For almost a decade, the West has been engaged in a deepening conflict. Sometimes it flares up as a political debate; sometimes as a culture war. But whatever form it takes, it is inevitably framed as a disagreement between classes, …
What is King Charles hiding?
My first political memory was an epochal one: the fall of the Berlin Wall. The grainy footage of East and West Berliners in stone-washed denim, hammering at the graffitied concrete that had so long separated them, and pouring through breaches …
Jaron Lanier: How humanity can defeat AI
Jaron Lanier uniquely straddles the worlds of computer science and philosophy. Born in 1960, he was an academic child prodigy. He enrolled at New Mexico State University aged 13, joined Atari at 23, after which he became a pioneer in …
Why should lesbians sleep with men?
If you are a late millennial or early Gen Z-er, life is probably quite hard right now. Chances are that you can’t afford to buy your own home, or even go out socialising that much. Perhaps you can’t avoid feeling …
Coronation is a ritual humiliation
As the coronation of King Charles and Queen Camilla approaches, a subset of progressive opinion can’t help but vent disdain for the ancient ritual. Just Stop Oil is refusing to rule out disruptive action (we’re facing “civilisational collapse”, after all). …
The love life of JS Mill
In our age, Victorians don’t stand a chance. Even the most enlightened of them appear to us either as quaint traditionalists (at best) or unforgivable reactionaries (at worst) — snobs, bigots and misogynists, one and all. There is, however, one …
The fairy tale that freed Napoli
Naples has turned into a war zone. Fathers are lighting firecrackers for their children to explode on the cobbles. Hundreds of flares are spewing out sparks and blue smoke. Some people are crying and singing; others just gawp. I’m sure …
Why doesn’t King Charles like me?
I have a bone to pick with Charles III. Some years ago, while he was still a lowly Prince of Wales, he granted an audience to some Rhodes scholars from Oxford at a time when I was teaching there. “Who …
Britain needs a Napoleon
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is weird. Just look at how it plays sport. It competes in the Olympics as Great Britain, while in football it plays as separate entities called England, Scotland, Wales and Northern …
The mystery of gay animals
The most famous penguin of modern times must be a chick named Tango, who hatched in Central Park Zoo in 1999. The unusual thing about her was that her parents, Roy and Silo, were both males; the pair had reportedly …
The Left must reclaim JS Mill
A century and a half after the death of John Stuart Mill, it is easy to think that we have had enough of him. Although William Gladstone once posthumously canonised him as “the saint of rationality”, many contemporary thinkers believe …
Robert Kennedy Jr: America needs a revolution
For decades, as a scion of the Kennedy family and environmental litigator, Robert F. Kennedy Junior was considered an establishment hero. In recent years, however, his rhetoric against Covid lockdowns and vaccines — culminating in him making a comparison with …
My part in Vice’s downfall
A decade ago, as a young war reporter for Vice News, I had the nagging feeling that one day I’d find my wizened older self, like an old NME journalist droning on about punk, reminiscing about the time when we …
The fatal attraction of victimising women
The erotomaniacal villainess of Fatal Attraction is something of a cipher. Only once in the 1987 film do we see Alex Forrest alone. Really alone, that is — not stalking Michael Douglas’s Dan Gallagher at a distance, or obsessively calling …
Can Liverpool be liberated from Labour?
Before Liverpool can bask in the joy of hosting next week’s Eurovision Song Contest, it must first contend with tomorrow’s local elections — and the rounds of mudslinging that have come with it. Take one of Labour’s election pamphlets, pushed …