In 2023, the formerly edgy became the new canonical. At least that’s what the LRB thought of Zadie Smith’s last book. But was the darling of the Anglo-American literary establishment even edgy to begin with? Surely her debut White Teeth …
Peep Show is a national humiliation
The history of British comedy is a history of ever-increasing male humiliation. Let’s start in the Seventies, the decade of declinism and brown suits. Forced to bear witness to both is Basil Fawlty, the supreme specimen of self-righteous control-freakery who, …
The ghost of Blair haunts Sedgefield
To understand Blairism and its lessons for Keir Starmer, I go to Trimdon, a former pit village near Darlington where, on May 11, 1983, Tony Blair knocked on John Burton’s door. Burton was a teacher and the secretary of the …
