Here and there you can still see evidence of the collective madness of the Covid era. Some “social distancing” markers still linger on pavements or shop floors. Occasionally I find a face mask in a coat or handbag I haven’t …
Reform won’t save Britain
Labour isn’t working — and things will only get worse. As if chaining itself to neoliberalism isn’t bad enough, the Government is now tying itself in knots over rearmament, ironically the very issue that did for Clement Attlee. Good luck …
The danger of Starmer’s conservatism
The challenge of political leadership, Henry Kissinger observed, is that all the easy decisions have been taken by someone else, leaving only the most difficult and agonising choices for those at the very top. The most difficult issues of all, …
Disney is lying to your kids
At the 11th Academy Awards in 1939, Shirley Temple presented Walt Disney with an honorary Oscar — a statuette accompanied by seven miniatures. It was, of course, a nod to his animation Snow White, which the Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein …
Newcastle’s poisoned chalice
The defining images of the day were those of Newcastle fans weeping, a familiar sight for those acquainted with one of football’s longest-running back-stories. Newcastle fans shed tears when they threw away a 12-point lead at the top of the …
Why the fight dog business is booming
“Vast!” Jason shouted, which means fix in place, “Vast!”. And a muscled black-and-tan Malinois with titanium-coated canines locked on to my left arm.
It was an otherwise quiet afternoon in Kentish suburbia. In a woods tucked away from the Barratt …
We’re running out of eggs
I was lying with my mouth open, staring up at a poster of a palm tree, when my dentist started complaining about the price of eggs. She’d just spent £37 on a small bag of basic groceries. But it was …
Midnight panty raids on Mumsnet
For at least five years in the early 2000s, I led a secret double life. Outwardly, I was a respectable university lecturer bringing up two small children. But in a virtual space online, I was another person entirely — an …
Why Starmer is right about terrorism
When Keir Starmer warned that Britain faces a “new threat” and that “terrorism has changed” since the Southport massacre, he was taken to task by several prominent counter-terrorism experts. The threat posed by Axel Rudakubana wasn’t new, they insisted, pointing …
Aptitude tests are making us stupid
One of my most vivid memories from university is of sitting in my college café, looking up from my sputtering essay, and seeing the tables in front of me full of undergraduates clicking through the identical sets of multiple-choice questions …
Only Boomers love the Commonwealth
When even fried chicken firm Chick-Fil-A has launched a streaming service, and you can get from viral “Hawk Tuah” video to podcast to blink-and-you-miss-it crypto venture in a matter of months, it seems these days everyone’s a content creator. But …
Europe wants to ‘pre-bunk’ you
The legacy of the culture war might be best summed up by the German term “legitimationsprobleme”. Coined as the title of a 1973 book by the philosopher Jürgen Habermas, the phrase is usually translated as “legitimation crisis” and describes a …
Hell is shopping centres
Almost exactly 60 years ago, the Duke of Gloucester launched a new world. There, amid the artificial lighting, and the multi-storey carpark, he unveiled Broad Marsh — a £10 million shopping and entertainment complex right in the middle of Nottingham. …
Donald Trump is no Chamberlain
“The lamps are going out all over Europe,” remarked British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey on the eve of the First World War. Judging by the commentary of the British press recently, one would think this was about to happen …
How safe is the Letby verdict?
Late on 17 February, a document briefly appeared on the website of Lady Justice Thirwall’s public inquiry into the Lucy Letby murders. By morning it had vanished.
UnHerd can now reveal that this was a statement to police by Dr …
