“Can you hear the future weeping? Our love must save the world.” So ended Morgan Trowland’s closing address to the jury, in the trial for Public Nuisance that followed his and Marcus Decker’s “Just Stop Oil” protest last year on …
The political power of Deano
“Imagine a village consisting of a few shops, a public-house, and a cluster of dirty little houses, all at the base of what looked at first like an active volcano,” wrote JB Priestley after visiting Shotton Colliery in 1933. The …
Women don’t need another girlboss
Heavy lies the girlboss crown on Rain Newton-Smith, freshly appointed director-general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). Brought in last week to rebuild the CBI’s reputation after a scandal involving her predecessor, commentators are already predicting her failure. Some …
The GOP is fighting the wrong culture war
The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade’s guarantee of a right to abortion, marked the triumph of a decades-long conservative legal crusade. Close to a year later, however, and Dobbs has …
The truth about Japan’s sex culture
“Sex is where the weirdness of the Japanese peaks,” wrote A.A. Gill in his notorious “Mad in Japan” essay. Gill went on to catalogue largely anecdotal evidence of what he saw, on his brief visit, as a warped obsession with …
Pothole politics is paralysing Britain
Political discourse is stupid. There’s a Twitter account, for example, whose sole remit is to reply to anyone who provides a government spending number, by confirming how many days of NHS spending it represents.
Recently, though, we’ve gained a new …
GPT-4 couldn’t resurrect my dad
Over the decade before he died, in 2014, my father sent me thousands of emails. Carefully-crafted little gems, their subjects ranged from general advice, drawn from his own hardscrabble existence, to musings about the matriarchal nature of orca society, the …
Did City Uni censor my gender research?
“Are you not terrified? Everybody is going to hate you.” As she began the interviews for the research project she was leading, participants and colleagues asked Dr Laura Favaro if she was afraid. Now, three years later, she is haunted …
How to destroy a reputation
I am at the home of a psychopath. Here on the easternmost point of the island of Capri, the ancient ruins of the Villa Jovis still cling to the summit of the mountain. This was the former residence of the …
The football hooligans fighting for Ukraine
“Tottenham were hard. They fought well.” Vitalii Ovcharenko pauses and sips his tea, having earlier refused my offer of a beer. “I remember it clearly. There weren’t many of them and they were heavily watched by the police. But, still, …
Why are liberals pretending to be racist?
The online dissident Right has long presented itself as a dangerous, outside force that threatens the foundations of liberal society. Yet ever since Donald Trump supposedly ascended to the presidency in 2016 through “meme magic” — rather than simply winning …
Skegness is drowning
In the bright spring sunshine, Skegness is preparing for the season. The smell of fresh paint churns into the stench of the fish and chip fat as it sizzles. The metal shutters protecting the seafront booths from the bitter North …
How Wagner plundered Sudan’s gold
Aircraft are bombing Sudan’s capital Khartoum; soldiers are occupying civilian houses; most of the country’s hospitals have run out of basic supplies. On the surface, this might appear in the West to be just another African war — the culmination …
The media is spreading bad trans science
Do people with severe depression have a right to accurate information about antidepressants? I suspect most people would answer “yes”. There is a general understanding that individuals who suffer from medical conditions are in a vulnerable position, making them susceptible …
Russia’s Youth Army is recruiting
Last June, a trio of uniformed Russian teens clutching a Soviet-era banner goose-stepped past a memorial to victims of Nazi fascism. Next to them, a dozen younger children stood awkwardly to attention as they watched soldiers and local politicians coat …