Strange are the thoughts that steal upon you, a thousand feet underground in a Polish salt mine. Under the glow of chandeliers, surrounded by samizdat saints and kings, entire chapels carved in rock salt by generations of miners, I found …
Can Labour avoid the stench of scandal?
Keir Starmer is clearly no Lynn Anderson fan. On Tuesday, he stood in the Downing Street Rose Garden, addressing assembled public sector workers, and promised that “this garden and this building are back in your service”. He said this with …
The EU is hungry for Serbia’s lithium
It’s unusual for Olaf Scholz, Emmanuel Macron and CIA director William Burns all to visit the same small, Eastern European country in the space of weeks — particularly when that same country recently played host to Xi Jinping and is …
Why is a Brit running a Chinese weapons conference?
The city of Xi’an was once famed as the birthplace of the Silk Road, the tortuous trade route along which caravans bore textiles, jade and other luxury products to Persia, Egypt and Europe for more than 1,500 years. Just outside …
It’s time to flee your utopia
I was recently at a party when someone I hadn’t seen in a while said, “I found out that two of my cousins are actually Trump supporters. Like, actual Trump supporters. Seriously. Like they actually support Trump. I couldn’t believe …
The case for a long reset with Russia
As the bold Ukrainian assault into Kursk Oblast enters its third week, the general mood in the West is one of triumph. The offensive, we’re told, vindicates the wisdom of the transatlantic liberal establishment in supporting Kyiv. Suddenly, a Russian …
Tommy Robinson, England’s class clown
There is a paradox at the core of the English far-Right: namely, its quaintly un-English preoccupation with race. It’s the reason why, over the past 30 years or so, Tommy Robinson and his ilk have been so marginal to our …
It’s Disney Girl vs Oasis Man
Finding myself at a birthday party for much younger celebrants this weekend, I felt a wraith among the living. My life’s ambition to look like Michelle Pfeiffer had finally been realised — only it was the Stardust Pfeiffer, a 5,000-year-old …
America should look like Gus Walz
Whether in Chicago last week or Milwaukee last month, the obscurity of American politics these days makes one turn to illuminations from the past. Trump expatiating lengthily on his injured ear during his speech at the Republican Convention in Milwaukee …
Will we embrace AI fetishism?
In parts of Thailand, thanks to a confluence of modern technology and traditional beliefs, a peculiar transport service has emerged. The anthropologist Scott Stonington calls them “spirit ambulances”. Some Thai Buddhists feel morally obliged to preserve the life of an …
The problem with banning masks
We can surely be grateful that, more than two years after Covid mandates were relaxed across most of the United States, it is possible to go days without encountering a masked face. Even in the Democratic-run parts of the country …
Sven-Göran Eriksson, English revolutionary
First came Carly Zucker, Joe Cole’s fitness instructor girlfriend. Then came a number of other wives and girlfriends as she led them for a run along the canal at the bottom of the park. Behind them was a security team, …
How looksmaxxing went mainstream
Let’s start with some facts. Trying to look your best is a normal, even admirable effort. Caring for your appearance is a sign that you respect not only yourself but those around you. A culture of young people interested in …
Ballard predicted the collapse of the middle class
“…Cheap holidays, over-priced housing, educations that no longer buy security…
…[The middle classes] are the new proletariat, like factory workers a hundred years ago…
…Anyone earning less than £300,000 a year scarcely counts. You’re just a prole in a three-button …
The Democrats have pulled off a miracle
Making an elephant disappear is a notoriously difficult test of the magician’s art. Turning a flower girl into a duchess might be even harder to pull off. Convincing the world’s most powerful man to agree to give up his job …