Nick Cohen

Nick Cohen is a columnist for the Observer and author of What's Left and You Can't Read This Book.

George Galloway’s Rochdale win should trouble Labour

1 March 2024 8:20 pm

The Rochdale by-election raises a question that Labour will find hard to duck in government: can a European left-wing party…

Violence is corrupting our democracy

23 February 2024 2:32 am

Fascism begins with political violence on the streets. In 1922, Benito Mussolini ordered his supporters to march on Rome and…

Muslims won’t be fooled by George Galloway any more

17 February 2024 7:22 pm

It is a measure of how conspiracy theories have triumphed in the darkest corners of the left that, when the…

The QAnon-style in anti-Israel conspiracy theories

29 December 2023 1:50 am

On Boxing Day pro-Palestine demonstrators met customers at the Zara sale in the Westfield shopping centre, in Stratford, east London.…

Anti-Semitism is a threat to the West

17 December 2023 5:00 pm

Down the road from where I live in Islington, the Jewish community put up a menorah in a park on…

Why the far left sides with Hamas

3 December 2023 2:24 am

The great fault of the global left is not that it supports Hamas. For how could western left-wing movements or…

Vivian Silver and the collapse of the Israeli left

19 November 2023 1:22 am

The well-lived life and foul murder of Vivian Silver encapsulate the hopelessness of Israel-Hamas war and the bad faith that…

What the ceasefire vote means for the future of the Labour party

16 November 2023 10:02 pm

It’s a little too easy to dismiss the huge Labour rebellion on the Israel-Hamas war last night as ‘virtue signalling’.…

Benjamin Netanyahu is a dangerous ally for the left

5 November 2023 6:18 pm

There is no better example of modern pseudo-sophistication than the dismissal of the argument in the Labour party about a ceasefire…

Why the far left supports Hamas

29 October 2023 6:51 pm

It’s not often that Brits can say that the US is behind the UK. But in understanding the dynamic between the…

The Tory war on woke won’t work

22 October 2023 6:00 pm

Visibly desperate Conservatives are counting on their opposition to the left’s cultural revolution to save them, if not from defeat,…

British anti-Semites are delighted by the attack on Israel

10 October 2023 3:44 am

You might think the massacre of Jewish civilians will stop anti-Jewish hatred in Britain. Or, if that is too much…

Why ‘wokeness’ is doomed to fail

23 September 2023 5:00 pm

There are two dishonest conversations about wokeness, or identity politics if you prefer the less contentious term. The first from conservatives…

A woke witch hunt has taken over the arts

27 August 2023 5:00 pm

Remove the preconceptions that stop you seeing clearly, and it is hard to tell the difference between how the arts…

Would Biden punish Sunak for pulling out of the ECHR?

22 February 2023 1:41 am

The US government has warned British security officials that the ‘five eyes’ intelligence-sharing agreement may be at risk if the…

The conservative war on free speech

5 February 2023 7:30 pm

The hopeful life and wretched death of Claudia Gavrilovna Popova during a previous age of extremes should speak to us…

Who will dare stand against Jeremy Corbyn in Islington?

15 January 2023 9:00 pm

Labour has announced whether its sitting MPs will step down or fight again at the next election in nearly every…

A culture of fear has taken over academia and the arts

4 December 2022 7:15 pm

At the end of the second world war, George Orwell went to an event organised by PEN, a campaign dedicated…

Labour’s disturbing attitude to press freedom

3 December 2022 3:50 am

Once in every generation the Labour party gets tired of losing elections and prepares for power by neutralising potential sources…

Labour can’t believe they are heading for victory

18 November 2022 2:33 am

Last night, Labour politicians wondered how to respond to the challenges the Chancellor was sending their way. Do you accept…

‘Liz Truss hasn’t understood a word I wrote’, says PM’s favourite author

1 October 2022 3:39 am

As I reported this summer, Liz Truss’s favourite historian is Rick Perlstein, the great chronicler of the rise of the…

The City still runs on nepotism

28 September 2022 4:00 pm

When Liz Truss says she wants to give tax cuts to the wealthiest, she thinks she is making a moral…

Labour’s debt binge dilemma

23 September 2022 8:02 pm

Labour has a populist argument against Liz Truss’s spendaholic plans to borrow money from the international money markets and direct…

What republicans understand about monarchy

18 September 2022 9:42 pm

What ridiculous figures we republicans must seem on the eve of Elizabeth II’s funeral. We sound like desiccated rationalists who…

Could Putin still trigger nuclear war?

16 September 2022 11:28 pm

The world is facing the prospect of its first nuclear attack since the US Air Force dropped atomic bombs on…