Fellow-travellers and useful idiots
Western apologists for the Soviet Union believed they were in the vanguard of history.
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The Russian Revolution
Moscow, my family and me
To grow up in the Communist Party of Great Britain was to be on the side of the future .…
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Living, eating and dreaming revolution
The Soviet state was born in violence and shaped with merciless determination. Lenin played a central role in its…
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The conflicted legacy of Karl Marx
A century and a half ago, Das Kapital, the bible of 20th-century revolutionaries, predicted the overthrow of capitalism – but also the…
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“It gets people killed”: Osip Mandelstam and the perils of writing poetry under Stalin
The cat-and-mouse game between the poet Osip Mandelstam and the Soviet dictator could only end in death.
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Painting a new world: what happened to the radical potential of Soviet art?
As Lenin led his overthrow of the old order, Russia’s artists engaged in one of their own
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What causes psychosis? Horizon: Why Did I Go Mad? tries to help us understand
Trying to imagine such a thing is less than halfway to understanding it, but it’s a pretty good place…
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An ode to Forever FM, the fictional local radio station from Peter Kay’s Car Share
The brilliance of Forever FM sounds like a response to all those who claimed that Kay was merely a…
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Mindhorn: Julian Barratt’s limp, laugh-an-hour ode to naff TV
Barratt usually plays the jumped-up buffoon who is never quite as classy, clever or hilarious as he believes himself…
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Divine Chaos of Starry Things: Paul Mason’s take on French anarchist Louise Michel reviewed
Paul Mason’s new play about Michel is admirably far from a hagiography.
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Why do we swim?
Three new “swimoirs” plumb the depths of the question.
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The friendly hitman: how boxing gave Anthony Joshua a second chance
At 19, he was fitted with an electronic tag. At 27, he is the world’s top heavyweight boxer.
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In defence of philistinism
Don’t feel guilty if you’d rather read a Fifty Shades of Grey sequel than Proust.
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What next for Joe Anderson, Liverpool’s fighting mayor?
Mayor Joe inspires gratitude and loathing in almost equal measure. Can he stay on brotherly terms with the new…
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Commons Confidential: Why House of Commons staff want Zac back
Staff mean no offence to Sarah Olney, but they’d like Zac Goldsmith back as MP for Richmond Park. Here’s…
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Anger in the land of Marine Le Pen: “In 1985, we lived a hundred times better than today”
Former miners plan to vote for the leader of the far-right Front National in the final round of the…
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What the general election selection battles reveal about Jeremy Corbyn’s legacy
The unions have secured Labour strongholds for their favoured candidates, which implies that they are deeply pessimistic about the…
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Most Labour MPs dance around Jeremy Corbyn’s unpopularity – not Jess Phillips
Smart, funny and mouthy, Jess Phillips is one of the most impressive MPs from Labour’s 2015 intake. Now she’s…
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Diane Abbott’s police gaffe shows why aides like to keep their politicians quiet
From Gordon Brown to Theresa May, politicians’ doorstep encounters are stage managed. But it’s hard to ensure that “ordinary…
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The morning all hell broke loose: when Gordon Brown found out I was going on the radio
What’s in a name?
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The Tin Man opened his mouth wide and showed me the familiar white spots
It was difficult to assess his complexion because of the silver face paint blending his skin in with the metallic…
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Today, Wordsworth would be dismissed as a curmudgeon in tweeds
Who most deserves to wander lonely as a cloud, in this hopelessly overcrowded land of ours?
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I despair at how quickly couples give up on each other – but then, what do I know about dating?
I sometimes wonder how the hell I’d cope nowadays.
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In Paris my mother, who is 90, disapprovingly takes a cigarette from my fingers – and finishes it
The rest of the weekend . . . well, I had better pass over some of it in silence
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So they may not get into Mensa, but what’s stupid is to assume that all footballers are thick
I like to see an ex-footballer doing well, but I don’t wish Mark Tucker luck at HSBC.
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Hisham Matar: “It is no longer that possible to have heroes”
The novelist and Pulitzer Prize-winning memoirist on travelling in time, living without TV and admiring Angela Merkel.
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Jean-Paul Sartre: the far side of despair
First published on 30 June 1956, a profile of the philosopher and the communist dilemma.
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Leader: A harder Brexit
Angela Merkel has accused some politicians in Britain of living under the “illusion” that the UK would retain its rights…
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