It was inevitable that this week’s NatCon conference in London would be met with the usual mix of mockery and outrage. To some, the very concept of national conservatism is anachronistic and ludicrous; to others, it is all-too modern and …
The false lesson of lockdown scepticism
Now that the US and WHO have both declared an end to the Covid health emergency, one might be tempted to think the pandemic nightmare is finally over. Indeed, for most people, it had already been overtaken by more pressing …
Why is Canada betraying women?
Canada has a long history of oppressing its Indigenous peoples. During the colonial era, they were mistreated, excluded, had their land stolen, and were separated from their families. But this past isn’t over; it still shapes the present. In particular, …
Wolves are at war with France
The wolf is at the door. My local newspaper Sud-Ouest has informed me that I and the rest of the inhabitants of Charente Maritime “must prepare for the return of wolves”. I howled, in anguish. There are already wolves to …
How Nato seduced the European Left
In January 2018, Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg held an unprecedented press conference with Angelina Jolie. While InStyle reported that Jolie “was dressed in a black off-the-shoulder sheath dress, a matching capelet and classic pumps (also black)”, there was a deeper …
The end of Germany’s open borders
Wir schaffen das! Who could forget Angela Merkel’s one-liner on August 31, 2015 — best translated as “Yes, we can!” — after she opened her country’s borders to hundreds of thousands of migrants making their way from Syria, Afghanistan and …
Why is my gender research being cancelled?
Since my academic paper on Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria was published last month, it has been downloaded more than 38,000 times and is ranked in the top percentile of similar articles in terms of online attention. One might think that …
Ingmar Bergman’s moral horror show
It’s not exactly headline news if I insist that the Swedish auteur, Ingmar Bergman, was one of the very greatest filmmakers of all time, but when I immersed myself in his films while living alone last winter, they hit me …
How the Ukraine war became a spectator sport
In The Convergence of the Twain, Thomas Hardy’s 1912 poem on the loss of the Titanic, the great liner and the iceberg are presented as predestined to meet in their fatal embrace: “Alien they seemed to be/ No mortal eye …
Why Gen Z loves Seinfeld
Long ago, in another age, young people gathered in sitting rooms to watch television. And these moments of fixed attention, and the TV shows that create them, define generations. A quarter of century ago last weekend — slacking on the …
Restorative justice is a gift to bullies
Last month, a 20-year-old lad on a boozy night out in Coventry vandalised the famous bronze statue that adorns the front of Coventry Cathedral. ‘St Michael’s Victory over the Devil’ by Jacob Epstein depicts the saint, spear in hand, wings …
Iran is teetering on conflict
Europe’s web of alliances has always been almost incomprehensibly tangled. This is one of the reasons we still disagree so vehemently about the causes of the First World War: the assassination of Franz Ferdinand lit a fuse woven from a …
Is Donald Trump a werewolf?
Is Donald Trump part werewolf? Perhaps so, according to a remarkable little paper published in 2017, “Donald Trump, Werewolf Spawn?”, by Kevin D. Pittle and Nicholas A. Hopkins. The authors speculate, on the basis of inconclusive but interesting evidence, that …
Prince Harry is haunted by his ghostwriter
“The birth of the reader must be at the expense of the death of the author.” So announced the French literary critic Roland Barthes in 1967, indicating what he assumed was the total irrelevance of authorial identity to the appreciation …
Can TV soaps get Erdoğan re-elected?
A well-turned-out man with a pointy beard stands in the centre of a luxurious living room, looking fierce. He waves away two flunkies — one of whom is a fat man with a large moustache, wearing a pristine white shirt, …