When Ryan* arrived in Istanbul he was 5’7” — but when he returned to the UK he was 5’10”. By having his legs surgically broken and then extended at the glacial rate of 1mm per day, he had achieved his …
The betrayal of British Kurds
This week, two activists are facing trial under the UK’s Terror Act for the “crime” of holding a flag at a demonstration. But this wasn’t a Palestinian flag, which former Home Secretary Suella Braverman has said could be a criminal …
Despotism is a beast of capitalism
As history speeds ahead in the Age of AI, it is also being thrown abruptly into reverse. Authoritarian rule is our current Zeitgeist, spreading across the globe from El Salvador to Myanmar.
This isn’t, in fact, all that surprising. The …
Can TV soaps get Erdoğan re-elected?
A well-turned-out man with a pointy beard stands in the centre of a luxurious living room, looking fierce. He waves away two flunkies — one of whom is a fat man with a large moustache, wearing a pristine white shirt, …
Turkey is the year’s most important election
This year hasn’t quite gone to plan for Turkey’s most powerful man. After two decades as Prime Minister and now President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan could be about to lose his job. In a country of huge strategic and economic importance, …
Will Erdoğan survive Turkey’s earthquake?
It took barely two days for Monday’s earthquake in Turkey and Syria to turn political. On Wednesday, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president, warned of the danger of giving credence to “provocateurs”. He was referring to opposition figures who have …
Erdogan’s Turkey won’t save Ukraine
The Bayraktar Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) TB2 looks like the malformed lovechild of a small plane and a large, angry wasp. But if the armed drone looks weird, there’s nothing strange about its performance. Over the past few weeks, the …
How Vladimir Putin weaponises refugees
For the last three decades, Europe’s leaders have pursued a noble strategy to prevent conflict using trade, aid and diplomacy. But their reliance on soft power has had an unintended consequence: it has left them divorced from reality.
Soft-power tools …