Politics
Portrait of the week: Peter Mandelson resigns, Keir Starmer returns and gold rallies
Home Lord Mandelson resigned his membership of the Labour party and then retired from the House of Lords; some of…
‘It’ll be a photo finish’: inside the Gorton and Denton by-election
British by-elections are often prolonged affairs, dragging on for months. Yet in the Manchester seat of Gorton and Denton –…
Who will rule the Arctic?
When it comes to icebreakers, the US pales by comparison with Russia in the growing struggle for control of polar shipping routes and mineral resources
Criminal candidates, grooming gangs and petrol bombings – welcome to Oldham
Everyone who’s anyone in Oldham knows Irish Imy. Born Mohammed Imran Ali in Dublin in 1980 and raised in Werneth…
The 14 questions that will define British politics in 2026
Contemplating a new year always raises questions. Was there a Third Protocol? What was wrong with Oral-A? Can Keir Starmer…
Keep children out of politics
In Citizens, his account of the French Revolution, Simon Schama wrote how the Jacobins recruited children into ‘relentless displays of…
Portrait of the year: Trump’s tariffs, the definition of biological sex and the fall of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
January Downing Street said Rachel Reeves would remain in her role as Chancellor of the Exchequer ‘for the whole of…
Rory Stewart’s romantic view of Cumbria is wide of the mark
The former MP for Penrith and the Border prefers to ignore the depleted uplands and poisoned lakes as he rhapsodises about the landscape’s ‘improbable beauty’
Is bet365 punishing me for being a peer?
On my way to the QPR game against Hull last Saturday, I was astonished to discover that Ladbrokes had made…
It’s not Starmer’s fault that everyone loathes him
Finding someone who ‘likes’ Sir Keir Starmer is a terribly enervating quest, and I have given up on it without…
The persecution of our local politicians
Have a thought for Darren Grimes, the 32-year-old Reform councillor. Since becoming deputy leader of Durham County Council in May,…
The lost art of the insult
Imagine I were to begin this column by remarking that a woman preaching is like a dog walking on its…
Was I the victim of a sex crime?
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna I went up to her and got straight to the point: ‘What are you using for bait?’…
Weimar Britain: lessons from history in radical times
The Ancient Greeks believed the past was in front of us and the future behind. Man could look history in…
Art and radicalism in 1930s Britain
Andy Friend describes the first decade of the AIA, a vital movement that blended art and politics in the fight against international fascism
The risks of Reform
In 1979, XTC sang: ‘We’re only making plans for Nigel/ We only want what’s best for him.’ The song is…
How Italy’s ‘new young’ party
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna The Feast of the Assumption began for me just after midnight with a WhatsApp message from my…
Dinner party talk won’t help Gaza
I’m one of the Silent People who sit on the sidelines of the great political events and debates of the…
Britain shouldn’t put up with Donald Trump
History is the march of folly and far too many of my countrymen are hearkening to a drumbeat which would…
The National have bungled their Rishi Sunak satire
The Estate begins with a typical NHS story. An elderly Sikh arrives in A&E after a six-hour wait for an…
Could Japan soon be governed by chatbots?
Tokyo Could Japan be the world’s first -algocracy – government by algorithm? The concept has been flirted with elsewhere: in…
‘Let Keir be Keir’: inside the cabinet’s away day
Labour ministers face a range of terrible political choices, but when the cabinet met for an away day at Chequers…
How governments gaslight
The posters now plastered around German public swimming pools are so hilarious that you may have seen them already. Keeping…
The vicious genius of Adam Curtis
In an interview back in 2021, Adam Curtis explained that most political journalists couldn’t understand his films because they aren’t…
Will we ever stop predicting the end of civilisation?
Mark Cocker 24 January 2026 9:00 am
A self-destructive dynamism is at work in the West, argues the latest prophet of doom, Paul Kingsnorth, as we dethrone the old gods and install the new ones – of power, self and money