You could call Phyllis Schlafly the first trad wife. A mother-of-six, she would introduce herself in public as a “lawyer’s wife”, and embodied all the feminine virtues: “A blonde with deep blue eyes, a figure that can still be called …
Why America stopped dreaming
I set off last Wednesday on a three-week road trip around the United States. I had high expectations drizzled in nostalgia, since I was repeating a project I’d done exactly nine years before: the idea, then and now, was to …
Why America stopped dreaming
I set off last Wednesday on a three-week road trip around the United States. I had high expectations drizzled in nostalgia, since I was repeating a project I’d done exactly nine years before: the idea, then and now, was to …
My day with the Burryman
“At every door in succession, a shout is raised, and the inhabitants, severally come forth, bestow there kindly greetings and donatives of money on the BURRYMAN who in this way collects, we believe, considerable sums of money to be …
My day with the Burryman
“At every door in succession, a shout is raised, and the inhabitants, severally come forth, bestow there kindly greetings and donatives of money on the BURRYMAN who in this way collects, we believe, considerable sums of money to be …
The march of Kamala’s brides
In a recent appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump caused a furore by questioning the racial “identity” of Democrat Kamala Harris. “Is she Indian or is she black?” Trump wondered. “I respect either …
English nationalism is built on a lie
Someone once called nationalism the most contradictory of all political ideas. If it can lead straight to the gas chambers, it can also free you from oppressive imperial powers. For every Franco or Modi there is a George Washington or …
Are women being forced to freeze their eggs?
“No woman goes running with thrill into egg-freezing,” says Professor Marcia Inhorn. “A lot of these women would rather not be doing it.”
And yet it is the fastest growing fertility treatment in the UK. Between 2019 and 2021, egg-freezing …
The race to choose the next Dalai Lama
This time next year, the world may find the arcana of Tibetan Buddhist reincarnation taking centre stage in global politics. For the 14th Dalai Lama, who celebrated his 89th birthday a few weeks ago, has long promised to reveal his …
Britain’s asylum hotel tycoon
Scarborough’s Grand Hotel isn’t so grand these days. Built in the shape of a V to honour Queen Victoria, this sandy-brick behemoth was billed as “the largest and handsomest hotel in Europe” when its doors opened in 1867. Edward VIII …
Don’t blame football for the riots
If riots are an expression of masculinity, then warnings about the return of the Football League at the weekend were perhaps inevitable. The season’s first game was scheduled to the place in Middlesbrough, where marauding rioters had torched cars the …
No, smoking isn’t back
Is smoking having a renaissance? At her recent birthday party, brat du jour Charli XCX was gifted a bouquet chaotically arranged with cigarettes. Meanwhile in Paris, the Olympic golfer Charley Hull was prevented by le woke mob from enjoying her …
Is Trump a perverted Emersonian?
A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light
which flashes across his mind from within, more than the
lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses
without notice his thought, because it is …
Why Trump is winning outside of America
Across much of the Euro-Atlantic, Donald Trump is an object of derision. The list of his foreign-policy sins is long: He’s callous towards his Nato allies and disdainful towards multilateral institutions and treaties. He introduced a “Muslim ban” and has …
The North East is too nostalgic
“We had nowt, but we were happy” became my grandmother’s catchphrase in her later years. I was never sure if she was being serious, not least because I knew how grim the Depression had been in the pit villages of …