How (not) to launch a Labour coup
Successful democratic coups are strange things. They must appear both ruthless and constitutional at once. Too much brutality and the plotters look unhinged. Too much procedural delicacy and the leader…
Looksmaxxing is the new trans
On Christmas Eve, the 20-year-old “looksmaxxing” internet personality Clavicular ran over a man with his Cybertruck. The viral stream shows an individual, purportedly a stalker, agitating at the car’s windshield;…
Britain’s Atlantic subordination
Mythology does not record whether Cassandra, whose double curse was the gift of prophecy fated to be ignored, felt at least some glimmers of satisfaction as her city of Troy…
Agatha Christie and the red scare
“The crime novel,” said Bertolt Brecht, “like the world itself, is ruled by the English.” Well, he was right on the first count, but the British crime novelists in the…
Labour’s battle of ideas
And so, Wes Streeting has fired the first shot in a “battle of ideas” within the Labour Party. Others will call it a civil war. Yet more will ask why…
Lucy Letby’s trial by Netflix
The officers descend on the cul-de-sac. It’s early in the morning, and as they make their way into the house a woman pleads, “No!” Her daughter sits in bed, groggy…
Why myths can save humanity
It’s often suggested, in these times of permacrisis, that we need a new story. Keir Starmer needs a new story, liberal democracy needs a new story, the environmental movement, the…
On cannibalism and Jeffrey Epstein
There are two main ways of understanding the case of Jeffrey Epstein, whose shocking correspondence with hundreds of celebrities, politicians, and businesspeople and academics has been giving its readers a…
How healthmaxxing saved my life
In 2023, I met with a colorectal surgeon at the University of Wisconsin’s research hospital while on a holiday break from my master’s program. I had been diagnosed with Crohn’s,…
How Gorton beat Denton
It is a familiar pub quiz reveal that the only constituency in mainland Britain to have ever elected an Irish nationalist MP was the now defunct Merseyside seat of “Liverpool…