Well, comrades, nearly a quarter of the way into the century, how’s it going for socialism? Oh dear. Our humourless, uncharismatic party leader has decided to launch a purge, apparently. Anyone defying the official line will be expelled. Voices of …
How the truth fell into disrepute
Truth is harder to dispose of than some people think. To say that there is no truth is already to have stated one, or at least what you take to be one. Yet the idea of truth is a lot …
Britain’s forgotten European empire
When King Charles ascended the throne to the sonorous chants of a Greek Orthodox choir, the compelling fusion of British and Byzantine ceremony struck onlookers as a strange and mysterious novelty. But in one sense, it was the natural result …
Is the Catholic Church evading justice?
When Joey Piscitelli was 14, he was sent to Silesian High School in Richmond, California. A self-described “runt”, he weighed 70 pounds and looked about 10. “I think that’s why I was picked,” he told me. He was befriended by …
Has the West lost control of oil?
Oil might be a source of power, but trying to control its price is a politically hazardous business. Led by the odd pairing of the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS), and Vladimir Putin, the Opec Plus oil producers’ …
The shadow of Pax Romana
To his army of ardent followers, Tom Holland has a unique ability to bring antiquity alive. An award-winning British historian, biographer and broadcaster, his thrilling accounts offer more than a mere snapshot of life in Ancient Greece and Rome. In …
What does Caitlin Moran know about men?
It’s a brave soul that dares offer advice to the opposite sex these days. Women authors tend to stick to listing men’s flaws so that female audiences can enjoy the resulting catharsis. Men are pretty much banned from making any …
Why no one can end the Ukraine war
At an otherwise newsy event last month, Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato chief, made a low-key administrative announcement: “We are working on a multi-year package with substantial funding…”
Not the stuff of headlines, but a rather sobering admission that, as the …
Doctors have failed detransitioners
Every medical student should acquaint themselves with the discomfiting history of epilepsy surgery. Regardless of their eventual speciality, they will become better clinicians for it. As a cautionary tale of what happens when we lose sight of primum non nocere …
The betrayal of Borisland
Through massed ranks of Midlanders, I can see Gregg Wallace’s head bobbing up and down. He’s making couscous and frying some sort of meat, cracking jokes about his MasterChef co-presenter’s drinking habit and flexing his biceps for the crowd. Wallace …
How the NHS conquered Britain
Nothing about the National Health Service makes sense. As an institution, it provokes intense appreciation, and just as intense irritation and criticism. My own feelings about it oscillate between gratitude and fury. It’s our national shame, and the envy of …
A new blasphemy battle is coming
Last summer, Sir Salman Rushdie told a German magazine that some normality was finally returning to his life. Two weeks later, he was stabbed multiple times on stage in New York. The incident was a cruel reminder that, despite all …
Communism has deserted the banlieues
It is grimly appropriate that the riots across France started when the police shot a young man in Nanterre. Nowhere epitomises France’s last few decades of social and political change better than this suburb of western Paris. The English word …
What will become of Putin’s useful idiots?
Just outside Moscow, Russian migration lawyer Timur Beslangurov is looking for residents for his new Potemkin Village. But unlike the fake one supposedly constructed by Russian nobleman Grigory Potemkin to impress Catherine the Great, Beslangurov’s village and its inhabitants will …
The capitalists are circling over Ukraine
Two weeks ago, thousands of representatives from businesses and governments from across the world gathered in London to “support Ukraine’s recovery”. But was the gathering of all those Western corporate elites at the Ukraine Recovery Conference entirely altruistic? There are, …