Xi Jinping’s great moment is nearly upon us. This weekend, if the Pekingologists are correct, the Communist Party’s Congress will pave the way for him to become the longest-serving Chinese leader since Mao Zedong.
The Party has weathered the Covid …
Sex strikes won’t win the midterms
American culture will sexualise anything in order to sell it to young people: cars, hamburgers, and for decades now, voting. In 1990, the awareness-raising non-profit Rock the Vote sought to bring youths to the polls with a TV spot featuring …
My A&E survives on death
A few nights ago, during the graveyard shift in A&E, a colleague sent me a clip from the classic BBC sitcom, Yes, Prime Minister. “The Smoking Ban” episode shows PM Jim Hacker vowing to take on the tobacco lobby — …
Don’t punish Kanye West
Some images of poor mental health from relatively recent films: in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a deeply traumatised teenage boy (Logan Lerman), who was sexually abused and suffered clinical depression, kisses a sparkly Emma Watson and stands up, …
Big Veganism is coming for you
I’ve seen the Brave New World of food prophesied in Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel — and it doesn’t work.
Set in the World State in AF 632 (AF standing for “After Ford”, he of the Model T), Huxley’s dystopia offers …
How Smiley’s people conquered Britain
John le Carré, real name David Cornwell, was a spy, an absurdly successful English novelist and, we now learn from two new books about him, something of a shit. He is also an author whose work spoke to a particular …
Russia realists are the new lockdown sceptics
Less than a year after 9/11, Dick Cheney had a message for Americans: the “old doctrines of security do not apply… Containment is not possible when dictators obtain weapons of mass destruction.”
Cheney was referring to Saddam Hussein, but it …
Is Truss the worst PM in history?
If you believe the mainstream media, it has been yet another cosmically dire week for the Conservatives. But let’s stop going on about all the little things that went wrong, and concentrate instead on what went right. Nobody died. Liz …
Welcome to the Tory apocalypse
Last year, the Conservative Party was in the grip of decadence. This year, it faces apocalypse. Their 2021 conference, in Manchester, was like The Wolf of Wall Street. Wine poured from the sky. Laughter ricocheted off the walls. They all …
Is Ronan Farrow a MeToo hero?
There was a brief moment, at the very beginning of the MeToo movement, when it seemed as if real change was in the air. Five years ago this week, the New York Times released its first report on the alleged …
How the Tories were radicalised
In line with her determination to offer the public a new vision, Liz Truss seems intent on styling herself as a conviction politician. But this posture is not without irony: Truss’s convictions have notoriously fluctuated, forcing her to emphasise the …
Hysteria has derailed Kwasi Kwarteng
No doubt Kwasi Kwarteng expected to spend yesterday morning putting the finishing touches to his Party Conference speech. Instead, 10 days after he announced his plan to scrap the top rate of income tax, Britain’s Chancellor found himself being schooled …
MeToo lost me the love of my life
Dear Taylor,
Please, please don’t shove this in recycling and do hear me out. I apologise for disguising this letter in a NatWest envelope to make it look like one of your bank statements. I realise that appears duplicitous. But …
Is China about to turn on Russia?
After managing a strained smile and handshake for the cameras, President Xi Jinping walked away from Vladimir Putin with a face like stone. By most accounts, the recent meeting in Uzbekistan between the two leaders, who once spoke of each …
How far-Right are you?
A common form of classroom cruelty when I was at school involved a game we called “Contagion”. The instigator would touch the person next to them, having chosen a low-status scapegoat — usually “Holly”, who wore thick glasses and was …