On the morning of Monday, 5 April 1982, the aircraft carrier Invincible slipped its moorings and eased into Portsmouth Harbour, bound for the South Atlantic. It was barely ten o’clock, yet the shoreline was packed with tens of thousands of …
Ukraine has split the far-Right
Toby Cook was a 19-year-old with a history of mental health problems, a growing recreational drink and drug habit, and a mounting sheet of criminal charges when he decided to leave his native Australia and travel to Ukraine in 2018. …
Why Russians hated the Nineties
The Nineties were a time of American hegemony and British cockiness. The internet was a utopian idea as opposed to a collective psychological disorder. Climate change, terrorism, autocracy and gross inequality were either not-on-the-radar or assumed to be moving in …
Putin has made Nato stronger
War is the domain of paradox, contradiction, and boundless surprise. It is not merely because of ignorance or stupidity that military history is a record of crimes, follies, defeats, and very few victories worth their cost. Even so, the Ukraine …
Boris Johnson is no clown
There is a secret pact between the aristocrat and the anarchist. The anarchist dislikes rules, while the aristocrat can afford to ignore them. Kicking over the traces is proof of his authority, not of his criminality. Those who set the …
We are all Teletubbies now
Is children’s TV programming actually made for ravers? It’s a long time since my last pharmacologically-assisted all-nighter, but I have vivid memories of watching programming aimed at the under-fives at breakfast time, having not yet been to bed.
The bright …
What we get wrong about appeasement
Much about the war in Ukraine has been unpredictable. Entirely predictable, though, has been the way stories from history have been mobilised by politicians and pundits to offer “lessons” about the crisis there: why it has occurred, what its consequences …
Why Hong Kong can’t escape Covid
“Young men, starting out in life, have often asked me ‘How can I become an Internee?’ Well, there are several methods. My own was to buy a villa in Le Touquet on the coast of France and stay there till …
The myth of the black role model
It’s not easy being good. Living in a $42 million home, being worth $350 million, and stepping up to accept the greatest award of your career is no mean feat. Maybe, just maybe, we caught Will Smith at a bad …
Erdogan’s Turkey won’t save Ukraine
The Bayraktar Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) TB2 looks like the malformed lovechild of a small plane and a large, angry wasp. But if the armed drone looks weird, there’s nothing strange about its performance. Over the past few weeks, the …
Inside China’s fiction factories
“I want to influence the world with China’s intellectual property.” This is the great ambition of Tang Jia San Shao, 41, who wants to build the “Disney World of China” — a gigantic theme park inspired by his stories. But …
Will Chechnya’s gamble in Ukraine backfire?
The first month of President Putin’s most recent invasion of Ukraine has not gone according to plan: the initial drive to Kyiv has stalled; his forces have sustained heavy losses; support from his inner circle has been tentative or lacking.…
Russia is dying out
“One hundred and forty-six million [people] for such a vast territory is insufficient,” said Vladimir Putin at the end of last year. Russians haven’t been having enough children to replace themselves since the early Sixties. Birth rates are also stagnant …
How the Netherlands became a narco state
Amsterdam
A hit squad compared to a “well-oiled murder machine”. A lawyer and journalist shot on the streets of Amsterdam. A blasé approach to killing the wrong person — there’s even slang for every accidental victim: a vergismoord. Welcome to …
The heroic failure of Cumbernauld
Cumbernauld is the kind of town you pass through but never stop at. In my youth, I glimpsed the strange concrete structure at its heart from the window of the Glasgow bus many times. But I had no idea that …