Criminal candidates, grooming gangs and petrol bombings – welcome to Oldham
Everyone who’s anyone in Oldham knows Irish Imy. Born Mohammed Imran Ali in Dublin in 1980 and raised in Werneth…
Who was ‘Stakeknife’?
Freddie Scappaticci was a thickset man with dark features and a walrus moustache. He was born in Belfast in 1946,…
The ‘Crewkerne Man’ is reviving political satire for the AI age
You’ve probably seen the videos. Kemi Badenoch delivering her Budget response in the form of a rap to a sobbing…
John Major is shouting at the void
They were John Major’s kind of people, the audience in the Sheikh Zayed Theatre in the Cheng Kin Ku Building…
Inside Britain’s socialist dogfight
For a few days in Manchester last weekend, there was a utopia. The World Transformed conference of British socialists had…
Jeremy Corbyn’s new party is self-destructing
On Friday evening in the Windrush Lounge at The World Transformed conference in Manchester, British socialism was autocannibalising. No more…
The cult of Obama is over
Everyone wanted to get close to the president. For three hours outside the O2 Arena in London, a queue of…
A revolution in the arms bazaar
The global military-industrial complex and its outriders were rammed into a giant indoor pigsty. Dealers and manufacturers and military men…
How volunteer groups are taking the place of our absent police
Chris Hargreaves used to be a wellness coach with a promising future in reality television. In 2023, he starred in…
Bournemouth police are losing control
Who is Ritchie Wellman? He is a father, a boyfriend, an assistant operations manager at a local business and a…
Inside the Mohammed Hijab trial
Mohammed Hijab sat at the back of the courtroom and ate doughnuts while his lawyer, Mark Henderson, delivered his closing…
Teddy bears and TikTokers: on the Epping front line
Early on Sunday afternoon at the Epping Bean Café, where a cutesy sign hangs from a wall reading ‘Coffee makes…
Adam Curtis: ‘modern power makes me cry’
Adam Curtis used to make TikToks but he doesn’t want to talk about them. ‘I did quite a lot of…
Ballymena got what it wanted
Thursday evening. All quiet in Ballymena so far, after three nights of wrath. On the kerb of Waring Street –…
In Essex, the only way is Reform
The country is slipping away. The whole place, slowly, but London suddenly, blinding glass slabs becoming East End blocks, ‘SPLENDID…
Have I unmasked Cambridge’s bike bandit?
The Cambridge bike bandit emerged. I watched the rough, smiling face of the old man who came slowly from his…
Kneecap are not rebels
Better rebels than Kneecap would’ve begun their headline set at Wide Awake festival in south London on Friday night with…
Hunting for the mother of three abandoned babies
Elsa had been alive less than an hour and her umbilical cord was still attached when she was wrapped in…
Signal and the narcissism of connectivity
Signal is the fashionable place to discuss shady business – and that is probably what tempted National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, a military man…
Can Israel take more war?
Israel No telling in Jerusalem this morning that Israel resumed war and poured hell on Gaza last night. In the…
Howard Hodgson is a tabloid survivor
Howard Hodgson ends lunch in a rage against unearned fame. ‘Marilyn Monroe: drunken actress,’ he says, ‘fat drunken actress. Gets killed. Ohhh!…
A feel-good classic: The Armie HammerTime Podcast reviewed
Relive with me and enjoy again the downfall of Armand Douglas Hammer. If you remember, Hammer’s Hollywood career had been…
‘Kids were tougher in the Nineties’: what happens in Dan Pena’s £27,000 ‘tough love’ seminars?
Dan Pena has a picture of Adolf Hitler on his wall, but not any old picture. You know, not a…
Meeting the Chagos islanders of Crawley
Departing Gatwick train station, with nine minutes till Crawley, I tried to get in the head of a Chagossian. In…
My night with the paedo hunters
It’s a Wednesday evening, and I’m getting psyched up to go catch a paedophile with the boys. Playlist on, rocking…
