As Boris Johnson prepares to exit No 10, leaving a country teetering on the brink of recession with widespread civil disobedience in the offing, it is time to consider a heretical thought: was Michael Gove right all along?
I do …
The plot against the Zulu King
In March 1881, Cetshwayo ka Mpande, the deposed King of the Zulus, wrote a letter from his Cape exile to the then Governor of the Cape Colony, Sir Hercules Robinson, begging for the right to return to his conquered homeland:…
Why Putin can’t capture Kherson
When I lived on Kyiv’s main boulevard, Khreschatyk, in 2014, I often wondered what it would be like to see Russian tanks rolling down its centre. Last week, I found out, after residents sent me photos of the Ukrainians parading …
Don’t go to A&E
It’s just before 8am on Monday morning, and my A&E department is heaving. I’ve been on-call all weekend — I’m shattered — but I don’t have time to dwell on it. Our traffic light system is a sea of red: …
Will Macron call another election?
In April, Emmanuel Macron became the first French president for two decades to win a second term. Two months later, he became the first French president in 34 years to be denied a parliamentary majority. French voters frequently complain that …
How Britain haunts America
The rhetoric of modern America is dominated by the paradigm of a biracial nation, but history is never black and white. Fissures between national and ethnic traditions have always been at the heart of its political conflict.
Their significance is …
Writers shouldn’t submit to Islamists
Ever since my childhood, I’ve been afraid of them. I was five years old and they had the face of Iranian ayatollahs. I was 15 and they raged through neighbouring Algeria. I remember, on television, their faces eaten up by …
Why is Russia obsessed with slavery?
There’s nothing wrong with being cautious. Since 1709, when Peter the Great routed the troops of Swedish King Charles XII at Poltava, smack-dab in the middle of modern-day Ukraine, Europeans have understood Russia as a military threat. Never has this …
The Tories are criminally blind
Perhaps the most shocking thing about the killing of Thomas O’Halloran was how unsurprising it seemed. The details are awful: an 87-year-old man, known for his local fundraising, stabbed to death while sitting in his mobility scooter in a suburb …
America has an Oedipus complex
As in Sophocles’s tragedy Oedipus Rex, we are witnessing a generational drama in which inheritors kill their proverbial father to marry their mother, in this case Mother Earth. The psychology behind this pattern is above my pay grade, but many …
Is Giorgia Meloni an EU puppet?
Italy’s first-ever summer election does not take place for another month, but the outcome already appears certain: the country’s centre-Right coalition — comprising Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, Matteo Salvini’s Lega and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia — is leading the …
Clowns have captured the GOP
Only a few short months ago, the Democratic Party looked to be doomed. Joe Biden’s approval rating was scraping historic lows in the mid-30s, Republicans were building a solid lead on the Generic Congressional Ballot, and story after story detailed …
The myth of Tory Birmingham
I have a sneaking admiration for Heather Wheeler — the Conservative MP who, with wonderful tactlessness, recalled a meeting in “Birmingham or some other Godawful place”. She only said out loud what most of her colleagues must think as they …
Millennial Catholics are faking it
Christians of convenience are nothing new. As early as the second century, the sect-hopping Peregrinus milked Christians for money and fame, until they found out he was eating food sacrificed to pagan idols. But there is something shocking about the …
Race is a delusion
How flattering to be asked to recommend an overlooked book. I have the habit of sending beloved books on to friends. This is, I know, the delusion of an amity which nowhere extends to suggestions of literature. I know that …