One of my informal metrics for political cut-through in our synapse-frazzled age is “could you play this sentence over a bass drop and have the crowd go wild?”.
The last time a British politician managed this was early in 2020, …
Russia has no more oligarchs
Like the dozens of sanctioned superyachts lying abandoned in European harbours, the empty mansions gathering dust in Chelsea stand as mementoes to the West’s love affair with the Russian super-rich. This romance has soured with Western sanctions, which are based …
The ghost of Ancient Rome haunts America
The death of Ancient Rome wasn’t so much a collapse as a slow, interminable decay: between the second and sixth centuries AD, its population declined from a million people to just 30,000. Since then, 15 centuries have passed and thousands …
Beavers are tormenting Britain
The champagne corks must be popping pretty much continually at Beaver Trust HQ. Having been reintroduced to these isles in 2008, there are now about 2,000 Castor fiber out and about in Great Britain, swimming and munching trees from Cornwall …
The battle to control America’s mind
“How can a man in a cave out-communicate the world’s leading communications society?” wondered Richard Holbrooke, the dean of the American Diplomatic Corps, in the aftermath of 9/11. What startled Holbrooke, and presumably many of the readers of his Washington …
The Ozempic class war has begun
If you, a commoner, encountered a feudal lord in the year 1200, the latter would likely be wearing fine armour, carrying a well-polished sword, and riding a horse. Upon seeing these visual cues, you would address him properly, lest he …
Will Vuhledar be Russia’s bloodiest offensive?
The car struggles up the road, drifting through a sea of thick black mud towards a Ukrainian drone base a mile from the frontline. The Nissan Patrol has seen better days: half its windows were shattered by a shell strike …
Joyland is not a trans love story
Why is Joyland being promoted as a “trans love story”? Since its release, the first Pakistani movie to ever be screened at the Cannes Film Festival has been making headlines in the West, where progressives celebrate it for bringing the …
The myth of China’s military might
The day after Li Keqiang, China’s departing Prime Minister and the last of Beijing’s moderates, called for more market liberalisation to reach this year’s 5% growth target, Xi Jinping responded by announcing a muscle-flexing 7.2% increase in China’s defence spending. …
Margaret Atwood’s frustrating feminism
If you are the kind of person who absolutely must know where your favourite novelists stand on any given political issue, Margaret Atwood presents a confounding figure. In an era when so many fans demand that artists advertise which side …
How Antwerp became Europe’s drug gateway
Antwerp
Antwerp harbour leads up the River Scheldt and into the heart of Europe, a port the size of 16,600 football fields, sucking in 240,000,000 tonnes of freight each year. From the giant aerial photograph spread out on the floor …
Is Call of Duty a government psyop?
Even if you’re not into video games, you will have heard of Call of Duty. It’s one of the most popular titles ever made. Fans have devoted more than 25 billion hours to the first-person shooter game — that’s 2.85 …
How the WHO was captured
The World Health Organization had a terrible pandemic. Continually lambasted for its role in the public health disaster, only last week another embarrassment landed: the lab leak hypothesis, which it relentlessly tried to knock down, was accepted as the most …
The nuclear war for Lincolnshire
There are certain English villages, wrote Bill Bryson, “whose very names summon forth an image of lazy summer afternoons”. One example was Theddlethorpe All Saints. Lying on the quiet Lincolnshire coast north of Skegness, Theddlethorpe’s approximately 500 residents are served …
Can Britain resist AI communism?
Can anyone compete with China’s Artificial Intelligence super-system? Sleepy government bureaucracies the world over are finally waking up to the hard reality that they have virtually no chance. China is galloping ahead. Only last month, it unveiled its latest rival …