Full coverage: Politics

Of the two remaining Oxford-educated candidates for UK Prime Minister, Liz Truss is in the lead. Her reliance on the Conservative party’s hard right will mean a tough line on the Northern Ireland Protocol - though not out of conviction.

The nativist storytellers are increasingly dominant. Stories are powerful. The tribal story especially so. We know this. But like many elsewhere and before us, are we also powerless to resist its dangerous allure?

Like the NASA officials who learned from the Challenger space shuttle disaster, the leaders who set climate targets must deal in a world of reality. Listening to the current debate in Ireland, it seems they are not.

Having raised expectations with a sugar-coated Climate Action Plan last year, Eamon Ryan and Charlie McConalogue are faced with the hard reality of carbon budgeting figures. It could be make-or-break time for the coalition.

In times of incredible economic uncertainty, the logical response would be to spend less. Resisting the political temptation to do the opposite is going to be very difficult.

For the umpteenth time, the French president has heralded a “new method” of government. This time, a hung parliament is forcing him to go through with this promise.

This time, French voters have clearly chosen to move their elections away from the post-WWII battleground between centre-right and centre-left. The constitutional implications and the lessons for democracy are profound.

Businessman Paul Mackay battled Charles Haughey over his finances and was a founding member of the Progressive Democrats. More recently, he has sought to highlight the massive erosion in value at the Irish Credit Bureau. He tells his story to Tom Lyons.

Former EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier now runs the international campaign of presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse. He sat down with The Currency in Paris to discuss British and unionist attitudes to the NI Protocol, changing the EU, corporation tax and identity politics.

Divisions on the far right and on the left favour French President Emmanuel Macron’s re-election chances in two months’ time. Can the Gaullists return and challenge Macron's stance as the last man standing against extremism? Thomas Hubert reports from Paris.