A sentence I never imagined I’d write: I now think Jeremy Corbyn did Jews in Britain a favour. His time as Labour leader, between 2015 and 2020, was an extremely weird one for British Jews, but eye-opening all the same: …
The delusion of having a meaningful job
I suspect Montaigne was being coy when he complained of the “wild and useless weeds” that would encroach on his mind in idleness. It is to those wild shoots that Montaigne owed his genre-defining essais, and thus his lasting influence. …
How to survive the Tory apocalypse
When Ford Madox Ford died in June 1939, a few weeks before Europe compelled itself once again to go to war, only three people turned up to his funeral. In an obituary, Graham Greene compared his fellow writer’s passing to …
The Alzheimer’s industry
In a leafy London suburb, there’s a smart little clinic that promises miracles. Run by Dr Andrew Greenland, an NHS consultant in emergency medicine, the Greenland Centre claims to be able to do something that the drug industry has failed …
The truth about Britain’s teenage terrorists
To read a British newspaper or to listen to the rhetoric of counter-terrorism police, you could be forgiven for thinking that the country has incubated a new generation of child extremists. And not just any child extremists: unlike previous moral …
The rise of the slacker aristocracy
One is an amateur filmmaker and stay-at-home-dad whose wife is an executive at a financial services firm. Another founded two technology companies and is taking some time out after selling each for millions of dollars. The third supports himself with …
Poland’s honeymoon with Ukraine is over
“Enough hospitality, you ungrateful sons of bitches.” So read a banner flown by protesting Polish farmers in Warsaw in late February, which also showed a stick figure kicking another character draped in the colours of the Ukrainian flag out of …
The case for polyamory
The world seems to be awash with new ways of being in a relationship — or so a flurry of articles examining polyamory would have us believe. Last month, The New York Times featured a 20-person “polycule”; earlier this year, …
There is no solution to the Gaza War
In assessing Israel’s post-October 7 military campaign in Gaza, it helps to recall Clausewitz’s dictum that war, though horrific, isn’t ultimately about killing and destruction for the sake of it but a means for states to achieve their political goals. …
Why Meloni is rewriting Italy’s constitution
At first glance, the Italian constitution reads like soulless legalese: a thicket of jargon and impenetrable articoli. But the power it wields should not be underestimated. La Costituzione dictates the way the peninsula is governed — and, if rewritten as …
The lunacy of Child Liberation
Lionel Shriver’s latest novel, Mania, starts from the wild and wacky premise of a world in which “the last civil rights battle” is being fought against discrimination on the grounds of intelligence, and the “s-word” is as taboo there as …
PEN America has surrendered over Israel
Another day, another opportunity for huffy, hypocritical “progressive” posturing. PEN America has now been forced to cancel its World Voices literary festival in New York and LA, on the heels of also cancelling its 2024 awards ceremony. Too many authors …
How long will Rochdale cling to Galloway?
“There are too many bloomin’ blacks,” the florist, perched behind her stall on Rochdale’s high street, says without a hint of shame. Her friend interjects: “They sit around here drinking and doing drugs… There are no police about. We need …
The growing RFK Jr coalition
The Camelot myth haunts Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He was brought up to believe that he would be the one to pick up the mantle left by Arthur, John F. Kennedy. Even as a precocious 20-year-old — having been hooked …
The barbarians are laughing at us
There are many contenders to be the world’s predominant civilisation in the remainder of the 21st century. In Moscow in March, a group of top clergy and pious entrepreneurs from the Kremlin’s inner circle lauded their country’s role as creators …