Katie Price is, ostensibly, in the news because of her finances. But Price has rarely been out of the news since the Nineties, when she became famous as a Page 3 girl. Determinedly, assiduously, she crafted herself into the perfect …
The worst novelist in the world
Budding novelists are always instructed to start their books in an arresting fashion. L.P. Hartley knew exactly what he was doing in The Go-Between (1953): “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” As did Anthony Burgess …
How the Democrats can win the Rust Belt
Almost every week, Herman heads over to the local gun club, where he can reliably find some of his buddies — old union friends from the steel mills and others. They hang out in the bar room of the clubhouse, …
The Houthis now rule the Red Sea
If you’ve been following the news recently, you could be excused for thinking that the blockade in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Ansar Allah — commonly known as “the Houthis” — has been defeated. In recent months, we’ve heard barely …
Where is Kamala’s plan for women?
While Joe Biden found it hard to even say the A-word, Kamala Harris has always known that reproductive rights could be a winning issue for the Left come November — hence her reproductive freedom tour earlier this year. At the …
The dark heart of Joseph Conrad
Only once, in four decades before the mast of journalism, has an editor ever asked me to go anywhere in the world that I chose and damn (or at least file) the expense. A newspaper’s weekend magazine planned a special …
Who’s afraid of Sahra Wagenknecht?
Few would have predicted that Germany, long known for having the continent’s most boring politics, would become the epicentre of Europe’s new populist revolt — let alone one coming from both the Right and the Left. And yet, that is …
How BlackRock ditched the Democrats
A year into the Biden Administration, the asset management group BlackRock appeared to recognise what other financial institutions had missed: the shift to a “new investment order”. Covid-era fiscal stimulus, wrote a panel of the firm’s executives, was here to …
Trump’s Red Scare will backfire
And so we enter the beginning of the end. After months of insecurity, Democrats have united behind Kamala Harris as their nominee, while Republicans seem to have adjusted their messaging in response to their new opponent. The election finale is …
Nick Cave’s doctrine of doubt
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 …