then not so good! This is a follow-up to the article "The Public Pension Time Bomb!" that discussed the ballooning pension liabilities of towns, cities and states coupled with shrinking tax bases, shrinkin...

Rome would push Berlin to realise it was in ‘its own enlightened self-interest’ to give fiscal weight to lowering costs of Italy and other nations

One of the great benefits of democracy over totalitarianism is its ability to criticize openly and scrutinize the major decisions of government. If weight of public and political opinion is against a particular decision, there are inevitably dissenters within the machinery of government. Whilst this doesn’t prevent damaging and foolhardy decisions from being made, it

This time last year I set myself 3 personal goals - to lose weight (achieved, 2½ stone down), fix my teeth (achieved) and get trendy new glasses (failed). I never thought for a moment I'd be a father again, or that my career would be taking off, or that I would be writing for a magazine. Maybe these predictions will be more spot-on: 1. There won't be a General Election, Cameron an...

Whenever politicians talk about social care, they tend to promise ‘cross-party talks’. It's their little euphemism for ‘we don't want to commit to a policy by ourselves.’ Don't get them wrong, it's not that they don't have ideas for fixing a system that is straining under the weight of an ageing population; the Dilnot report, released earlier this y...

The European Parliament's environment committee has thrown its weight behind binding energy efficiency targets for member states in a vote held yesterday (20 December). However, there it little chance that these will survive in later versions of the draft energy efficiency directive, EurActiv was told. More »

Thousands of hectares of British forests have been sold off as the agency charged with protecting them struggles under the weight of government financial targets.

Deputy PM says veto ‘bad for Britain’ and will make it harder for country to punch its weight globally