Palestinians deserve a better leader than Mahmoud Abbas. Last month, the president of the Palestinian Authority visited Germany, a country on whose donations his quasi-government depends. At a press conference two weeks ago with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a German journalist …
In conversation with Philip Roth
Perhaps too much of Philip Roth’s energies were devoted to explaining or defending himself. You could not be with Philip for any period of time before he would enlist you in the agenda of “defending” him — against a plethora …
JK Rowling sees through her enemies
Fifteen years ago, on the eve of the release of the final book in the Harry Potter series, an anonymous hacker calling himself Gabriel sent the following to an anonymised email list: “Dear my brothers, Voldemort killed Hermione.”
The sender, …
Do we need civil disobedience?
It was over ten years ago that Occupy protestors visited St Paul’s cathedral. Many of those involved have now graduated to Extinction Rebellion. And over the next few weeks they plan to take to the streets of London, Cardiff and …
The Shamima Begum delusion
Our national conversation on Shamima Begum, which ebbs and flows according to the imperatives of Begum’s legal team and a simultaneously cynical and naïve mass media, is saturated in bullshit. For her detractors, the 23-year-old East-London runaway is a danger …
Why the West should have more kids
Kristina Ozturk is about as far from the model of Soviet motherhood as can be imagined. A 25-year-old former stripper, she and her husband Galip have been farming out their foetuses to surrogates to allow them to have 22 children …
Why the Tories turned on Rishi
Less than a year ago Rishi Sunak looked inevitable. His training for Number 10 involved standing next to Boris Johnson, spraying money at people, and waiting. The lucky contrast with his feckless boss allowed Sunak to acquire a not entirely …
The Left has mummy issues
A little friend of my daughter’s has just had one of her parents walk out, to start a new life with a new partner. Given that they were a heterosexual couple, and based on your observations about the world, can …
The rise of Jihadi prison gangs
By the last count, there were more than 200 convicted terrorists — most Islamist, but some far-Right — currently housed at Her Majesty’s pleasure in British prisons, with a further 200 or so convicted of other offences but deemed similarly …
Britain’s pawnbrokers are booming
William Hogarth was no fan of pawnbroking. In his 1751 print Gin Lane, he portrayed a Mr Gripe seizing a saw from a carpenter and cooking pots from a housewife in exchange for cash they would fritter on cheap gin. …
You are already in the metaverse
The metaverse is going to change everything. And it’s already here. But what the hell is it?
In 2021, it seemed that every major technology executive took a stance on the metaverse, a new concept for the internet. Mark Zuckerberg …
Liverpool has been seduced by gangs
I was 12 when we moved to the Cantril Farm Estate in Knowsley. It was July 1976, and we didn’t have much choice: my family had been included in a housing deal to relocate 200,000 council tenants to one of …
Bambi’s mum had to die
When Sergei Eisenstein saw Bambi, he was highly impressed. The great Soviet film director, responsible for such world classics as Battleship Potemkin and Alexander Nevsky, pronounced Walt Disney’s fifth feature-length animated film “a shift towards ecstasy“, which represented “the greatness …
Putin wants Poland to invade Ukraine
Six months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Poland has arguably become the war-torn country’s most ardent ally on the European continent. By some measures, it has committed more military assistance to Ukraine than any other country besides the United States, …
What is it like to be a dolphin?
Imagine you are at the seaside. Sunlight is hitting the surface of the ocean. Some wavelengths of light pass into the water, while others bounce off it, scattering in all directions. A tiny fraction of reflected light happens to reach …