Things can only get worse for Labour
While the government wrestles with intractable problems, Labour seems irrelevant. Is there any hope for the party?
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Brexit to Trump
Leader: The unresolved Eurozone crisis
The continent that once aspired to be a rival superpower to the US is now a byword for decline, and…
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The best new children’s books for Christmas
From a goat with a mobile phone to a poor chimney sweep, here are the new stories to look…
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When Harry met Fifty Shades: what makes a book popular?
The Bestseller Code by Jodie Archie and Matthew L Jockers reveals what literary hits have in common.
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How two Canadians helped me get America into perspective
It’s only a few days after the election when I go to see Chaim Tannenbaum sing.
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How a dramatized account of Mark Duggan’s death found a prime-time audience
I usually have an aversion to actors pretending to be police officers in this kind of scenario, but Lawful Killing:…
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In Snowden, Joseph Gordon-Levitt seems to absorb the spirit of the whistleblower
Gordon-Levitt makes Snowden’s motives transparent without ever fully dropping his guard. It is reassuring that a film in which…
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My week, from Trump Tower to how I’m spending my Brexit winnings
Writing history’s first draft, my Westminster gridiron gang, and ennobling Naughty Nige.
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Face it: none of the world’s best education systems include grammar schools
The week that was, from grammar school delusions and Labour floating voters to why republicans will love The Crown.
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How the left should respond to the steady march of nationalism
The new wave of nationalism is a reminder of the contingent, if not cyclical, nature of history. The liberal…
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A mouse, some cigarettes, and a new existential panic
I have now slept alone more nights than with a woman by my side: this is a cause for…
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We don’t live in a world in which post-truth politics is inevitable
Democracy requires a citizenship that meets, deliberates and interacts without fear and hatred. Only in this way can we…
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Had a meltdown at a self-service checkout? You’re not alone…
Judging by what I saw when I went out to buy cereal, man and machine have hit a critical…
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The Autumn Statement proved it – we need a real alternative to austerity, now
Theresa May’s Tories have missed their chance to rescue the British economy.
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What do the new, right-wing populists mean for our future?
It is this year’s cruellest political irony that the people who most support the populists are the least “future…
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Europe’s states of disorder
Those optimistically talking about a “soft Brexit” are missing the bigger picture.
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Intelligent life on earth: why we need Radio 4’s Book of the Week
When a book on quantum gravity came on air, it sounded like a brief return to something that has declined…
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What kind of football snob are you?
From where you go to what you eat, football is full of snobs. Who doesn’t like looking down on…
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Maria Schneider’s story is no surprise – Hollywood has always treated women as commodities
From Last Tango in Paris to Basic Instinct, we are now discovering the unsavoury truth about sex scenes.
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History’s losers: intimate stories from survivors of the Soviet empire
Second-Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich is an empathetic treatment of collective memory – and grief.
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Labour and Tory MPs fear the political forces Brexit could unleash
The Liberal Democrats and Ukip are offering Remainers and Leavers alternative homes.
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A very cheesy Christmas: could you stomach the pong of these cheeses?
In San Sebastián for the World Cheese Awards, I could smell the gathering from the next room.
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We have been thinking about Brexit back to front
The EU referendum fallout has only served to remind us of the status quo. “Taking back control” is meaningless…
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In the post-liberal battleground, the politics of belonging must not be ceded to the right
If the left is to avoid permanent irrelevance, it must consider a politics committed to family, decent work, contribution,…
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Europe’s last Blairite: Can Manuel Valls win the French presidency?
He first made a name for himself protesting against halal supermarkets. Now, he could be the man to take…
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Commons Confidential: Money for old Gove
Backstabbing Boris, a doctored doctorate, and when private schools come to Parliament.
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How the eurozone entered a new phase of economic crisis
Matteo Renzi’s resignation reminds us that populism has financial consequences.
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No, identity politics is not to blame for the failures of the left
This is no time to back away from our commitment to women’s rights, racial justice and sexual equality.
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