The Joy of Six 1285

"When I retired from professional chess in 2005, I channeled all of my energy into preventing Russia from sliding back into the hands of the KGB, the Soviet Union’s secret police and most sinister spy agency. Unfortunately, those efforts were unsuccessful: Vladimir Putin consolidated power and rebuilt an authoritarian state in the image of the Soviet regime under which I was born. Facing imminent arrest, I was forced into exile and have lived in New York since 2013. I never thought I would need to warn Americans about the dangers of dictatorship." Garry Kasparov endorses Kamala Harris.

James Chapman argues that, by backing Donald Trump, senior Conservatives have shown how far their party has fallen.

Anna Merlen says this Presidential election has seen some of America’s richest people promote - and apparently believe - ludicrous hoaxes.

"About a quarter of Europe’s bird population has been wiped out in the last four decades – that is half a billion fewer birds in the sky today compared with 1980. Four in 10 European tree species are classed as threatened, butterfly numbers are down by about a third, one in 10 bee species are dying out, and two-thirds of the habitats of ecological importance are in an unfavourable condition. A fifth of European species face extinction." Fiona Harvey shows how farm subsidies have wrecked Europe's landscapes.

"When November the 5th disappears, it will not be because of any ecumenical or secularist wisdom that consigns all potentially sectarian anniversaries to an atavistic scrapheap - it will, rather, be going the way of Opal Fruits and the Marathon Bar.  A holiday so close to the globally marketable Halloween is less than completely efficient from a multinational corporate perspective and streamlined advertising demands the obliteration of purely local celebratory occasions." Conrad Brunstrom ponders the future of Bonfire Night.

Joseph Earp remembers the last second-hand bookshop in Nottingham: "The Mansfield Road was once renowned for the number of 'antique' and specialist bookshops. By the 2000's only one of these bookshops would remain, Jermy and Westerman."