“The socks and cars wouldn’t stink / Every morning, champagne I’d drink / I’d be slicker than Schmidt, and fatter than Strauß / And my records would sell out!” In 1987, West Berlin punk singer Rio Reiser sang these words …
How Joe Biden should abdicate
In times of crisis, a certain sort of cynicism tends to set in: a citizenry’s belief that, despite feeling dissatisfied with the state of affairs or the leadership of the country, none of it actually matters. Because surely, those who …
Why Gen Z doesn’t want kids
“I see pregnant people.” Somewhere inside my brain, the little boy from Sixth Sense is balefully trying to explain why on earth it is that everywhere I look are expectant mothers. I get on the Tube — a little girl …
Starmer faces a farmers’ revolt
We sheared our sheep today, beneath a sky full of gloomy grey clouds. There were hours of chasing sheep up the ramp to the men on the trailer. The radio blared out country songs and an occasional news bulletin informing …
The reparations war that could break the EU
Since its inception, the European project has always aimed to bring about the end of history on the continent, and to finally put the ceaseless cycle of war, extremism and imperialism that had torn Europe apart for a thousand years …
Labour still doesn’t know what women want
Just before the election, Keir Starmer finally found the third way on trans issues and women’s rights. First, he was damned by J.K. Rowling, who wrote in The Times that she would “struggle to support” Labour and suggested she might …
Starmer is turning Britain into a vassal state
It seems fitting that Keir Starmer’s international debut should be the Nato summit that kicks off in Washington, DC today. Ostensibly scheduled as a celebration of the alliance’s 75th anniversary, it will no doubt be remembered as the moment that …
The French Left is celebrating too soon
Contrary to those punching the air and heaving enormous sighs of relief, it is difficult to draw any definitive conclusions about the recent legislative election in France. The ecstasy felt by many at seeing the National Rally (RN) fall far …
Italy’s bridge to nowhere
There has been talk of building a bridge to link Sicily to the Italian mainland for so many decades that the project has become a synonym for a pipe dream and a source of infinite satire. “There will be a …
Macron has dynamited French politics
“Live dangerously!” was Nietzsche’s advice to his followers, those “good Europeans”, the “legislators of the future”. He wanted them to send their “ships into uncharted seas”, to “live at war” with their peers and themselves. That was the secret, as …
Marine Le Pen’s favourite far-Right philosopher
For Dominique Venner, the time had come to die. The 78-year-old man entered Notre-Dame de Paris. He walked intently; every step brought him closer to the end. He knew there was no going back. “A successful death is one of …
Welcome to Keir Starmer’s post-liberal order
So now Keir Starmer is Prime Minister, what will change? There are two apparently contradictory responses to this.
The first: nothing. The truly shattering revelation from the era since Brexit has been that you can experience a so-called “political earthquake”, …
How Starmer slaughtered the Tories
This was an election campaign like no other. Less a battle of personalities and visions than of competing strategies to attain power, commanded not by the uninspiring monarchs under whose banners the battle was fought but the generals quietly ordering …
The most infantilising election of all
How do you feel about that most English of vices: gentle whimsy? Personally, I can’t abide unusually shaped teapots, cat cartoons, Gilbert and Sullivan operas, London Marathon costumes, or jokey books you’re supposed to read on the toilet. For the …
And so, farewell conservatism
Conservatism has died, not from an assassin’s bullet, or even from old age or because it was run over by a bus. It has died because there is no call for it anymore. This isn’t to say that nobody wants …