Why aristocrats are funny
A recent scientific study of professional speakers finds that two fifths of them told no jokes, and of the jokes they attempted two thirds fell flat. In an insight of…
Marilyn Monroe: cipher for pseuds
With stunning regularity, a breathless artiste sounds a klaxon: they humbly wish to inform you that they have discovered the Real Marilyn Monroe. Here, finally, is Marilyn unguarded: Marilyn unclothed,…
It’s time to bring back Blair
William Hague’s famous 2008 sketch of the return of Blair has suddenly returned as the fantasy of centrist dads everywhere. A motorcade sweeps into Downing Street. A man gets out,…
When cowboys fought capitalism
It’s the end of an era in Texas. Tuesday’s Republican Senate primary saw the truculent Attorney General Ken Paxton triumph over establishment stalwart John Cornyn. The Trump-loyal GOP base chose…
Laborism isn’t working
Two miners’ halls once dominated the politics of England’s coalfields. The first, Redhills in Durham, is one of the most beautiful buildings in a city blessed with many. Its domed…
A Left case for the Great Books
We don’t get to choose our fans. Naomi Kanakia, for example, probably doesn’t want me — a religious-minded, gender-critical writer — to review her book, What’s So Great About the…
Is this the end of the fighter jet?
If the Iran war, as President Trump promises, is soon to be over, the inquests will begin even before a treaty is signed. Was the US right to take up…
Alexander Dugin versus Sydney Sweeney
Sydney Sweeney has upset a lot of people in her short career. Since rising to fame playing “crazy Cassie” in the edgy Gen Z drama, Euphoria, the 28-year-old American actor…
Pope Leo’s unfashionable universalism
A two-millennia-old institution with one foot in the Roman Empire challenges Silicon Valley’s masters of AI and automation to do better. That’s the generic read on Pope Leo XIV’s debut…
How France stole my freedom
On 20 May 2026, I learned that I had been condemned by the French justice system for a sentence I had uttered during a television debate three years before. What…