A terror is stalking Europe. That, at least, is the impression you get from Kyiv. As Andriy Yermak, head of the country’s office of the president proclaimed, a new “axis of evil” is forming right across the planet, developing into …
Without socialism, liberalism will die
Brexit. Trump. Meloni. Le Pen. Liberalism is struggling — and no wonder. Since neoliberalism emerged triumphant in the Eighties, and certainly since the Financial Crisis ravaged communities from Dundee to Delaware, sensible centrists have dramatically failed to improve the lives …
Wes Streeting wants to experiment on you
Only last month, Health Secretary Wes Streeting was warning us sternly against “killing the NHS with kindness”. This week, true to his principles, he announced an intention to start experimenting upon fat people in partnership with Big Pharma.
The five-year …
Wes Streeting wants to experiment on you
Only last month, Health Secretary Wes Streeting was warning us sternly against “killing the NHS with kindness”. This week, true to his principles, he announced an intention to start experimenting upon fat people in partnership with Big Pharma.
The five-year …
Yahya Sinwar was a monstrous ideologue
Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas mastermind who had the bad luck of crossing paths with a team of 19-year-old Israeli grunts in Rafah on Wednesday morning, was an intractable religious ideologue who saw his life’s purpose in extravagant historical terms. He …
The tortured fame of Liam Payne
On TikTok, the BBC is running a livestream of a vigil in Buenos Aires; women in their mid-twenties gather with candles and side-fringes, singing One Direction ballads in heavy accents. News of Liam Payne’s sudden death aged 31 has broken …
How the City of Angels went to hell
A journey through Los Angeles, the adopted home of Vice President Kamala Harris, offers a masterclass in urban dysfunction. As you drive through the streets of the southside, and along Central Avenue, the historic main street of black LA, now …
Advice for Gen Z: avoid cocaine and learn to sew
As anxieties about the younger generation escalate, and a new cohort leaves home, a select gathering of contributors have some words of advice:
Gillian Anderson, Actor
It’s been a minute since I was in my 20s and the world has …
The danger of copying China
We live in an era in which globalisation and the geopolitical environment have arguably made a certain level of coordination between private corporations and nation-states — i.e. “public-private partnership” — a necessity for achieving the interests of both parties.
Nothing …
Don’t be deluded by delulu
The Instagram influencer — let’s call her Meg — gazes at the camera and shares “one tiny trick” for life success. Whatever happens in your life, she says, you need to repeat the same phrase in your head: “How does …
How Netanyahu duped Nasrallah
On 27 September, Hassan Nasrallah was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut. Barely had the bombs dropped than commentators were already describing Nasrallah’s demise as a transformational moment in Middle Eastern politics. And why not? Benjamin Netanhayhu declared that …
India’s lessons in ethnic conflict
It seemed like a perfectly sensible policy at the time, but with the coherence of hindsight, it can now be seen as the first in a concatenation of cock-ups. The year was 1772. The East India Company was in charge …
Labour is in denial about knife crime
In the early hours of a recent Sunday morning, not far from my home in a cosy south London suburb, a fight broke out between a large group of males. Eyewitnesses say the assailants were armed with knives, and described …
Why Robin Hood was outlawed
Every day brings another laboured press furore, over the latest bastion of British heritage to fall to the “woke” axe. This time it’s a famous outlaw: news that the Nottingham Building Society has updated its brand, to remove the Robin …
America’s decline is inevitable
In 1968, the film Planet Of The Apes ended with the then-shocking shot of a half-submerged Statue of Liberty, revealing that the future dystopian world was none other than our own. The revelation has been part of Western consciousness for …