In 1930, John Dos Passos wrote that America is many things: it is a “slice of a continent”, “the world’s greatest river valley”, and “a set of bigmouthed officials with too many bank accounts”. “But mostly,” he wrote in The …
What’s the point of Boris Johnson?
When the Red Wall elected Boris Johnson, they thought they were getting an outsider who would take on the dreary consensus which has dominated Britain for 40 years. Instead, they got an establishment politician who spent much of the last …
How Macron manipulates Europe
France — in reality, Emmanuel Macron — has taken up the presidency of the EU, or “our Europe”, as he calls it. He set the scene with a typically magniloquent speech to the European parliament, meeting symbolically (as the French …
Inside the surreal Dutch lockdown
Amsterdam
Sitting respectfully in our ‘pews’, we put our hands together… and clap. This is not a service but a comedy night. And Amsterdam’s newest ‘church’ is really a theatre for debate and cultural centre in disguise. Incensed by the …
Why pop can’t escape the Eighties
Last year, the Canadian musician Tamara Lindeman, who performs as the Weather Station, explained to Uncut that her new album Ignorance was influenced by pop, but not just any old pop: “Eighties pop music, which was, I think, the best …
The death of intimacy
The sexual entrepreneur keeps a spreadsheet of every encounter she’s ever had. It’s populated with all kinds of information: how much they talked, the different positions they tried, whether it was the first or second or fifth time, and, of …
Why is the Right so unattractive?
Political tribes enjoy attacking their opponents. It is what they do. Far less appealing is the idea of applying the same criticism to your own side. No doubt this stems from a desire not to give ammunition to one’s political …
Breast milk is not for men
The “pumping room” at Ambrosia Labs in Cambodia is an airless and dystopian space. I see 20 or so women packed in, being “milked”. Their tops are off and they all have tubes attached to both nipples; their breast milk …
The truth about the Women’s March
Five years after the Women’s March, it’s hard to remember how much changed in 2016: politics, seemingly overnight, became the most popular entertainment of the day.
It’s not that there hadn’t been things for Leftists to protest. But even as …
The rise of the literary noble savage
According to elite cultural consensus, the great villain in America is the white male, so it’s only logical that publishing would run the toxic literary bad boys off. But this hatred is only levelled at the American man. Other talents …
The Texas synagogue attack won’t be the last
“At one point, our attacker instructed us to get on our knees. I reared up in my chair, stared at him sternly… and mouthed ‘no’.”
It’s easy to read Jeffrey Cohen’s account of being held hostage in a Texan synagogue …
Trashy Tories should read Roger Scruton
“Love is a relationship between dying things,” said Roger Scruton just months before he was to succumb to lung cancer. We hold on to the ones we love, and hold them ever closer, precisely because they are mortal and will …
Vladimir Putin’s war on history
Vladimir Putin came to the world’s notice, in 2000, styled as a New Russian Democrat. He had been an aide to the charismatic Petersburg reformist mayor, Anatoly Sobchak. His assumption of the supreme political office of president — after a …
Why we’ll end up eating bugs
It’s that special time of year when the global elites gather together at Davos. Or rather it would be, if it weren’t for Covid. Thanks to the Omicron wave, the World Economic Forum 2022 has been postponed.
But don’t despair. …
Boris is our sin-eater
In the 19th-century Welsh Marches, when someone lay on their deathbed, folklore reports that it was usual to summon a person known as the “sin-eater”. This person would place a plate of salt on the dying person’s breast, then a …