It’s Saturday night on Middlesbrough High Street and a lager-soaked man called Dave is calling the Mayor of Teesside “a fucking wanker”. It’s not an unusual sentiment in these parts, where political apathy is particularly pervasive. Dave intervention, however, has …
The cynical hysteria around AI
When it comes to whipping up AI hysteria, there is a tried-and-tested algorithm — or at least a formula. First, find an inventor or “entrepreneur” behind some “ground-breaking” AI technology. Then, get them to say how “dangerous” and “risky” their …
Pride is no place for homosexuals
How are you spending Pride month? I myself am gearing up to run the second annual Viner Award. A kind of Golden Raspberry for corporate wokery, it’s awarded via a public Twitter poll to the company or institution that most …
Ukrainian MP: why victory is the only option
Inna Sovsun is a Ukrainian MP, deputy leader of the pro-European Golos party, and one of the most eloquent spokespeople for the Ukrainian perspective. She spoke to me from Kyiv about attacks inside Russian territory, the future of Crimea and …
Ukrainian MP: why victory is the only option
Inna Sovsun is a Ukrainian MP, deputy leader of the pro-European Golos party, and one of the most eloquent spokespeople for the Ukrainian perspective. She spoke to me from Kyiv about attacks inside Russian territory, the future of Crimea and …
The Oxford kids are alright
Life as a gender-critical feminist can be quite strange. The first time I ever entered the Oxford Union, I was a 19-year-old fresher. All I really remember is getting very drunk on peach schnapps, crashing into a trestle table, and …
Why Ron DeSantis can’t meme
Once upon a time, the Republican primaries were a soporific spectacle of speeches, policy discussions and debates. That all changed in 2016, when Trump’s trolling army descended on a sedate slate of centrists; Jeb Bush, for instance, was reduced to …
Poetry has lost its violence
Jerome Rothenberg, aged 91, has made immeasurable contributions to American poetry over the past seven decades. Born in New York in 1931, he first came onto the scene in 1959 with New Young German Poets, the unintended fruit of his …
How Tokyo crushed the Nimbys
If Vienna, thanks to its extensive, high-quality social housing programme, is a renter’s heaven, where would one find a renter’s hell? London and New York spring to mind, but how about Tokyo? Long associated with tiny living spaces and exorbitant …
The Arab Spring exposed America’s weakness
When Bashar al-Assad touched down in Riyadh last week, to be embraced by the Saudi king on the occasion of Syria’s readmittance to the Arab League, the Syrian War drew to a close, and with it the Arab Spring. His …
Why Gen Z prefers dogs to babies
The last time I travelled on the London Underground, I had our Labrador, Saffy, with me. Britain is a nation of dog lovers, but I was still surprised by how many strangers cooed over her. It was startling, in fact, …
Will the US learn from Serbia’s mass shootings?
With the glaring exception of the United States, a mass shooting normally sparks a national crisis — one that begins with some desperate, top-down soul-searching before an immediate clampdown on gun ownership. In Canada in 1989, Australia and the UK …
The performative emptiness of the Venice Biennale
There wasn’t much architecture at this year’s Venice International Architecture Biennale. The German pavilion, for instance, contains nothing more than the leftover components from last year’s Art Biennale stacked in the centre; the floorboards ripped up. The Israelis have closed …
America’s fake bankruptcy crisis
Economic Armageddon, we were told, was only a few days away — possibly even as soon as Thursday. It would be, warned US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, “an economic and financial catastrophe”. Was the panic justified?
It seems not. After …
The collapse of the Leicester dream
On 2 May 2016, in a bad-tempered game that became known as the Battle of the Bridge, Tottenham were held to a 2-2 draw by Chelsea. As the final whistle sounded, a city more than 100 miles away started to …