Why climate activists love to hate Israel
Climate activists have been busy since 7 October. The demands for ‘action now’ on global warming continue, but affairs in…
In defence of the noughties
Russell Brand always seemed repellant to me, but that had little to do with the fact he became famous in…
The truth about Bedales
Every now and again, my alma mater is in the news, and why wouldn’t it be? Britain is obsessed with…
Fear and complacency in Taiwan
On a recent trip to Taiwan as a guest of its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I knew that war with…
Chess doesn’t need Rishi Sunak’s cheesy cheerleading
There’s something embarrassing about Rishi Sunak’s plan to revive chess in Britain. The PM is set to announce half-a-million pounds…
How Ukrainians are making the lives of even anti-Putin Russian artists impossible
Zoe Strimpel talks to the anti-Putin Russian artists who have been cancelled since the invasion of Ukraine
Martin Amis and the death of the lascivious young man
In the days since Martin Amis died at 73 of oesophageal cancer, the papers have been full of tributes. Mostly…
The great AI panic is spiralling out of control
I refuse to get Amazon Alexa, and never use Siri, because I find the concept of human-style interactions with robots…
Is it surprising that dog attacks are on the rise?
Love of dogs is hardly new in Britain. There is a growing strand of research exploring the shared history we…
The queen of chess makes her next move
When a young male friend offered to teach me chess last summer, I thought it sounded an exotic thing to…
Why I’m finished with football
I have spent many, many years dutifully squeezing into pubs full of rapt, drinking men giving excessively loud voice to…
Jeremy Hunt is wrong about ‘British compassion’
Delivering his Autumn Statement on Thursday, Jeremy Hunt specified two ‘great national’ qualities: genius and ‘British compassion’. The Chancellor’s announcements…
How politics killed theatre
Zoe Strimpel on how identity politics is killing theatre
How Love Island killed sex
Love Island’s annual ‘heart race challenge’ – where contestants perform jokily seductive dances on the opposite sex – took place last week,…
The feminist case for Love Island
Love Island, which started again last night, flirts with virtue just a little more obviously each year. The show is racially…
Andrew Sullivan searches for spirituality
It was daunting preparing to meet Andrew Sullivan, considered one of the cleverest, most fearless journalists of his generation. There…
Mesmerising and monstrous: @zola reviewed
The distinction between on and offline life blurred long ago. The greatest spats, sexual self-fashionings and mad soliloquies now unfurl…
Why aren’t we teaching women self-defence?
Women all know that queasy shock of hyper-awareness when a man on the street or the Tube or bus begins…
Clubhouse left me with one question: why am I here?
For my 13th birthday in 1995 I requested — and got — my own ‘line’. This meant that I could…
Black Lives Matter's anti-Semitism blind spot
Charles Dickens was not a nice man. He was horrid to his family, remarking on the birth of one of…
Dating apps are full of ‘woke’ profiles – no wonder we’re no longer having sex
I interviewed a prominent 1970s women’s liberationist recently and ended up discussing the sexual culture of her political heyday. ‘Everyone…
It’s impossible to live up to the expectations of motherhood
In a 1974 interview celebrating the quarter century since the publication of her classic The Second Sex (1949), Simone de…
