What roles do reason and emotion play in politics? Is success a matter of winning over hearts, or about changing minds? To solve this conundrum comes a memoir by someone who apparently can do neither very well: Ten Years To …
Can Thomas Piketty save football?
On Sunday, Bayer Leverkusen beat Werder Bremen 5-0 and, by so doing, wrapped up their first ever Bundesliga title. Five times before they had been runners-up — four times in the six seasons from 1996-97 when they drew the nickname …
The civil war in the biohacking movement
As a tenured professor of biology and genetics at Harvard Medical School, David Sinclair has long been the world’s most qualified “biohacker”. The term refers to a broad community that attempts to enhance bodily performance, sometimes through simple treatments like …
We must become Chernobyl wolves
As I write, lean grey wolves are pacing through a rain-soaked landscape in eastern Europe, untroubled by the fact that their forest is dotted with the decaying ruins of buildings abandoned half a century ago. Their home is the Chernobyl …
Inside the disinformation industry
“Our team re-reviewed the domain, the rating will not change as it continues to have anti-LGBTQI+ narratives… The site authors have been called out for being anti-trans. Kathleen Stock is acknowledged as a ‘prominent gender-critical’ feminist.”
This was part of …
The problem with Byron’s debauchery
In 1798, a lame, rough-mannered 10-year-old boy from Aberdeen called George Gordon Byron inherited a peerage, along with an abbey in Nottinghamshire, and grew up to be one of the most notorious Romantic poets of all time. He died two …
How Elon Musk lost his vibes
Elon Musk’s electronic music phase may have been a bit of a joke, but it captures the spirit of capital. His 2020 single, “Don’t Doubt ur Vibe (because it’s true)”, is a mantra for self-reliance in the hungry market, for …
The extinction of the political animal
For the past few years, scientists have warned that a human-driven mass extinction of animal species has begun. The focus falls mostly upon land-dwelling vertebrates, but fails to mention one critically endangered species: homo politicus, threatened on all sides by …
Why the centrists changed their trans tune
How does a public consensus come into being? The Sensible Centrists like to imagine that this is a careful, deliberative process. Ideas are debated, among people of good faith, and assessed dispassionately, on their merits, in an ongoing collective striving …
What Thatcher can teach the pro-Israel Right
For all their drama, and barring an Israeli counter-escalation, the weekend’s events do not change the course of the Gaza War. Six months in, the campaign has been a disaster for all concerned, apart from Iran and its regional allies. …
How Big Food feeds fat positivity
In 1967, Lew Louderback published an article titled “More People Should Be Fat”. Fat people were being told they were ugly, immoral and unhealthy; they were discriminated against in the job market and in education. Their persecution had “more than …
Why RFK Jr is the Silicon Valley candidate
When Robert F. Kennedy Jr revealed that his running mate for the presidency was Nicole Shanahan, ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergei Brin, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the usual suspects. Although Shanahan is successful in her …
The metaverse of Fernando Pessoa
At the beginning of this year, I visited Lisbon for the first time, and thought I’d enhance the experience by reading some books set in Portugal’s capital. First, I read Nobel-laureate Jose Saramago’s The Year of the Death of Ricardo …
Is this the end of Angela Rayner?
Why shouldn’t the Tories make the most of Angela Rayner’s personal housing crisis? When you’re short of electoral options, there’s nothing better than punching your opponent’s bruise. If the police investigation launched yesterday reveals anything, it will land Starmer with …
The liberal lessons of the Cass Report
Pity poor Dr Hilary Cass, the eminent paediatrician charged with managing an independent review of NHS gender services for young people, whose final report was published this week. Given the hair-trigger sensibilities of interested parties, she seems to have been …