The most awkward part of being a vicar is the hanging around. We used to call it a ministry of presence: hovering near the school gate at drop-off time, or wandering aimlessly at the village fête. You do sometimes feel …
Domestic abusers feed off crises
This winter is going to be the hardest in living memory. The cost of living has already spiralled so far out of control that poor families are talking about having to choose between eating and heating; just imagine being a …
Charles will be the People’s King
Melancholic Autumnal splendour was soon overtaken by the instant decay of a new administration. But lest we should have forgotten the Queen’s funeral and the new royal accession, King Charles has now twice reminded us that the Spring of his …
Sex strikes won’t win the midterms
American culture will sexualise anything in order to sell it to young people: cars, hamburgers, and for decades now, voting. In 1990, the awareness-raising non-profit Rock the Vote sought to bring youths to the polls with a TV spot featuring …
How powerful is Liz Truss?
“We will deliver, and deliver, and deliver!” proclaimed Liz Truss, sounding like a crazed obstetrician. While our new leader is taking her first gulps at the poisoned chalice of power, the outlook for those whom power likes to harass doesn’t …
The seductive horror of extremist violence
There is something horribly seductive about the spectacle of extreme violence: it’s disgusting, gut-wrenching, appalling. It’s also impossibly compelling in its extremity and strangeness: just look at it.
Anyone who builds a career out of watching such material, whether it’s …
France is haunted by civil war
Ranks of men in uniform are bombarded with Molotov cocktails, makeshift mortars, and small arms fire. Commando units prepare to infiltrate a smoke-covered urban fortress. A city burns under the watchful eye of the press, reporting on “a civil war”.…
My A&E survives on death
A few nights ago, during the graveyard shift in A&E, a colleague sent me a clip from the classic BBC sitcom, Yes, Prime Minister. “The Smoking Ban” episode shows PM Jim Hacker vowing to take on the tobacco lobby — …
How the West should respond to nuclear war
Talking about nuclear war used to be taboo. Even during the Cuban Missile Crisis, both Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy refused to invoke the idea of it. But the story of 21st-century international affairs is, in certain regards, one …
Annie Ernaux: queen of the suburbs
Think Milton Keynes, with touches of Harlow, Stevenage or Crawley. Its location in relation to the capital, though, plants the town closer to Watford, even Slough. You might just about imagine a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature growing …
The return of Satanic Panic
Of the 1,000 people who gave up their Saturdays to protest in London’s Square Mile, it was a middle-aged couple who stood out the most. They wore matching grey sweaters emblazoned with the words “STOP CHILD TRAFFICKING”.
Held on 17 …
Don’t punish Kanye West
Some images of poor mental health from relatively recent films: in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a deeply traumatised teenage boy (Logan Lerman), who was sexually abused and suffered clinical depression, kisses a sparkly Emma Watson and stands up, …
Did America cause Europe’s energy war?
All of Europe is suffering as a result of the energy crisis, but for the continent’s largest economy, this is more than just an economic crisis — it’s an existential one. Once hailed as Europe’s economic powerhouse, Germany is now …
The Tories are the anti-growth coalition
It would appear that Maria Miller, Conservative MP for Basingstoke, did not get the Prime Minister’s memo. “Still time to sign my ‘Slow It Down’ petition calling on the Borough Council to drastically reduce housing targets,” she tweeted on Friday, …
Big Veganism is coming for you
I’ve seen the Brave New World of food prophesied in Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel — and it doesn’t work.
Set in the World State in AF 632 (AF standing for “After Ford”, he of the Model T), Huxley’s dystopia offers …