Kevin Keegan: true King of the North
In the late afternoon of 16 February 1909, a terrifying explosion tore through the Burns Pit at West Stanley in County Durham. Sheets of flame erupted from the pit shaft,…
Burnham’s potemkin radicalism
Andy Burnham is a wool. To those unlucky enough not to hail from the new home of English power — the North West — “wool”, or “woolyback”, is a gently…
Why Ukrainian liberals love conscription
“No!” the woman cries. “May you be damned!” You can hear the despair in her voice, as masked men grab her husband, then bundle him into a waiting van. Within…
What “Pride” tells us about progressive prejudice
“Dai, your gays have arrived!” yells Gwen, a pensioner, as she opens the door of Dulais Valley Lodge in the coalmining heartlands of South Wales. A group of young Londoners…
Christopher Nolan: Hollywood’s last hero
Christopher Nolan has described the Homeric source material of his new film of The Odyssey as “foundational” for his work. On the surface, it’s a banal comment, too vague to…
How David Miliband failed upwards
David Miliband is on maneuvers. Westminster’s lobby stenographers have been busy quoting “friends” on his readiness to serve in the Cabinet if offered a top job, backed up by a…
Ann Widdecombe: Britain’s last Battleaxe
Fifty years from now, said John Major in 1993, “Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county cricket grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and…
The triumph of Lindsey Graham
Lindsey Graham, the senior US senator from South Carolina, died unexpectedly on Saturday, aged 71. This being Anno Domini 2026, the famously hawkish Republican’s demise was greeted with open joy…
The great British housing con
The current political mood in Britain makes it easy to lose sight of things. Even as Andy Burnham, Keir Starmer’s successor in waiting, gave his first major policy speech on…
How Britain became Zombieland
Cordyceps unilateralis, colloquially known as the “zombie ant fungus”, is an organism straight out of a horror story. A native of tropical rainforests, the fungus emits spores that attach themselves…