‘I don’t distance myself from the IRA’: Gerry Adams brings his ‘dead true’ denials to court | Esther Addley

“A very happy St Patrick’s Day,” said Gerry Adams, as he took his seat in the stand of court 16 in the Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday. Mr Justice Smith hadn’t quite caught what the defendant said, and asked him to repeat himself.“Oh that’s very kind of you,” the judge stammered when he finally worked it out. The green tie and small sprig of shamrock in Adams’s lapel – worn alongside a Palestinian flag pin – ought perhaps to have been a clue.Adams used to spend 17 March at the White House, glad-handing a succession of thematically dressed presidents and supportive senators of Irish extraction

Zelenskyy says Europe is a ‘global force’ that can stand against any other power in address to MPs – as it happened

Zelenskyy suggests Ukraine is also protected by its values.We believe in people, in their rights and freedom. We believe in culture and we want nations to live in real peace, strong peace and communities in respect together.double quotation markEurope is a global force – one the world cannot do without and that no one can stand against.Zelenskyy says European leaders must protect it so “that the future generations will say these leaders acted when it mattered and that people lived in safety

Nige and Honest Bob want to turn politics into a downmarket reality gameshow

Nige and Honest Bob. Honest Bob and Nige. Reform’s answer to the Chuckle Brothers. Robert Jenrick is just about the only other member of Reform UK that Nige will be seen dead with now. Apart from Richard Tice, everyone’s favourite fake-tanned beta male

Was Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ on right or left? | Letters

Your editorial (11 March) is correct in insisting that the economist and philosopher Adam Smith used “invisible hand” only once in The Wealth of Nations: to discuss investing at home or abroad, not as a general description of economic structure.If the capital is invested at home, the decision to do that being purely a selfish and personal one, then, as if led by an invisible hand, this benefits the domestic economy.Which is true, so we’d better be careful about deterring investment at home through the confiscatory taxation of either the wealth or the profits from having benefited the society by investing at home. Tim WorstallSenior fellow, Adam Smith Institute, London You address one popular legend with evidence from another; the idea that Marx was an advocate of the “iron law of wages”. In reality, Marx, like Smith, believed that growth could lift wages and living standards in a society defined by wage labour and capital; but he also believed that the transcendence of the wages system was desirable, or else workers would be temporarily “encrusting their chains with gold”

UK nationals fleeing Middle East reach 100,000 as evacuation efforts continue

The number of UK nationals flown back from the Middle East since the start of the conflict with Iran reached 100,000 on Tuesday, Britain’s foreign secretary has said.Yvette Cooper told parliament this is a third of the 300,000 who were in the region at the outset of hostilities, many of whom were stuck when airspace was closed. The figure included tourists and Gulf residents who have temporarily left.Fellow MPs urged Cooper to help many British citizens who were still stuck in the region and those who were said to be struggling to get extensions for visas in the countries where they had gone on holiday before the US and Israeli strikes on Iran.Cooper also provided an update on Britain’s part in discussions that could see an international coalition involved in opening the strait of Hormuz, adding that this was “separate from the conflict”

Being in Sinn Féin not the same as being in the IRA, Gerry Adams tells high court

Gerry Adams has told the high court that opponents of Sinn Féin have repeatedly sought to conflate the political party he led with the IRA, as he denied ever being a member of the Irish Republican Army.Giving evidence in London watched by victims of IRA bombings, the 77-year-old, credited with helping to bring about the peace process that ended the Troubles, also rejected accusations that he had ever led the paramilitary organisation or sat on its army council.Adams is being sued for symbolic “vindicatory” damages of £1 each by John Clark, Jonathan Ganesh and Barry Laycock. They claim he was an IRA member, sat on its army council and was culpable for the 1973 Old Bailey bombing, and the London Docklands and Manchester bombings in 1996 in which they were respectively injured.Adams, who entered the witness box wearing a shamrock and a badge of the Palestinian flag, said in his witness statement: “To be clear, membership of the political party, Sinn Féin, does not equate to membership of the IRA