It should not be this bad, this early. Nowhere near. And yet it is — it really is. For the Labour Party, barely two months into government, preparing for conference, it is time to panic.
While there is an understandable …
How political violence lost its power
Barely 24 hours after an armed man was found within several hundred yards of Donald Trump on his golf course in Florida, my local newspaper ran a piece with the following headline: “Would-be assassin soured on Trump: Who did he …
The Armenian catastrophe
For the first time in over a millennium, there are no Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh. They survived the Mongol and Arab invasions and the age of empires, when tsars, shahs and sultans fought for this strategic intersection of trade routes …
Led By Donkeys have no shame
How do you get a hypocrite to feel shame? The activist collective Led By Donkeys think they have found the answer: organise a needling visual provocation in the hypocrite’s vicinity, put the film of it online, then watch it go …
Why feminists love to hate Sally Rooney
“Lying naked with her chin in her hand, reading poetry.” Jesus, here we go. I feel my hackles rise as I’m thrown into an arena where it’s me versus an imaginary other reader, who I needn’t bother describing, who likes …
How Macron killed Macronism
As soon as the dust settled around Michel Barnier’s surprise nomination as French Prime Minister, the choice was met with something like grudging admiration. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, the President realised an unexpected coup. But in …
Can Kamala become the Border Czar?
For days now, US politics has been roiled by an incredible rumour, mentioned in the middle of last week’s presidential debate: migrants in Springfield, Ohio are kidnapping and eating cats, dogs and even geese at local ponds. The two parties …
The war for the Irish language
Last Thursday, a clutch of Irish-language (Gaeilge) activists burst into Belfast’s gleaming new station shouting “Tír gan Teanga, Tír gan Anam (A country without a language is a country without a soul)”. “What’s this all about?” a woman asked a …
Chappell Roan’s fame is a drag
“I feel like fame is just abusive,” Chappell Roan admits in a recent interview. “The vibe of this — stalking, talking shit online, [people who] won’t leave you alone, yelling at you in public — is the vibe of an …
Donald Trump is a Silicon Valley fantasy
The love affair that has blossomed between MAGA and the digital visionaries of Silicon Valley has left liberal pundits mystified. Why would America’s brainiest tech bros swipe right for Donald Trump? But it seems their love knows no bounds: yesterday, …
The anti-Israel cartoonist dividing Britain’s art crowd
Promising “kick-ass superheroes, future worlds, fantastical creatures and zombies”, the Lakes International Comic Art Festival (LICAF), should begin next weekend in Cumbria. Yet a row about a Palestinian artist accused of antisemitism threatens to derail the prestigious graphic art event.…
Kamala Harris is a neocon in disguise
Kamala Harris may have succeeded in convincing America that she’s a hip, “joyful” alternative to Sleepy Joe, but those outside the US shouldn’t be fooled. When it comes to foreign policy, all the signs suggest that Harris will follow the …
How to read like a man
A strange and telling bit of literary trivia is that two of the greatest English-language novelists of the last half-century — Cormac McCarthy and Don Delillo — were not big readers when they were boys. Both took up reading as …
Assisted dying killed my family
In February, I watched my mother be euthanised. I travelled to Australia to see it. She was ready to go: she lived in a care home, and was in terrible pain from spine cancer and terribly embarrassed by her lack …
The tragic life of Brian Clough
The winter of 1962-63 was bitter. So many football matches were postponed that the FA Cup final had to be put back three weeks. In Sunderland, Boxing Day was raw and cold, “the kind of day when seagulls flew backwards …
