Nick Cohen

Nick Cohen is a columnist for the Observer and author of What's Left and You Can't Read This Book.

Is Russia Today finished?

5 March 2022 4:04 am

As the British authorities debate whether to ban the propaganda channel of a savage imperialist power, Russia Today is making a…

Boris is dragging the Tories down with him

2 February 2022 6:00 pm

Tories occasionally like to pretend that they are not wasting their talents and lives defending a bottom-feeding demagogue. They lecture…

The Tories hold themselves in contempt

12 January 2022 9:10 pm

If by the end of today 54 members of the parliamentary Conservative party have not handed in the letters required…

What does Neville Chamberlain have in common with Brexiteers?

11 January 2022 1:10 am

The false notes in Netflix’s adaptation of Robert Harris’s Munich come in the final scenes. Jeremy Irons, who has been…

Rishi Sunak's new age fantasy and the great Tory con

29 October 2021 9:33 am

Failure corrupts as much as power does, and when the powerful fail they make others pay for their disappointment. To…

Why does Boris Johnson keep on winning?

19 October 2021 9:40 pm

For his critics, Boris Johnson offends the notion that the British are a sensible people so deeply we feel we…

The mendacity of Priti Patel’s immigration Bill

14 October 2021 5:00 pm

You are a journalist, a satirist, a campaigner, an opposition politician. For years you work to create the flash of…

How the far left killed itself

29 September 2021 7:22 am

The Labour right is as happy as I have seen it in a decade. It thinks it has its party…

China’s obsessive attempts to subvert the West

23 September 2021 8:11 am

Most people who think themselves well informed know little or nothing about China. They – or I should say ‘we’…

Even Tories should be wary of Gove's election stitch-up

9 September 2021 7:36 am

Conservative politicians appear willing to revolt on every issue: tax rises, China, lockdowns. But on the accumulation of power by…

Beware Boris's sinister crackdown on free speech

24 June 2021 5:14 pm

A Conservative government that boasts it is a defender of free speech against the attacks of ‘the woke’ is about…

Labour is in last chance saloon

5 June 2021 5:30 pm

If they have any sense – a proposition I will test later – officials from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and…

Labour’s damning silence on Brexit

18 February 2021 2:40 am

The Labour party has updated the old metaphysical question: ‘If a tree falls in a forest and no one is…

Why Jews don’t count to the ‘anti-racists’

4 February 2021 9:58 pm

Suppose you explain to someone spouting racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory ideas that they are prejudiced. You may begin by…

Boris Johnson isn't the only one to blame for Britain's Covid crisis

6 January 2021 2:21 am

Britain has suffered one of the world’s highest Covid death tolls and worst Covid recessions. It has managed this abysmal feat…

Why Boris Johnson can't solve the UK's crisis

22 December 2020 3:36 am

The Brexit and Covid crises have merged into one. As of today, 21 December, France has blocked trucks from crossing…

Cambridge academics have just won an important battle for free speech

10 December 2020 5:28 am

Academics at Cambridge won a cheering victory for free speech today when they voted by an overwhelming majority to reject…

The Cummings' debacle shows Boris isn't fit to lead

14 November 2020 11:35 pm

For all his Falstaffian swagger, Boris Johnson resembles no Shakespearian character so much as Henry VI. He is a weak…

The cowardice of an ‘anti-fascist’ video game company

9 November 2020 9:25 pm

Anti-fascism isn’t a game. You can’t preen yourself and say you oppose dictatorship and the power of the mob, then…

Starmer’s suspension of Corbyn took courage

30 October 2020 4:14 am

Keir Starmer’s decision to suspend Jeremy Corbyn shows a courage so many lacked when the far left ran the party…

The cruelty of the care home visit ban

21 October 2020 4:20 pm

The loneliest pandemic deaths are in ‘care’ homes. Old people with dementia and people of all ages with severe mental…

The hounding of a Scottish poet by trans activists

6 October 2020 1:53 am

For a witch hunt to begin extremists must so dominate a movement any sin, however slight, becomes a heresy the…

J.K. Rowling's latest novel isn't 'transphobic'

16 September 2020 2:10 am

The object of a slanderer is to blacken the name of his target so thoroughly everything she says and does…

How Corbyn's toxic legacy continues to sabotage the Labour party

25 July 2020 7:14 pm

On Thursday the supposedly resurgent Labour party lost control of Brighton and Hove, one of its few centres of power…

Boris Johnson’s command and control administration

21 July 2020 6:46 pm

Conservatives once knew that command and control didn’t work. Even if they didn’t know it intellectually, one former Conservative minister…