Piddington’s very English revolution
At a packed village hall meeting in picturesque Piddington, parish council leader Tim McNally railed against the British state. “The Government has stacked all of…
The far-Right’s Polish love affair
Rafał came to England for an easy life. He was in his late twenties, his parents had just died, and he had little to keep him in Poland. So when…
Don’t shed tears for Keir
After an embattled two years, it’s Starmer’s turn: on Monday, following a weekend of escalating press speculation, he stood at the podium where he delivered a short statement that robotically…
How Britain lost control
The Brexit referendum campaign of 2016 was a dialog of the deaf, fought by the rival campaigns on different agendas. For Remainers, the issue was the economy. For Leavers, it…
A second Milei rises in Colombia
On Sunday, Colombians narrowly elected the Right-wing lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella to the presidency with 49.7% of the vote against ruling-party nominee Iván Cepeda’s 48.7%. Cepeda’s loss also heralds…
How China made Manchesterism
Walk with me through a fragment of Manchester. Let’s start on Corporation Street, where the 19th-century pomp of Victoria Station abuts an outcrop of high rises. To be fair, I…
Iran has humiliated America’s military
Both those who criticize and those who loyally support Trump’s “deal” — it is hardly a sufficiently explicit agreement, indeed it remains vague on the key points — are carefully…
Why Andy Burnham won’t Rejoin
Perhaps it was the hand of God that plopped Andy Burnham down in Makerfield. Had he got his first choice of constituency, Gorton and Denton, his now-inevitable ascent would have…
Retiring the Nutty Professor
The movie The Nutty Professor, both the original 1963 version starring Jerry Lewis and the successful remake by Eddie Murphy in 1996, is about a genius professor, obese but kind,…
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…
The Cambridge Five: England’s Übermenschen
Who would have thought that Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch would find one of its most remarkable manifestations not among the “blond beasts” of Adolf Hitler’s Aryan fantasies, but…