World
The problem with Andy Burnham’s ‘passion’
It’s striking how very swiftly we’ve accepted an event so mightily strange as the Makerfield by-election. After a couple of…
Reform’s overtime policy is comically bad
Labour’s increase to employer National Insurance as part of the 2024 Budget may well have been the worst tax rise…
Peter Murrell pleads guilty to embezzling £400,000 from the SNP
It appears in politics, as in life, there’s no such thing as a free campervan. Today, Peter Murrell – the former…
Why is Andy Burnham asking Sue Gray for advice?
As Andy Burnham, who is still mayor of Greater Manchester in his spare time, campaigns to win the Makerfield by-election…
The Andrew investigation is looking increasingly desperate
‘Show me the man, and I’ll find you the crime’ is the can-do attitude attributed to Stalin’s chief of the…
My pet transport hell
In the weeks since I relocated from London to Melbourne, I suspect my reputation among those who know me underwent…
A painful pension crunch is coming for Generation X
Pensions are boring. I say this from a position of some knowledge. I spend quite a lot of my working…
The Blob is already getting ready to take down Reform
On one level it’s not exactly surprising. The idea that large parts of the civil service would treat a Farage…
The war in Iran has taken the colour out of Japan’s crisps
The conflict in Iran is having serious knock-on effects around the world, from cancelled flights as jet fuel supplies run…
The truth about the peacocks of Punta Marina
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna Daily life in Punta Marina, the next little town but one from me here on the Adriatic…
The Enhanced Games isn’t what you think it is
When it was first announced three years ago, the Enhanced Games was described by Aron d’Souza, its Australian founder, as…
Reform have become the right-wing Lib Dems
A lazy framing of British party politics portrays Reform UK playing the equivalent role on the right of British politics…
Why are Trump’s would-be assassins so forgettable?
Another weekend, another failed and frankly pathetic attempt to kill the President of the United States. On February 22, a…
The global ramifications of China’s economic crisis
Whilst Britain’s Labour government continues its war on the price mechanism, Communist China wrestles with the ill effects of an…
Itamar Ben-Gvir is the Tommy Robinson of Israel
On the fringes of his Unite the Kingdom rally last Saturday, Tommy Robinson was asked what he would change if…
A progressive mayor puts Seattle to sleep
Back in April 1971, a large billboard appeared by a freeway near the Seattle-Tacoma airport. “Will The Last Person Leaving…
Is it foolish, or sweet, to marry for a fourth time?
“It is a truth universally acknowledged,” wrote Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice, “that a single man in possession of…
The lost joy of the pitch invasion
It was long a highlight of the football calendar when, every May, on the final day of the season, supporters…
Trump’s lawfare against lawfare
It is of course hacky and hysterical to suggest America is turning into a banana republic. How else, though, can…
Welcome to Transnistria: the country that’s not a country
I’ve been on holiday to a country that doesn’t officially exist. It has its own border, passport, flag, currency and army but no one recognizes it – not even…
Inside the Ukrainian army’s art division
The Ukrainian Cultural Forces’ headquarters is situated above a non-descript shopping center not far outside downtown Kyiv. The walls are…
A lot can happen in Makerfield this weekend
It’s been another bizarre week in Westminster, with Sir Keir Starmer going about business as if everything is completely normal…
Keir Starmer and the myth of the metropolitan elite
We are meant to be living in the age of the ‘liberal metropolitan elite’. Professor Matt Goodwin and David Goodhart…
What’s wrong with heckling Rachel Reeves?
As Mrs Thatcher stood to give her speech at the 1980 Conservative party conference at Brighton, she was under considerable…
Why politicians love (to be seen) jogging
We saw rather more of Andy Burnham’s legs than most of us might have wished when he was photographed out…
