LONDON — I confess straightaway: I am not a football fan. Too often, matches fall well below the sport’s claim to be “the beautiful game”. Nonetheless, I am dutifully watching some of the current European Championship.

LONDON — We have not heard the expression “the free world” for some time, and we certainly didn’t hear the president of the United States referred to as “the leader of the free world” when Donald Trump was in office.

LONDON — Since the United Kingdom left the European Union, relations with its continental neighbours have gone from bad to worse.

LONDON — US President Joe Biden’s new administration has begun to show its hand regarding its policy toward China.

LONDON — When the German playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote that, “All power comes from the people”, he went on to ask the rather important question, “But where does it go?”Liberal democracy’s signal achievement in the half-century after World War II was to answer that question in a

LONDON — “Truthiness”, a concept coined by the American comedian Stephen Colbert, involves saying things that you want to believe are true even if there is no factual evidence to support these assertions.

LONDON — What is a failed state?

LONDON — I first visited Sri Lanka as Britain’s development minister in the 1980s, during the early stages of the vicious war between guerrilla fighters, the so-called Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and Sri Lanka’s armed forces.

LONDON — The game of chicken is simple to describe but dangerous to play.