When the Australian prime minister invites his countrymen to join him “on the right side of history” later this year, they will almost certainly decline. If the current polls are anything to go by, Anthony Albanese’s referendum on the creation …
Did David Foster Wallace predict the future?
Infinite Jest is frequently attention-repellent. David Foster Wallace’s brick-sized novel is physically challenging, an 800g book that forces you to flick back and forth to the errata. This is not optional. Major plot points hinge on throwaway glosses.
I was …
California leaves its poor to burn
“A call went out, and I could see the fire outside. In the back of my head, I was like ‘Hey, this is just another fire — the fire department’s going to stop it and save my house. I’m going …
In defence of critical theory
If you’ve been watching the latest pitched battles in America’s culture wars, you’ve doubtless heard of the much-ballyhooed and much-denounced field of critical race theory. One thing you may not have gleaned from all the media furore, though, is that …
Does menopause madness really exist?
The menopause had a “MeToo moment” the year I turned 45. It was 2020 and women were finally speaking out about their hot flushes and sleepless nights. The roots of this revolution could be tracked back to a 2017 interview …
Tucker Carlson’s accidental confession
At the end of the Nineties, I called Tucker Carlson to ask his advice. I was about 20. He spoke kindly to me, and I liked him.
He had started his Washington career working for the Right-leaning Weekly Standard magazine. …
How the Tories can survive the wilderness
It may be difficult to believe, but when John Major’s tired and sleazy administration suffered a shattering defeat at the hands of Tony Blair’s New Labour in 1997, many Tories weren’t all that worried. Beneath the hype, they believed Blair …
The Ukraine war is about to get worse
Amid the never-ending coverage of the latest offensive or counteroffensive in Ukraine, it is often unappreciated just how much worse the global economic repercussions from the conflict could have been. Russia is the world’s leading exporter of gas and provided …
Why did Jacqueline Rose erase women?
What is a woman? Hoping he might be able to answer this vexatious question, the New Statesman turned to Richard Dawkins. In the resulting piece, the biologist expresses sympathy with those with gender dysphoria, but is unequivocal that a woman …
DeSantis has failed America’s charisma test
American politics today presents something of a paradox. Levels of ideological polarisation have reached a height not seen since the eve of the Civil War, seemingly overriding all other considerations. Yet personality still matters as much as ever in presidential …
The arrogance of dismissing aliens
It is not often that congressional hearings launch a golden week of memes. Last Wednesday, a subcommittee began questioning former Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch, who has accused the US Department of Defence of concealing a long-standing programme that …
The Luton estate that made Andrew Tate
Two years before the Tates moved to Marsh Farm, there was a riot — followed by a rave. It was July 1995: a summer of drought, Tory civil war, and three nights of anarchy on an estate in Luton. After …
Who is the asshole?
Consider famous moments of moral crisis throughout the ages, real or imagined. Peter denying that he knew Jesus before the cock crowed, say; or Jean Paul Sartre’s former pupil in Existentialism Is A Humanism, torn between joining the Free French …
The secret messages behind the lab-leak cover-up
“What happened to Oppenheimer damaged our ability as a society to debate honestly about scientific theory,” wrote Kai Bird, author of the biography on which Christopher Nolan’s new film is based. “Yet too many of our citizens still distrust scientists …
How the Saudi Empire bought football
I was five years old, desperately precocious when it came to football, and furious that my mam hadn’t let us watch England against Czechoslovakia in the 1982 World Cup. We were on holiday, and that meant that we had to …