“I was not really in Manchester at all,” wrote J.B. Priestley after spending a few days in the city for the opening of a play in the early Thirties. “I was living in a private nightmare city, bounded in space …
Marriage has been divorced from love
Because there is nothing Americans will not politicise, marriage is now at the heart of a culture war.
On the traditionalist side, a loose assortment of classical conservatives, terminally online reactionary trad types, and the odd dissident feminist have coalesced …
The Lancet was made for political activism
In the rarefied world of scientific publishing, few names strike quite the same chord as The Lancet. Across the globe, the journal is associated with scientific rigour and professional prestige. In the field of science itself, it is a gilded …
When will we forget the Second World War?
The Second World War is Great Britain’s great daddy issue. It is with us from infancy, squatting immovably as a formative weight and wound. We either resent its example or strive to match it, coughing up Blitz spirit and slapping …
Did Dominic Cummings derail HS2?
“I’m a long way from Manchester so I might be missing something,” tweeted one Westminster pundit, “but it surely takes a special kind of spin-doctor genius to decide to axe the Manchester leg of HS2 during your annual conference in, …
Nato won’t win a long war in Ukraine
As grand acts of foreign diplomacy go, Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s recent trip to Washington will make the history books for all the wrong reasons. From the moment his jet touched down, the Ukrainian president was greeted with a lukewarm reception, and …
The motorists are fighting back
What happened when Matthew Crawford, a lifelong advocate of the joys of driving and author of Why We Drive, took a ride in one of San Francisco’s driverless cars? He sounded the alarm.
Last month, he joined Freddie Sayers in …
Why should women write like men?
Books or babies? It’s a choice that has presented itself to women writers for centuries. And it was a favourite theme of Ursula K. Le Guin who struggled, successfully, to balance the two. In her lecture, “The Fisherwoman’s Daughter”, published …
Europe has betrayed Lampedusa Man
When the histories of Europe are written, they will write at length about Lampedusa. This small Italian island has become not only the barometer for the permanent migration crisis which now defines the continent’s condition, it has become the metaphor …
The horror of doppelgangers
A TV interviewer once asked an astronomer whether he thought there was life elsewhere in the universe. “Look,” replied the astronomer, “somewhere in the universe at this very moment, someone looking very much like you is asking that question of …
Does Billy Bragg have a woman problem?
Louise Distras was once a darling of the anti-establishment Left. An underground punk singer whose hits include “Dreams From the Factory Floor”, this working-class woman is unafraid to speak her mind. Five years ago, she was being invited onstage by …
The psychological battle over trauma
We live in traumatised times. Over the past few years, our social media channels, reality TV shows, and even playgrounds have become saturated with therapy speak. Instead of feeling uncomfortable, people now feel “triggered”; listening to a friend is now …
The Democrats have walked into an immigration trap
For the American Left, the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency offered ample opportunity to criticise his immigration policy. Those were the days of coast-to-coast airport shutdowns and street demonstrations, hipsters with “Abolish ICE” T-shirts, and a weekend in which …
Rishi Sunak’s war on the young
What does a fair distribution of economic resources look like? It is a question that will dog the Conservative Party Conference this week as questions over inheritance tax, VAT on school fees and the triple-lock on state pensions return to …
The impotence of the porn industry
Just north of the Strand, behind where the Australian High Commission now stands, there used to be what the press called “a fetid, miserable lane”. One of 19th-century London’s more disreputable districts, it housed the poor, the criminal, the prostitute …