The virus strikes back

Leader: A resurgent threat

Boris Johnson’s libertarian instincts strike again, as he offers no justification for why masks should be worn in schools…

Letter of the week: Taking on the trolls

A selection of the best letters received from our readers this week. Email [email protected] to have your thoughts voiced…

The global race to contain Omicron

As countries close their borders over fears of the new variant, we are reminded that the pandemic is far…

Yalda Hakim’s Diary: Afghanistan’s new regime, the feminist resistance, and the horror of famine

Hunger and poverty have become more visible than ever. At a children’s hospital in Kabul, I met a three-year-old…

Why do students still want Jordan Peterson to tell them how to live?

I shadowed Peterson at two events in Oxford and Cambridge, where the anti-woke culture warrior received an unexpectedly warm…

The last thing the government wants is another lockdown. It may have a problem

The Tories believe another shutdown would be a betrayal. But the Omicron variant could weaken their position.

The suppression of people-smuggling is as perilous and futile as the war on drugs

We fail to grasp that stepping up sanctions will not impact those already resigned to risking their lives.

My dad fled Lebanon for a new life. He found dry land, but others aren’t so lucky

After another tragedy in the Channel, I was reminded of my dad’s voyage from Beirut on a small boat…

Football cryptocurrencies herald a dystopian future where fandom isn’t free

We are in the Wild West phase of cryptos, and clubs can’t resist capitalising on it.

HG Wells and the human animal

The visionary novelist sought to transform the world, but he could not escape its, or his own, dark irrationality.

The NS Poem: autodidact

A new poem by Claudine Toutoungi.

Reviewed in short: New books by Jan Morris, Siri Hustvedt, Mark Bould and Salley Vickers

Allegorizings by Morris, Mothers, Fathers and Others by Hustvedt, The Anthropocene Unconscious by Bould, and The Gardener by Vickers.

How our lives depend on dirty work

We rely on some people doing unethical labour – fighting wars, killing animals, patrolling borders – and to absolve…

Why the break-up of the Beatles still grips us

Even in 1969, Lennon and McCartney were still capable of making each other laugh and creatively turning each other…

Mandy Patinkin on Stephen Sondheim: “I got to be in the room with Shakespeare. Who gets that?”

The actor reflects on the death of the great American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim.

House of Gucci is a supersized melodrama of dynastic strife

Ridley Scott’s look at the fashion house belongs to its star, Lady Gaga.

The strange spell of BBC Four’s Winter Walks

I hunker inside each episode, as if in a too-big cagoule, trying hard to ignore the rain.

This year’s Reith Lectures ask: will artificial intelligence save or destroy us?

What could be more festive than contemplating the extinction of the human race by robot overlords.

Christmas is a time for wines that remind us of the small pleasures of home

What better to invoke the festive traditions of internalised resentment and reluctant compromises than a lovely Carricante?

I’ve been shut off for too long. It’s time for some little ordinary adventures

At last, I’m shaking my post-Covid state of mind.

My heady, sweaty night of “Tainted Love”, dancing, and snakebite and blacks

I still can’t believe I went to a nightclub; I was the oldest person there by a decade or…

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This England: Kissinger-a-gram

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

Rachel Kyte Q&A: “My carbon footprint is a source of deep discomfort”

Rachel Kyte on the legacy of Aneurin Bevan, dreams of teleportation and what the Girl Guides taught her.