Isis
Lap-dancing with ISIS, the real Monica Lewinsky and one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen: Edinburgh Fringe roundup
Clive Anderson’s show about Macbeth, ‘the greatest drama ever written’, offers us an hour of polished comedy loosely themed around…
The European fighters who battled Isis – and were abandoned by their governments
Foreign fighters are returning from the battlefield — not Islamists but the Americans, Europeans and South Americans who fought to…
The brutality of the Isis Beatles
Beirut Television cameras get everywhere these days. Or maybe that was always true. Gore Vidal, the grand old man of…
Why we must make an example of Shamima Begum
The three most popular justifications for punishment under the law all (as it happens) begin with R. They are retribution,…
I always come away more confused after listening to Moral Maze
Is it me or are we now faced (or perhaps I should say fazed?) much more often by stories in…
![Ivory plaque of a lioness mauling a man, ivory, gold, cornelian, lapis lazuli, Nimrud, 900 BC–700 BC. [© The Trustees of the British Museum]](https://spectatorau.imgix.net/content/uploads/2018/11/lioness_plaque.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=410&h=275)
The Assyrians of Ashurbanipal’s time were just as into pillage and destruction as Isis
The Assyrians placed sculptures of winged human-headed bulls (lamassus) at the entrances to their capital at Nineveh, in modern Mosul,…
The true face of Islam won’t be found in mosques or Muslim schools, but at the British Museum
In Britain today, Islam in its original essence is not to be found in mosques or Muslim schools, but on…
And I think to myself, not a wonderful world…
The story of Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan is an interesting one, I think, for what it tells us about…
The tragedy of Syria: how protest spiralled into savagery
The fateful day five years ago began like any other for the family. A pot of black tea with cardamon…
How can any intelligent person have faith?
Ten years ago, I had a strange debate about faith with a famous Jesuit and an agnostic psychoanalyst in a…
Returning jihadis must be brought to justice
At first sight, the evidence presented in David Anderson’s report into the four terror attacks committed between March and June…
Prince Harry announces his engagement to US actress Meghan Markle
Home The engagement was announced of Prince Henry of Wales, aged 33, and the Los Angeles-born Meghan Markle, an actress…
Britain and its allies are opening the way for yet another Iraq war
After the most intensive street-by-street combat since 1945, Isis’s so-called caliphate is no more. Last weekend, the Iraqi government won…
Accept this as the new normal? Never
Not long after the Parsons Green Tube bombing, another of those viral, defiant-in-the-face-of-terror cartoons started doing the rounds. It was…
Straight to hell
No, The State (Channel 4) wasn’t a recruiting manual for the Islamic State, though I did feel uneasy about it…
Sarah Kane's Cleansed is a thin, vicious pantomime
Big fuss about Cleansed at the Dorfman. Talk of nauseous punters rushing for the gangways may have perversely delighted the…
The myth of the plucky Kurdish warrior
On Nawroz, the Persian New Year, last March, Isis sent a holiday greeting to the Kurds. They published several videos…
My tyre-fitter tried to recruit me as a jihadi bride
The last time I bought a set of tyres in south London I came away not quite knowing whether I…
Farty, smelly and in love with Putin? You must be middle-aged
There are things that happen when you grow older — bad things, harbingers of death and decay. Past the age of…
Aleppo Notebook: the city’s terrorist besiegers will now be besieged
I had been trying to get to Aleppo for ages, but was unable to do so because rebel activity had…
Turkey is turning into a paranoid one-party state
Istanbul Turkey is less and less a democracy, more and more a paranoid one-party state. If you don’t believe…
The secret life of Sir John Major
Putting old or contaminated petrol in a car needn’t be catastrophic, but in the Golf’s case it was. With 37,000…
Ancient and Modern: The mercenaries of IS and ancient Greece
Last week we read that Isis was crumbling, but still a force to be reckoned with. That is true, but…
Project Fear: how Cameron plans to scare us into staying in the EU
The negotiations may be ongoing, but David Cameron has given up waiting for the outcome of his talks with the…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, decided to allow ministers to campaign for either side in the referendum on membership…
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