The discovery of antipsychotics was an accidental revolution, the result not of systematic research, but of random observations. In the early Fifties, an obscure French naval surgeon was trying out chlorpromazine as a potential anaesthetic; he noticed that it calmed …
Leo Varadkar’s ruthless pursuit of power
Leo Varadkar resigned as all political leaders do: dispirited and unpopular, the sheen of his early years long since wiped away by the grinding realities of government. His party, Fine Gael, now trails badly in the polls. Ireland’s housing crisis …
Why can’t I get a drink in London?
Amy Lamé, London’s Night Czar, has always been in a difficult position. Despite being paid a six-figure salary for a part-time role, the purpose of which is to resuscitate London’s shitty nightlife, she has virtually no political power and very …
The West has a deviancy problem
When and why did American life become so coarse, amoral and ungovernable? In his classic 1993 essay, “Defining Deviancy Down”, the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan offered a semantic explanation. He concluded that, as the amount of deviant behaviour increased …
The bug in Sam Altman’s industrial revolution
It has been an intense few months for OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Having survived an attempted coup, he is now looking to accelerate his artificial intelligence revolution. His next step is to raise $7 trillion in investment capital to build …
Israel’s victory will be Netanyahu’s downfall
Weeks ago, the Israeli army came up with a perfectly serviceable plan to finish the war in Gaza. Their strategy was to simultaneously push their ground forces into the remaining Rafah segment of the strip to destroy the last of …
Penny Mordaunt: the perfect head for the headless Tories
The Westminster bush drums are beating out a death-tattoo for Rishi Sunak. Having been installed to replace the Tory membership’s own preferred candidate after her politics offended the City of London, Sunak has led the Conservative Party to a record …
The American Left has abandoned unions
People fret about how high the divorce rate has become; it’s at a 60-year low. People talk about how the United States has lost its status as an educational powerhouse; but we’ve done terribly for as long as there has …
Why we still need Dr Freud
Not much is uncontroversial when it comes to the life and work of Sigmund Freud, but one thing ought to be: he was a lousy psychotherapist. Take the case of his patient Horace Frink, who Freud diagnosed with a serious …
Devon’s children are being left behind
When people imagine rural poverty, the sandy beaches, thatched cottages, and cream teas of Devon, Cornwall and Somerset rarely spring to mind. But out of sight of holidaymakers and second-homers, life is not so rosy. In washed-out South Western towns …
Cambridge University doesn’t need DEI
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) is a set of notions that has long sat uneasily within a university. But now the situation is becoming even worse: imitating the United States, EDI is metamorphosing into DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion), whereby …
The deception behind America’s support for Ukraine
Sometimes, a news story seems so ordinary that it barely garners any attention, even as it turns the world upside down. Sometimes, innocent frolicking on the surface distracts from a rot extending below. This is what happened last week, when …
How TikTok is erasing girlhood
A few weeks ago, I saw my two nephews. My mum keeps a big box of our old toys, and the three-year-old loves the kitchen set: he delights in plonking radioactive-looking broccoli florets on plates or, learning from trips to …
The cult of Land Rover
In most circumstances, finding your car submerged in mud up to the fenders is a sign that something has gone badly wrong. For the off-road enthusiasts of the Shire Land Rover Club, it is the entire point of having a …
Thomas Piketty’s failed revolution
Think back to the political situation a decade ago, and one may have in mind a calmer, less dysfunctional time. Britain’s economy was growing, just about, and real wages were beginning to rise for the first time since the summer …