War Without Limits

A new age of volatility

Hamas’ recent brutal attack on Israel reconfirms that the post-Cold War era of Western triumphalism is over.

Letter of the week: Travelling backwards

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Peter Mandelson was omnipresent at the Labour conference

Your dose of gossip from around Westminster and the Liverpool Convention Centre.

The Hamas attack was driven by a brutal ideology

The atrocities committed against Israeli civilians have roots in the same fanaticism activists face in Iran.

Why are Tories so obsessed with Gary Lineker?

Also this week: a brawl at Lord’s and the US-Saudi golf rivalry.

Ludovic Slimak: “We cannot imagine another humanity”

The French paleoanthropologist on how the Neanderthals lived.

No 10 strategists are wrong to think Keir Starmer is weak

The Labour leader has treated past embarrassments in his party with much more ruthlessness than Rishi Sunak has done.

The left’s slide in Germany is a warning for Labour

In power, Olaf Scholz’s coalition offers no answers for a country that has lost its competitive edge in the…

Europe’s east-west divide is widening

Relations between Germany and Poland define the continent. But, ahead of the latter’s election this weekend, they are in…

How Michael Lewis fell for Sam Bankman-Fried

In Going Infinite, the author fails to see the limits of his subject’s intelligence.

The bones that built Britain

Winchester Cathedral’s mysterious “bone chests” tell a story of how warring kings and queens forged a new nation.

The battle for China’s history

Xi Jinping controls the story of his country’s past to crush dissent. But historians are fighting to keep the…

From Clinton Heylin to AK Blakemore: new books reviewed in short

Also featuring The Right to Rule by Ben Riley-Smith and One Fine Day by Matthew Parker.

The BBC’s Jimmy Savile drama is entirely gratuitous

The Reckoning exposes a rotten culture that serves up stories about abused women for entertainment.

A guide to Berlin’s orchestral etiquette

Also: My brush with bicycle “fascism” and a sobering threat to fiction writing.

Philip Guston’s American monsters

His 1960s paintings of Ku Klux Klansmen confront the banality of evil – and retain their power to shock.

Maggie Smith steals the show in The Miracle Club

The 88-year-old actress is a delight in this Irish film – conveying so much humour, and contempt.

Fear and glitter at the Labour Party conference

After a TV grilling, Sir Keir delivered his speech in the guise of an accountant lost in Glasto.

Heavyweight: a podcast full of humanity

The eighth season of Jonathan Goldstein’s show tells real-life stories that are compelling, empathetic and full of character.

Three years on from lockdowns, I have finally tested positive for Covid

I was going to discuss a fictional island but I am now a virtual castaway myself.

As personal heart monitors, smart watches are not so smart

The popularity of wearables is muddying health data and fuelling an epidemic of scans and anxiety.

To Puglia, somehow, for sun, wine and a fairy-tale palazzo

Just to set off the plane and breathe the herb-scented air is to feel the burden of the Anglo-Saxon…

This England: Seeds of doubt

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

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Lubaina Himid’s Q&A: “I’m bothered by my inability to destroy the patriarchy”

The artist on her hero Betye Saar, Match of the Day and being told to “Just paint”.