The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers

The progressive dilemma

The anxieties and insecurities of the present moment are a formidable challenge for the centre left – in Britain…

Letter of the week: Thatcher’s brief exile

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Keir Starmer lands with a bump

Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.

The rise and fall of Russell Brand

The decadent Britain of the 2000s was the perfect place for the comedian-cum-pseudo intellectual to thrive.

How the MeToo backlash helped Russell Brand

Also this week: Bring on by-election season, and my predictions for Strictly Come Dancing.

Mikhaila Peterson’s life at the molten core of the culture wars

At the key moments in the drama of Jordan Peterson, his daughter is usually there.

In power, Labour will have to act like a wartime cabinet

Would an “activist” Starmer government have what it takes to rebuild Britain’s collapsing infrastructure?

Brexit has made the EU less liberal and open

Brussels’ embrace of protectionism is a problem for those who yearn for closer ties with Europe.

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince understands the modern world. His Western suitors do not

Mohammed bin Salman resembles no one so much as the prince from Machiavelli’s manual of statecraft.

Russell Brand’s career was defined by misogyny – and audiences delighted in it

What a comedian chooses to joke about is revealing – and has a bearing on the world at large.

Elon Musk’s death drive

The tech billionaire built a world that he could rule – then allowed it to destroy him.

Bernie Taupin: good lyricist, bad writer

The songs he wrote with Elton John may be works of art. His bloated memoir is not.

From Ben Lerner to Simon Heffer: new books reviewed in short

Also featuring Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang and Stay True by Hua Hsu.

The curse of the cool girl novelist

Her prose is bare, her characters are depressed and alienated. This literary trend has coagulated into parody.

The NS Poem: chorus

A new poem by Andrew McMillan.

Ed Balls and George Osborne’s banal centrism

Their podcast Political Currency is a howl of nostalgia for a bygone era: backseat driving from two men whose…

Frans Hals and the will to life

Where Rembrandt painted introspection, the Haarlem portraitist showed people as social creatures.

Dumb Money is a monument to American greed 

Craig Gillespie’s tale of the GameStop “short squeeze” shows how little amateur investors have learned.

Russell Brand: In Plain Sight made me sick with horror

This Channel 4 Dispatches documentary, which accused the comedian of rape, sexual assault and abuse, was nauseating and terrifying…

Coco Chanel’s second coming

The V&A’s exhibition focuses on the designer’s clothes – with little attention given to her equally spectacular life.

My latest ailment is Mild Exasperation With Everything

Is there a cure? Perhaps buying nine of the 12 volumes of the Scott Moncrieff translation of Proust will…

Now mine has been stolen, I realise how personal a phone is

I’ve lived in London for nearly 32 years and this is the first time it has happened to me,…

A fan’s loyalty is unwavering – unlike the players they support

Life is about endless upheavals, but some – like Harry Kane in lederhosen – are hard to take.

This England: Buried treasure

This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain…

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Lorrie Moore’s Q&A: “US gun regulation should be a public health policy”

The author and critic on epidemiology, the joy of wine and coffee, and the soul of Abraham Lincoln.