Sam Leith

I’ve become a war addict

12 September 2022 5:00 pm

It is an almost unquestioned orthodoxy that war is hell, and that every needless death in a needless war diminishes…

Is Liz Truss a Tory Jeremy Corbyn?

5 September 2022 6:49 pm

Many years ago, when the earth was young and leaving the European Union was a position espoused only by those…

We still love our failing NHS

29 August 2022 8:00 pm

A new poll about the NHS, the Sunday Times tells us, has discovered ‘a decline in support’ for the National…

Sanna Marin and the rise of fake controversy

22 August 2022 7:10 pm

With an honourable exception for the Beastie Boys, I can’t stand the use of ‘party’ as a verb. It immediately…

Salman Rushdie and the incitement of violence

15 August 2022 3:28 pm

When I met Salman Rushdie in New York a couple of years ago, he told me that the days in…

Our long, vulnerable childhoods may be the key to our success

13 August 2022 9:00 am

Could our long journey to adulthood actually be the key to our success, wonders Sam Leith

Does the Met have a racism problem?

8 August 2022 5:00 pm

Back in the winter of 2012, a postal worker named Zac Sharif-Ali was taking a lunchtime stroll with his dog…

Should Apple snoop on your iPhone?

1 August 2022 8:32 pm

Should Apple use software to scan the photo library of every individual iPhone in search of images of child abuse?…

Is technology killing nostalgia?

30 July 2022 9:00 am

Making memories is different in the digital age

The curse of ‘deadmin’

25 July 2022 9:03 pm

George Monbiot has gone to war. Some readers may know this fellow by his nickname ‘Moonbat’ – he’s a Guardian…

The latest Tory leadership debate was a grim spectacle

18 July 2022 3:00 pm

The eyes had it, in last night’s leadership debate. Penny Mordaunt and Rishi Sunak took turns directing to the camera…

The fatuous idea that politicians must be ‘in touch’

11 July 2022 5:25 pm

I was in Hyde Park on Friday watching an open-air Pixies show with very great delight when somewhere between ‘Vamos’…

Nick Bostrom: How can we be certain a machine isn’t conscious?

9 July 2022 9:00 am

Philosopher Nick Bostrom on the AI threat

The past stinks

4 July 2022 5:20 pm

‘Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could,’ says Jeff Goldblum’s character in Jurassic Park, ‘they didn’t stop to…

Abortion should not be just another culture-war ding dong

27 June 2022 4:17 pm

The overturning of Roe v. Wade is an American story, and a global one. What the hell – it’s asked…

How Meghan Markle can shake off the bullying allegations

20 June 2022 8:29 pm

She must be fit to be tied, the Duchess of Sussex. I know I would be. It was reported yesterday…

Are we ignoring AI’s ‘lived experience’?

13 June 2022 5:10 pm

Number Five, as the old film’s catchphrase went, is alive. A whistleblower at Google called Blake Lemoine has gone public…

Imperial measures are culture war bait

30 May 2022 6:40 pm

The idea of reintroducing imperial measures in honour of the Queen’s Jubilee has one quality that will have commended it to No. 10’s…

Should a trans woman inherit a peerage over their older sister?

23 May 2022 5:40 pm

It’s House of Lords reform, Jim, but not as we know it. Matilda Simon has applied to contest the next…

In praise of smartphones

16 May 2022 6:00 pm

The online PE teacher Joe Wicks has announced, in a fit of self-reproach coinciding with the launch of his new…

Let’s turn on SafeSearch for the Houses of Parliament

2 May 2022 5:43 pm

It really is quite easy to click on internet pornography by accident. There’s a persuasive argument that the whole of…

It sucks to be a Christian who doesn’t believe

18 April 2022 5:18 pm

Easter Sunday. I went to church for the first time in ages. The little parish church has stood for 900…

Bono's 'poem' was an insult to the craft of verse

21 March 2022 6:00 pm

‘Poet’, said Robert Frost, ‘is a praise-word’. So it is. That explains in part the unabashed delight with which Colm…

Britain's shameful response to the Ukraine crisis

14 March 2022 6:00 pm

Perhaps you’re of the opinion that Ukrainian refugees aren’t our problem, that the world has always been full of foreigners…

Remember the Russians who will really suffer from sanctions

7 March 2022 8:05 pm

When I was in Russia in the very early 1990s, there was a generic figure who seemed to stand at…