America
Lethal force
The truth about America’s police culture
Black lives didn’t matter
Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods is about four African-American vets who return to Vietnam to locate the body of their…
A question of tolerance
Our public figures must rediscover the true spirit of liberty
Marching against racism is too easy
When I first saw the footage of George Floyd being asphyxiated by a policeman’s knee on his throat, my reaction…
Law and disorder
In Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed, a black entrepreneur had his bar destroyed before he even had a chance…
Hiding Biden
The less voters see the Democratic nominee, the more they like him
Real problems erase fake ones
Last week, a friend quoted a two-year-old email of mine: ‘I’m starting to root for a plague or world war…
Doctor’s notebook
New York I hear it said now and again that Covid-19 is just a nasty winter bug, nothing more than…
The West is failing to rise to the challenge of coronavirus
Having apparently shaken off the first phase of the coronavirus pandemic, the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda machine is now in…
When will Joe Biden accept it’s all over?
In Iowa, Americans had to wait the entire night before a caucus winner was declared. Today in Nevada, the wait…
Portrait of the week
Home The United Kingdom quietly left the European Union at 11 p.m. GMT on 31 January. Boris Johnson, the Prime…
Iowa omnishambles
The Democrats have gifted Trump his best week since taking office
Putting us in the picture
on the history, power and beauty of infographics
Is there method – or madness – behind Trump’s actions in Iran?
Leaders are often accused of escalating a conflict abroad in order to distract from headaches at home. On Tuesday, before…
What is a ‘tergiversation’?
Last year, someone at US dictionary Merriam-Webster noticed that lots of people were looking up the word tergiversation online. It…
Full of fascinating data and excellent comedy: Messiah at Stratford Circus reviewed
I’ve joined the Black Panthers. At least I think I have. I took part in an induction ceremony at the…
Scorsese at his most leisurely, meandering and engrossing: The Irishman reviewed
The Irishman is Martin Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour epic — a mobster-a-thon, you could say — starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino,…
The story behind Donald Trump’s fake withdrawal from Syria
That noise you can hear is Donald Trump flip–flopping in the sand. Last week, American troops and dozens of tanks…
Only fitfully funny: Chris Morris’s The Day Shall Come reviewed
The Day Shall Come is a second feature from British satirist Chris Morris and like the first, Four Lions, it…
Pity poor Candace Bushnell, still flogging Sex and the City at 60
On paper, Candace Bushnell and the medieval warlord El Cid don’t have a lot in common. The first made a…
Angry, cold, self-centred, opaque, disconnected and brutalising: Bronx Gothic reviewed
Sometimes it’s hard to describe a play without appearing to defame the writer, the performer and the theatre responsible for…
The fanatical thinking that’s on its way to British schools
For anyone who isn’t following the long march of racial self-flagellation through America’s institutions, last week’s revelations about the excesses…
Adversity is the new diversity – and it disadvantages everyone
To clear up any confusion, American SATs are closer to A-levels than to British primary-school SATs. In my day, this…
We’re all self-haters now
As an American coming of age at the fag end of the 1960s, I celebrated self-loathing. Everything about the United…
Nyong’o is spellbinding but the plot is ultimately baffling: Us reviewed
Us is a second feature from Jordan Peele after his marvellous debut Get Out, which was more brilliantly satirical than…
