Politics
Portrait of the week: More migrants cross, government borrowing rises and Trump warns Iran
Home Iran fired two missiles at the British-American military base at Diego Garcia, 2,400 miles away, one being intercepted by…
David Lammy’s depraved new world
Beamish, the living history museum in County Durham, invites visitors to ‘step into the past’. It shows how people lived…
Could Labour lose London?
After Gorton and Denton, where next? The scale of the Green triumph in Manchester has sent shockwaves through Sir Keir…
A parade of monstrous and toxic generals: Beatriz Gonzalez reviewed
You might be forgiven for thinking that a charity sale of particularly kitschy furniture has been set up just past…
Keir Starmer’s selective ageism
If the newspaper reports are correct and Margaret Hodge is about to be named as the next chair of Ofcom,…
Portrait of the week: Gender in schools, election U-turns and the ‘truth’ about Navalny
Home Pupils will be allowed to change gender at school, according to guidance issued by Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary;…
The thinking behind Nigel Farage’s shadow cabinet
There is an old joke about Nigel Farage, put about by former colleagues. ‘Why is Nigel like a beech tree?……
‘We know where the bodies are buried’: How Kemi put Keir on the ropes
What does a dying government sound like? At 12.08 p.m. on 4 February we got an answer. Keir Starmer admitted…
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…
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