At six o’clock in the morning of 16 May 1968, a 56-year-old cake decorator, Mrs Ivy Hodge, went to make a cup of tea in her 18th-floor tower block flat, Ronan Point, in East London. She filled the kettle, rested …
The dismantling of the Chinese mind
When retired spy Peter Wright announced the existence of Spycatcher, his astoundingly indiscreet MI5 expose, in 1985, Margaret Thatcher’s government tried to block its publication in Australia. When that failed, it banned English newspapers from reporting on Wright’s allegations, including …
Will Starmer be Britain’s Merkel?
A smell of death is now seeping out of Westminster, choking the atmosphere of the nation, poisoning everything it touches. With each new crisis, the smell only gets stronger and the reaction from the public more visceral. Where there was …
How Zadie Smith succumbed to history
Why bother with fiction? That’s one question. Why bother with history? That’s another. And they’ve both been torturing Zadie Smith, who has now produced the sort of fiction she once dismissed as “aesthetically and politically conservative by definition” — a …
In France, money is dirtier than sex
Almost anywhere in the world, you would have confidently expected people to celebrate their country overtaking Japan, the UK and Germany, to clock more millionaires than everywhere else except the United States and China.
Not in France, though. Accusations flew, …
Lucy Letby isn’t a psychopath
When we look beyond the battle over identity politics, the great majority of us share a very clear idea about the way life should be lived. We should be allowed to grow and mature, then decline with dignity as we …
The dying light of fireflies
This summer I spent some weeks in the north woods, in a cottage on Lake Michigan, in an eerie little crescent of absolute climatic perfection between Canadian wildfires and the 110-degree South. It was 68 and crystal blue. Once a …
Not all children belong in school
Kieran is a tall, stocky 14-year-old. He likes being outside and fixing cars. He describes school as “like being in a prison”. He has always hated it — when he was little, his mum sometimes had to carry him in …
Burning Man will rise again
Obviously one’s first reaction to hearing about the rain and mud at Burning Man this year was very similar to learning about the glitch that led to all those flights to and from British airports being cancelled last week: thank …
How France lost control of Gabon
Gabon fulfils all the stereotypes you might have about the west coast of Africa. Brutal, kleptocratic dictator whose family have been in power for over 50 years? Tick. Highly corrupt political system that facilitates large multinational companies to pillage, rob …
Why is Britain so depressed?
Anyone with experience of depression will recognise the approaching symptoms: a numbed blankness of feeling, or pangs of melancholy nostalgia for a lost contentment now impossible to imagine. A black cloud of affectless lethargy drains life of purpose, making any …
How I lost my sexuality
In hospital, one of the things that is never mentioned, and there really is no reason for it to be, is sex. There are no jokes, double entendres, or exchanged looks. The place is antiseptic in all senses. Of the …
The desperate plight of trans widows
“Terrible things are happening to women and girls across my country… and the media doesn’t care. It’s only interested in the trans issue.”
Vaishnavi Sundar, an Indian feminist filmmaker, has long been furious at the way women and girls are …
What prisons teach us about democracy
Andrea Albutt has been a dedicated public servant for almost four decades who worked as a military nurse and ran four prisons. But after eight years as president of the Prison Governors Association, she despairs of the crumbling institutions, overwhelmed …
Why we need Oliver Anthony
It can be a little bit embarrassing admitting that you are a Country music fan when you’re a middle-class journalist living in London. It carries a certain stigma: “Isn’t that just music for rednecks?” someone asked me recently, somewhat baffled. …