Every so often, the French like to scare themselves. They convince themselves that the political consensus of the past six decades is about to be torn apart. This year is no different.
A month ago, the opinion polls suggested that …
How art cured Edvard Munch
The characters depicted in Edvard Munch’s paintings are rarely having a good time. Lamp-lit streets are thronged by haunted faces. Characters sit hunched over small tables in dim and dark bars, nursing glasses of wine, their gaze fixed on the …
The desperation of Biden’s Disinformation Board
In 1918, Woodrow Wilson’s Democratic administration passed a piece of legislation it hoped would accelerate the end of the First World War. The new law didn’t directly concern the military — nor was it a revolutionary act of foreign policy. …
The battle for Moldova
Chișinău, Moldova
There’s a joke in Moldova that the country could defend itself against a Russian invasion for two hours, that being the length of time it would take a tank to drive into the capital Chișinău from the Russian-backed …
Sinn Féin won the demographic war
When I was researching my first book, which was about demography and ethnic conflict, I met with a well-known Sinn Féin politician in his Stormont office. I wanted to understand whether the elevated Catholic birth rate in Northern Ireland during …
Scotland has never been so divided
The SNP’s triumph in last week’s Scottish elections came as no surprise: it was the party’s 11th election victory in a row. Instead, it was the downfall of the Scottish Tories and resurgence of Scottish Labour in second place that …
A united Ireland is not inevitable
By all accounts, last week’s election to the Northern Ireland Assembly was destined to confirm the start of a revolution in the politics of the Province. With a Sinn Féin victory anticipated, the distant prospect of a united Ireland was …
Bill Gates wants to build a dystopia
It’s not easy being a regular multi-billionaire. Bill Gates used to be the simple guy-in-the-mansion next door, worried about virus outbreaks and global warming. Then, during the pandemic he became the point at which all conspiracy theories met.
Ever since …
Dr Strange and the perils of the multiverse
This is a story about choices and consequences, so let’s start with DC’s decision in 1961 to publish a landmark issue of The Flash called “Flash of Two Worlds!” In the story, created by Gardner Fox and Carmen Infantino, the …
My autogynephilia story
Autogynephilia — literally “to love oneself as a woman” — is controversial stuff. Men are not supposed to fancy themselves; at least they weren’t when I grew up in the Eighties. Back then, the idea that any of us might …
Inside the battle on the Eastern Front
Barbed wire knots together sky and earth. Burned-out vehicles, modern-day carcasses of industrial warfare, dot the landscape. The ground is strafed and cratered: Eastern Ukraine has been disembowelled by shelling. The war here is fought with 21st-century drone technology, but …
The emptiness of being queer
What does “queer” mean to you? For many older gays and transsexuals, it’s an unpleasant reminder of past homophobic encounters, some of them physically threatening. Yet thanks to its positive recuperation over the last 30 years, today queerness means something …
Pro-choice Republicans could rescue Kansas
Growing up in Kansas in the Eighties, nobody could have convinced me that the state would one day become the protector of abortion rights in the Midwest. Traditionally a bright Red stronghold, Kansas has been the site of massive, and …
I will never give up on Chelsea
“The famous Tottenham Hotspur went to Rome to see the Pope” we sometimes sing at the Shed End at Stamford Bridge. I probably shouldn’t tell you how it goes after that. It’s certainly more profane than sacred. Suffice to say …
Did hipsters start the gender wars?
What could Florida’s legislation banning the teaching of gender identity to children possibly have in common with the skinny-jean devotees known as hipsters? Only that both movements are responses to the unraveling of settled gender roles that is one of …