Why the rich fall for bullshit therapy
It sounds like a Netflix thriller. First, the mysterious death: an aging high-street fashion mogul falls to his death from a scenic coastal precipice while…
Why you don’t really get Homer
When you hear the phrase “Ancient Greece”, what are the first words that come into your head? The names of a few great thinkers, perhaps: Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Zeno? Or…
Why you don’t really get Homer
When you hear the phrase “Ancient Greece”, what are the first words that come into your head? The names of a few great thinkers, perhaps: Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Zeno? Or…
Frankie goes to Downing Street
On the day Andy Burnham became prime minister, my female friends had eyes only for his wife’s dress. The lilac Victoria Beckham gown that Marie-France van Heel wore to No.…
Don’t fall for Project Smear, Mr Burnham
In the lead-up to the Brexit referendum, Remainers deployed Project Fear to scare the living daylights out of anyone considering voting to Leave. Their statistical projections of an were so…
Serfdom, Republican-style
If today’s name ends in a “y,” then you can be sure that some business lobbyists in Washington are pressuring Congress to expand the role of cheap foreign labor in…
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,…
The scandal of moonlighting doctors
On 1 March 2019, managers at Basildon University Hospital needed to find one of their most senior obstetricians — fast. The Care Quality Commission was in the building asking pointed…
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…
Who’s afraid of the Abdul bros?
A populist insurgent is rising in a Democratic primary, outperforming the expectations of pundits and political elites. But the party establishment warns that the insurgent — a straight man —…
Trump’s shadow economy
School’s out for summer — and for one White House staffer, months of seaside lolly-licking beckon. Yes, Gabriel Perez’s schedule is wide open now that he’s been placed on unpaid…