'The government must seek to improve our lives – rather than to save money'

Britain is broken. What will fix it? Lots and lots of money

George Monbiot in The Guardian 

Lack of funding for public services is "approaching crisis point", says George Monbiot in The Guardian, and today's Autumn Statement "will do nothing to address it". While only a "ton of money" will help fix the country, it has often been "squandered". The natural solution, Monbiot argues, can only be a government that "seeks to improve our lives rather than to save an abstraction called money". 

Read more

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Why police must build bridges with the Press

Daily Mail Comment 

The police should rely on the media to "communicate directly with the people they serve", the Daily Mail states, but the force has often "forgotten the importance of this mutually beneficial relationship". As trust in the police is "at an all-time low", the only way to remedy the issue is to "embrace the mainstream media rather than treat it as the enemy". 

Read more

The West's dominance is a dangerous delusion

Wolfgang Münchau in The New Statesman

For the West, "glorious victory" is possible in Ukraine and Israel, Wolfgang Münchau argues in The New Statesman, "but so is total defeat". A "meltdown scenario" could be brought about by "financial crises, monetary bailouts, fiscal austerity and overzealous globalisation". Suffering from deep "political instability", Münchau adds, the West cannot even rely upon traditional allies, with relationships faltering. Put simply, these nations "are not playing on our team any more". 

Read more

Has Latin America Found Its Trump?

Ross Douthat in The New York Times

Argentina's new president Javier Milei is a "wild-haired showboating weirdo", writes Ross Douthat in The New York Times, and displays "Trumpian politics". Despite differences between the pair, they share the style of "right-wing populism". This politics puts forward a "clownish, usually masculine rebellion" against the status quo. And if Milei's "populist convulsion" fails to deliver, says Douthat, there may be "no inherent limit on how wild the next cycle of rebellion might get". 

Read more