Churchill’s famous aphorism that it’s better to jaw-jaw than to war-war has never been more apposite or timely. Although the usual suspects are queueing up to criticise the agreement between Iran and various “world powers”, as far as international diplomacy goes, this is as good as it is likely to get.

This doesn’t...

We can be certain of two aspects of the current crisis between Russia and the West: it is as dangerous as it is unnecessary – and the way the crisis has drifted has been a shameful reflection on the incompetence and errors of all the major players....

When Jonas the fat-tailed dwarf lemur died recently in captivity at the ripe age of 29 years, he was the oldest known of his species. But Jonas not only outlasted members of closely related lemur species held in captivity; he also lived much longer than...