The idea of truth has fallen out of favour in recent years. For one thing, it’s less politically important than it used to be. In the era of the Cold War, what beliefs you held to be true counted for …
Can Poland ever forgive Ukraine?
“Ukraine has been defending itself heroically for more than 400 days, and we Poles have kept our word. You can always count on Poland!” Thus did Polish president Andrzej Duda salute Volodymyr Zelenskyy in April, heralding him as a friend …
The populist Right are fake revolutionaries
Predictions that the pandemic would spell the end of populism and thrust voters back into the political mainstream have turned out to be little more than wishful thinking. In the US, polls show Trump creeping up on Biden. In Europe, …
The sexual holy war is coming for you
“Children in their games are wont to submit to rules which they have themselves established, and to punish misdemeanours which they have themselves defined.” Thus did Tocqueville marvel at Americans’ habit of self-government, and the temperament it both required and …
Manchin’s No Labels party could backfire
Third-party candidates in America don’t make history. But last week the senior senator for West Virginia made headlines, at least. Joe Manchin is hinting that he might run for the presidency in 2024, representing a new “No Labels” party advocating …
Where is our lexicon of love?
I remember the first time I heard The Lexicon of Love. Aged 22 in a no-horse town, more terrified by the day that I had made a mistake in marrying the first man I had sex with, I couldn’t stand …
Britain is Europe’s liberal outcast
When Labour wins the next election, Britain will assume a role in Europe something akin to the indomitable Gaulish village in Asterix: the last holdout of liberal-Left political power in a continent swinging firmly to the Right. Yet for a …
Keir Starmer is no Blair
When men make history, Karl Marx observed, it is not under circumstances of their own choosing, but rather under circumstances given and inherited from the past. History is the one thing we cannot escape; the great epochal force which creates …
How Coutts destroyed capitalism
It began, as crises tend to, with the promise of convenience. Say you will make someone’s life easier, at no apparent cost to them, and you will win their attention. Fulfil that promise, and you will win their favour. Over …
We wouldn’t want Oppenheimer today
The one thing everyone knows about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man who led the Manhattan Project, was that as the blast of the first atomic test faded away in the desert of New Mexico, he said solemnly: “Now, I am …
Will Ukraine repel the new Russian assault?
“We saw four of these fucks going into a house, so we decided to strike it with our artillery. To our surprise there was a huge explosion. Clearly, they were using the place to store ammo. Then soldiers started pouring …
Lesbian mothers should be on birth certificates
If you’re a politician, the presence of a global LGBT+ activist movement offers large amounts of political bang for your buck, pound or euro — whether that’s by waving trans flags enthusiastically, or by banning books about gay dads. Last …
Coutts and the rise of private tyranny
Coercion and tyranny are what governments do to us, whereas the private sector is where choice, consent, and spontaneity reign. This is one of the bedrock certainties of the modern Anglo-American Right, and each day brings fresh evidence that it’s …
How Keir Starmer betrayed the North East
For decades, the North East was home to the right sort of Left. Durham, Tyneside — these are places rich in labour history and heraldry, ancient seedbeds of a working-class trade unionism which predates the Labour Party itself. But, though …
Barbie is Fight Club for women
Exactly how old is Barbie, anyway? I speak not of Barbie the product — though her birth in 1959 is a fascinating story — but Barbie the person, the character, the entity who exists in undying hot pink perpetuity, in …