The book opens with a haunting scene. As the Manchester United team file out onto the pitch, we find that they are not in their usual red strip. “They came out of the tunnel like a ghost train, all in …
Why we fell for Molly-Mae
In All Bar Ones up and down the country, a silence descended. In the aisles of B&M, in between pyramids of discounted Brazilian Bum Bum Cream, women softly wept. French bulldogs howled in unison from Astroturfed pens on their new-build …
The housing crisis tearing Leicester apart
The South Asian neighbourhood of Highfields in Leicester is made up of long, sloping streets of terraced houses, built largely between the Victorian era and the Second World War. At that time, Leicester was a major centre of Britain’s booming …
Why can’t the Church say ‘church’?
Remember Consignia — that disastrous rebrand of the Post Office? It sounded more like a sexually transmitted disease or an obscure Roman battle than a postal service. The name Royal Mail was apparently too redolent of posties, stamps and letters. …
Meet the three types of rioter
Since the first spark was lit in Southport, condemnation of the rioters has largely centred on their identity as “far-Right thugs”. Indeed, some experts, including the former head of British counter-terrorism policing, have gone as far as to call the …
My day with the Burryman
“At every door in succession, a shout is raised, and the inhabitants, severally come forth, bestow there kindly greetings and donatives of money on the BURRYMAN who in this way collects, we believe, considerable sums of money to be …
My day with the Burryman
“At every door in succession, a shout is raised, and the inhabitants, severally come forth, bestow there kindly greetings and donatives of money on the BURRYMAN who in this way collects, we believe, considerable sums of money to be …
English nationalism is built on a lie
Someone once called nationalism the most contradictory of all political ideas. If it can lead straight to the gas chambers, it can also free you from oppressive imperial powers. For every Franco or Modi there is a George Washington or …
Britain’s asylum hotel tycoon
Scarborough’s Grand Hotel isn’t so grand these days. Built in the shape of a V to honour Queen Victoria, this sandy-brick behemoth was billed as “the largest and handsomest hotel in Europe” when its doors opened in 1867. Edward VIII …
Don’t blame football for the riots
If riots are an expression of masculinity, then warnings about the return of the Football League at the weekend were perhaps inevitable. The season’s first game was scheduled to the place in Middlesbrough, where marauding rioters had torched cars the …
The North East is too nostalgic
“We had nowt, but we were happy” became my grandmother’s catchphrase in her later years. I was never sure if she was being serious, not least because I knew how grim the Depression had been in the pit villages of …
The Machiavellian cause of Britain’s disorder
While the UK’s recent riots reflect decades of pent-up public frustration with the country’s governing elite, particularly over mass immigration, they also represent something else. They are a signal that the British elite’s whole strategy of governing is beginning to …
Morgan McSweeney’s plan for the far-Right
When Morgan McSweeney was hired by Barking and Dagenham to defeat the BNP, he entered a world of resentment, rumour and mistrust. Antagonism between locals and newcomers was at a high-pitch; rumours about two-tier treatment were being fanned by the …
Britain’s Right is just as weird
The Democrats seem to have settled on a new and sophisticated campaign strategy: calling the Republicans “weird”. Ever since prospective vice president Tim Walz first aired the insult on a TV show a few weeks ago, it has become the …
Why prison guards have sex with inmates
As Britain’s summer of crisis continues, the penitentiary industrial complex could soon be overwhelmed. Not because of a lack of resources: estimates put the prisons’ budget at £4 billion. And it’s not for a lack of bipartisan thinking: the Labour …