The Guardian (July 7)
“When this nightmare is over – and it is over for Boris Johnson, but not yet for the rest of us – the Conservative party owes this country a grovelling apology. It should hang its head in shame for foisting on us a man so wholly unfit for office that he had to be dragged from it kicking and screaming and threatening to burn everything to the ground.”
Tags: Apology, Conservative, Dragged, Johnson, Kicking, Nightmare, Screaming, Shame, Threatening, Unfit
New York Times (June 26)
“The ouster of the chairman, Osamu Nagayama, 74, represents a major win in a battle between Toshiba and foreign investors who have pushed the conservative company to clean up its governance. It is also a breakthrough in a broader effort to increase investor oversight of Japanese corporations, following a series of government-led changes meant to make companies more transparent and accountable.”
Tags: Battle, Breakthrough, Chairman, Clean-up, Conservative, Foreign investors, Governance, Government, Japanese corporations, Nagayama, Ouster, Oversight, Toshiba, Transparent, Win
New York Times (April 7)
“Businesses and universities want fast, easy ways to see if students and customers are vaccinated, but conservative politicians have turned ‘vaccine passports’ into a cultural flash point.”
Tags: Businesses, Conservative, Cultural, Customers, Easy, FAST, Flash point, Politicians, Students, Universities, Vaccinated, Vaccine passports
Financial Times (March 18)
“A long-awaited showdown between Toshiba and its two largest investors has ended in embarrassment for the conglomerate and an unprecedented show of shareholder strength in Japan. The landmark vote in favour of a probe into Toshiba’s conduct follows five years of increasingly confident shareholder activism against the conservative bastion of corporate Japan.”
Tags: Activism, Conduct, Confident, Conglomerate, Conservative, Corporate Japan, Embarrassment, Investors, Japan, Landmark vote, Showdown, Strength, Toshiba, Unprecedented
Newsweek (December 13)
In calling an election, Prime Minister Boris Johnson “hit the jackpot. The Conservative government, which promised to ‘get Brexit done’ and lavish cash on public services, was returned triumphantly with 365 seats, its largest Westminster majority since 1987.” The result “bears many of the signs of a once-in-a-lifetime phenomena—a critical realignment redefining the basis of British politics.”
Tags: Brexit, Conservative, Election, Jackpot, Johnson, Majority, Once-in-a-lifetime, Public services, Realignment, Westminster
Wall Street Journal (July 11)
“The bitterness of Brexit pervades all aspects of British life and politics. It has divided friends and families, produced a Conservative cabinet with more leaks than an old sieve, split the diplomats of the U.S. and the U.K., and exposed a rift between Britain’s elected politicians and its unelected civil servants.”
Tags: Bitterness, Brexit, Cabinet, Conservative, Diplomats, Divides, Elected, Families, Friends, Life, Politicians, Politics, Rift, Split, U.S., UK, Unelected
Financial Times (June 20)
“Which tribe of politicians can claim to be the party of business? Back in the tax-cutting, deregulating, privatizing days of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the question was simple to answer on each side of the Atlantic. But Donald Trump and Brexit have a way of scrambling well-worn assumptions.” Neither the Republican Party or, across the pond, the Conservative Party remain the clear home of business.
Tags: Assumptions, Atlantic, Brexit, Business, Conservative, Deregulating, Politicians, Privatizing, Reagan, Republicans, Tax-cutting, Thatcher, Trump
Foreign Policy (June 13)
The Tory party has “bravely put party before country” and their “internal fights” have virtually “wrecked the U.K.” Any achievements the conservative “government might claim—record numbers of people in work, a ‘balancing of the books’—have been completely overshadowed by Brexit, a farce produced as a direct result of internal Tory squabbling and dissension.”
Tags: Achievements, Brexit, Conservative, Farce, Government, Overshadowed, Squabbling, Tory, U.K., Wrecked
The Economist (April 14)
“Germany is entering a new era. It is becoming more diverse, open, informal and hip.” As the Merkel era draws to a close, “many of the country’s defining traits—its ethnic and cultural homogeneity, conformist and conservative society, and unwillingness to punch its weight in international diplomacy—are suddenly in flux.”
Tags: Conformist, Conservative, Diverse, Era, Flux, Germany, Hip, Homogeneity, Informal, Merkel, Open, Traits
CNN (June 21)
“If ever there were a country in need of modernization, Saudi Arabia is it.” The newly named Crown Prince “is deeply committed to carrying major reforms to fruition. He embodies dynamism, youthful boldness and a vision of possibility. But the far-ranging changes he is bringing to the conservative kingdom and to the region carry risk and no guarantee of success. In a region roiled with instability, they add another element of uncertainty.”
Tags: Boldness, Conservative, Crown Prince, Instability, Modernization, Reforms, Risk, Saudi Arabia, Success, Uncertainty, Youthful