Portrait of the week: May’s historic loss, Brexit chaos and the US shutdown
Home Brexit threw politics into unpredictable chaos. The government was defeated by an unparalleled majority of 230 — 432 to…
It’s not communist buildings that are bleak – it’s capitalist budget hotel chains
A few of us on the Labour left decide to see if it is possible to conjure, from nowhere, a…
The rejection of the people’s mandate – then and now
The Transport Secretary Chris Grayling may be quite right (not words one often reads) to warn that failure to deliver…
Where does the expression ‘deep state’ come from?
Turkey and the deep state Boris Johnson said that if Brexit was blocked, the public would blame it on the…
In defence of unicorns
The scale of the government’s defeat on Mrs May’s deal is, as everyone keeps saying, amazing — yet also not.…
It’s Salmond vs Sturgeon – and whoever wins, the SNP loses
Amid the wreckage of a Brexit process that has disrupted every aspect of British political life, it is easy to…
On Nobel Prize winners and Mastermind losers
I once worked my way through two whole books of IQ tests devised by Hans Eysenck and by the time…
Leavers have just killed the best chance of Brexit ever happening
When intelligent, informed and rational people make a choice that onlookers can see confounds their own declared interests, we are…
Why do authors have to be ‘moral’? Because their publishing contracts tell them so
Suppose you’re a writer with a self-destructive proclivity for sticking your neck out. Would you sign a book contract that…
An energy crisis is looming – but ministers are distracted by Brexit
Transfixed as you were by Westminster chaos, did you also spot the news that Hitachi is about to cancel or…
Taking back control: parliament’s plan for Brexit
Straight after the government’s epic defeat in the House of Commons on Tuesday night, the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, the Business…
Nick Boles’s plan is certainly crazy. But it just might work
At first, it seems fanciful. A backbench MP, Nick Boles, proposes to take power away from the government and place…
The truth about Trump’s shutdown? It’s not as bad as people make out
Washington, DC Washington is supposed to be recession-proof: when times are bad, the government just hires more. But the city…
The dangers of ‘neurodiversity’: why do people want to stop a cure for autism being found?
I’m an American man affected by the disability autism. As a child, I went to special education schools for eight…
If you’ve got taste, you don’t look at Instagram to decorate your home
You can tell something about national character from the way a country clears its cupboards. In the States they have…
Pirates of the Caribbean: How Venezuela’s near collapse is causing a crisis on the seas
Brian Austin, a fisherman from the small village of Cedros in Trinidad, is struggling to describe the men who robbed…
People who don’t live in council houses can’t see the appeal. Let me explain
On turning 50, I realised I’d never own my own home. What bank would agree to give a mortgage to…
In praise of Booths, the north’s answer to Waitrose
If you mention the word ‘Booths’ anywhere south of Knutsford, you will usually be met with a blank expression, followed…
Ernst Jünger — reluctant captain of the Wehrmacht
Ernst Jünger, who died in 1998, aged 102, is now better known for his persona than his work. A deeply…
How Enoch Powell fancied himself Viceroy of India — and other startling revelations
Interviews, like watercolours, are very hard to get right, and yet look how steadily their art has become degraded and…
Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat: the triumph of Rorke’s Drift
On 22 January last year, the entrance whiteboard at London Underground’s Dollis Hill carried a brief factual statement: On this…
How Eric Clapton’s racism sparked a musical revolution
On 13 August 1977, a demonstration by the National Front was routed in the streets of Lewisham by thousands of…
The best way to defeat totalitarianism? Treat it as a joke
Is there anything one can never laugh about? A question inevitably hanging over humour writing, it’s best answered by the…
Is the threat of capital punishment really the foundation of good behaviour?
Richard Wrangham embraces controversy, and appears to enjoy munching apples from carts he upsets himself. While his new book seems…
Lost in allegory: The Wall, by John Lanchester, reviewed
Dystopian fiction continues to throng the bookshelves, for all the world as though we weren’t living in a dystopia already,…
