The American disaster
In 1831, at the dawn of American democracy, the French political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville spent the best part of a year in the United States. His book Democracy in…
Burnham faces an insurgent Britain
In the BBC’s 1975 Panorama documentary on Sandhurst — now on iPlayer, perhaps through a scheduler’s sense of mischief or apprehension — we follow officer cadets as they train to…
AI and the false consciousness trap
The trouble with impressive new technologies is that they have the uncanny ability to expose the awfulness of our relationship to one another, not to mention to our own selves.…
The myth of the King of the North
“Too Northern”; “Not really Northern at all”; “Strategically Northern”; “A plastic Northerner”; “A professional Northerner”; “A Northern soul populist.” Not since Jon Snow rode South in Game of Thrones has…
Is Burnham too Northern?
Like many post-industrial constituencies in Northern England — areas with predominantly white, working-class, Brexit-voting populations — received wisdom had Makerfield hurtling towards the Right. Britain, it has been repeated by…
My diversity stress — and ours
On a crisp morning last December, I took the 6 train from near my apartment in East Midtown toward UnHerd’s new US headquarters in Lower Manhattan. If the 4 isn’t…
Burnham won’t quell England’s revolt
In his 2004 song “Irish Blood, English Heart“, the Manchester-Irish songsmith Morrissey proclaimed he was “dreaming of a time when/ To be English is not to be baneful / To…
Can Burnham banish Maggie’s ghost?
In 2013, I attended a Margaret Thatcher death party in Brixton. At the age of 23, perhaps I should have known better. Politically, I was in an extended-adolescence phase of…
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…
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…