If I say “Poland” — what do you think of? Marie Curie? Copernicus? Pierogi? All lovely in their own way, but not exactly cool. Now, however, everything is changing. From dank memes online to unintentionally patriotic rap songs, the …
Who verifies BBC Verify?
BBC Verify, the new fact-checking service inside the BBC, was launched last year with much fanfare and at great expense. Its verdicts are pushed across all the corporation’s channels. So why is it getting so many things wrong? And where …
A murder in Pennsylvania’s swing county
It was just before 2.30am, on a crisp Tuesday morning, when Tyrell Holmes was set on fire. Few were awake to hear his shrieks. By the time the police arrived, Holmes had collapsed dead, his corpse smouldering next to a …
The godless US election
Rallies. Insults. Slightly awkward baby-holding. In most ways, this year’s election is just as crass and theatrical as ever. Yet as the American public heads to the polls, the 2024 cycle is strikingly different for one key reason: its godlessness. …
What the AfD gets wrong about Bauhaus
What a sorry mess we are in. The other week, plans to celebrate the centenary of the Bauhaus’ arrival in Dessau were met with opposition. Proposing a motion called “The Aberration of Modernity” — which was rejected — in the …
Kemi Badenoch’s New Toryism
There is something strikingly different about Kemi Badenoch, the newly anointed Conservative Party leader. For a while I thought it might be that she is peculiarly old fashioned — a throwback to an age before the end of history and …
The West is goading Georgia
Food. Churches. Chacha. This is what Georgia has long been known for. But now this ancient country, flanked by the mountains and the sea in the heart of the Caucasus, is the battleground in a new Not-So-Cold War. Due to …
American industry must rise again
Austerity is rarely popular during election season, and already this campaign has featured a variety of budget-straining proposals. Donald Trump has called for exempting tips from taxation, which Kamala Harris subsequently endorsed. J.D. Vance has suggested increasing the child tax …
The Left has forgotten its philosophy
A mere glance at the headlines underscores what most working people under 40 intuit. Unfathomable wealth inequality, flat or barely improving wages, falling life expectancy, and a massive housing shortage are overturning the hard-won gains of the 20th century. And …
Is Trump right to fear election fraud?
When I visited Mar-a-Lago in spring 2021 to see Donald Trump, his aides asked me not to raise the matter of the 2020 election. They wanted him forward looking and optimistic, not grousing about a past defeat. I didn’t raise …
The cult of cuteness is revolting
When it comes to softening a stern public image, the Japanese have a special trick: just introduce a cute-looking cartoon mascot. High security prisons have them, as do the Tokyo Metropolitan Police and the Japanese Sewage Association. Such mascots have …
America’s destiny lies in the New South
Every morning, just as the sun rises, Charleston Harbor hosts a scene of stirring patriotism. There, in the courtyard of Fort Sumter, tourists raise a huge American flag, helped along by a National Park Service ranger. And why not? This, …
We need to talk about Southport
As additional terror-related charges against the Southport murder suspect Axel Rudakubana were announced on Monday, Merseyside Police was keen to deter us from discussing the case further. “We would strongly advise caution against anyone speculating as to motivation in this …
Labour’s blueprint for decline
If Britain’s cultural production leads the world in anything, it is in the imagining of grim dystopias which are only elaborated versions of contemporary British life: the line from 1984 to Children of Men is drawn through a particular, grudgingly …
Will an Etsy witch find you true love?
Something wicked this way comes. Across the land, jilted maidens are engaging in digital necromancy, wreaking revenge on past lovers and using £5 spells to bewitch Hinge situationships into confessing true love. Welcome to the coven of the Etsy witch. …