As David Cameron’s powers wane, he will struggle to secure the legacy he wants
The Prime Minister only has himself to blame for his accelerated decline.
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The making of a monster
Take me back to where De Quincey met his hero – and I tried to shake off the devil
If the past is another country, it’s one the boundaries of which are ever shifting, as entire features dissolve in…
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Boris’s taxes, Justin Welby’s posh paternity and how the left can rescue inheritance tax
David Cameron is remarkably adept at getting out of trouble.
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How Donald Trump is legitimising torture
Trump is willing to trample on a quarter of a millennium of moral thinking and democratic taboos on torture.
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Thirteen going on fifty: Julie Burchill finds her teenage self in Jackie the Musical
People can be sniffy about jukebox musicals but in my opinion they are infinitely preferable to overblown and pretentious…
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“The Diamond Pane”: a poem by Kathleen Jamie
“I, my mother’s daughter, / took up a pen, hard-nibbed / and therefore equal / to the task. .…
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Teach yourself Dwarvish: behind Tolkien’s invented languages
From sound aesthetic to Finnegans Wake, a new book explores Tolkien’s relationship to language.
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Working as a diarist meant not caring about the people you hurt
When I was a diarist, I survived by becoming two things: a serious alcoholic, and facetious.
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The Returning Officer: Holderness
Aline Mackinnon stood for the Liberals in Holderness in the 1931 and 1935 elections and in a 1939 by-election…
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From being a “B52 liberal” to the crisis of young Europeans
My week in European politics, from London to Rome – via Berlin.
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Only yourself to blame: how stigma is making us fatter
Interacting with health-care professionals has been a long-standing problem for obese people. It’s time to tackle the question of…
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How a 2010 air crash is still dividing Poland
The conspiracy theories around the Smolensk crash continue to unsettle Polish politics six years’ later.
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Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts is moving in every sense of the word
This American memoir is a portrait not only of marriage and motherhood, but of gender identity in flux.
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Men for all seasons: how David Szalay condenses a lifetime into a year
Not all of the protagonists in All That Man Is are admirable, or even likable – but it pulls us completely…
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Jaco Van Dormael is a director for the Buzzfeed generation
The Brand New Testament is full of precis and lightning-fast recaps. In the era of listicles, perhaps Van Dormael’s…
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A hundred and fifty feet above Hyde Park is a scene of glory and bloodlust
An email arrives from my contact at English Heritage. Would I like to go up to the top of…
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A turning point for rock and roll? Why 1971 was pivotal
1971: Never a Dull Moment by David Hepworth reveals the year when the singer-songwriter overtook the band – and…
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What would society look like with universal basic income?
It may seem blasphemous to neoliberals, but a universal basic wage may be the only choice we have.
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For a man who supposedly cannot win, Bernie Sanders is doing pretty nicely
Sanders has shown that you can make a serious run for the presidency without corporate cash.
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The unbridled, feral strangeness of Camping is the funniest thing I’ve seen in years
Julia Davis’s superbly twisted writing has created a gem. Plus: Scott & Bailey reviewed.
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The sportsmen who can lose games – but not their hair
Why do men try to hide their bald spots? Is it vanity, pride, the fear of being seen as less…
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Chernobyl and the ghosts of a nuclear past
A Nobel laureate captures the beginning of the “age of disasters”.
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For the love of God: how Rowan Williams illuminates the philosophy of St Augustine
What Williams shows, in essay after essay, is that Augustine’s conversion to Christianity changed everything.
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Meet the women bringing the kitchen to Wikipedia
Most food throughout history has been cooked by women – “but if you can’t name them, they get forgotten”.
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Commons Confidential: Don Tony’s blessing
From Jeremy Corbyn’s jam sales to the Godfather of the Labour Party.
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The fabulous weirdness of Martin John – a novel composed by its protagonist
Martin John by Anakana Schofield is formulated by the endless tinkering and fiddling of its outsider narrator.
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The complicated Jewishness of Benjamin Disraeli
Disraeli: the Novel Politician by David Cesarani reveals the complex identity of the Tory icon.
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