Pale Fire is one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. It is so great it is terrifying to write about. This is not something I would normally confess, but in this case it seems better to just come out …
The night I conquered Berghain
There are few things in life more satisfying than hearing your own voice blasted out of a giant sound system in the bowels of a German sex club. What a glorious scene to soundtrack. People being tortured in public for …
Why smartphones bamboozle politicians
The year is 2008. It’s break time, and my twin sister is a library monitor. A swell moves through the playground; packs of children are pulled like magnets to the big bay window of the library, where a note is …
The end of the Conservatives
Protestors brandish Nazi symbols in central London. “A group of people” riots in Sheffield. Rapists cannot be deported because “human rights”. The economy is flatlining. A third of young people would rather swap liberal democracy for a military rule or …
The ghost who haunts the MAGA revolt
Over the past half-decade, few intellectuals have undergone a renaissance like Christopher Lasch — and few renaissances have been quite as startlingly heterodox. After the 2016 election, Lasch’s posthumous 1994 book Revolt of the Elites was cited as a key …
Mexico isn’t becoming a ‘dictatorship’
Surrounded by both Aztec pyramids and a monumental baroque cathedral, Mexico City’s vast central square, known as the Zocalo, is a vibrant symbol of the country’s nationhood and democracy. Formally called “La Plaza de la Constitución”, it was here that …
Rediscovering the Garden of Eden
In 1882, General Charles Gordon rediscovered the Garden of Eden. This renowned military hero, who had played a significant role in quelling the Taiping Rebellion and was later to perish at the Siege of Khartoum, had been dispatched to the …
The danger of trial by statistics
Sally Clark had two sons. Both died within weeks of birth, a year apart, apparently of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), sometimes called cot death. SIDS is — mercifully — rare; in England, at the time, it struck roughly one …
After the election, everything is unknown
Though I am old enough to have voted in general elections since 1983, I cannot recall any time when the result of an election seemed so uncertain. I do not, of course, mean that there is much doubt who is …
Ridicule is nothing to be scared of
My daughter started cutting herself when she was in the eighth grade. By the ninth, she had scars on both her wrists and her thighs, shallow ones, but visible. Covid lockdowns were beginning to end, but they had taken their …
South Africa’s young radicals are turning on Mandela
In 2021, at the age of 24, Chad Louw became South Africa’s youngest ever mayor. Then a member of the governing African National Congress party (ANC), Louw was elected in Oudtshoorn, a town in the Klein Karoo region of the …
The Republican’s foolish war on the ICC
It’s not hard to understand why the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, took the unprecedented decision to seek an indictment of Israel’s prime minister and defence minister. To borrow from Bob Dylan, the times have changed, and sometimes …
17 useful concepts to survive the election
We humans are neophiles; we’re drawn to whatever’s new. This anxious curiosity may have saved our lives when we lived as hunter-gatherers, but in the digital age, it’s mostly just exploited to keep us checking our phones. Even the most …
Germany’s authoritarian turn
Just five years ago, the 70th anniversary of the birth of the post-war German democratic state was accompanied by euphoric celebrations across the country. This week, by contrast, few Germans were in the mood to party. Aside from the Federal …
What Starmer can learn from George Smiley
For so long Labour had been preparing. “Everything has to be brilliant,” was the motto. There could be no mistakes, no risks, no complacency. The Tories could not be underestimated. And then the Prime Minister walked out of No. 10 …