Features
Mississippi hospitality
Driving into Greenwood after dark, we pull into a gas station and ask directions to a late-night grocery store. ‘Sir……
The parenting trap
Out of the fog of rumour and accusation surrounding the melancholy break-up of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, one source…
Syrian nightmare
‘We are used to death,’ said Ismail. He had been to the funerals of four friends in a single week,…
Meet Boris Mark II
The make-up lady at the BBC’s Millbank studio in Westminster has noticed a change in Boris Johnson’s look. ‘His hair…
Brains for Trump
Last week more than 130 right-wing thinkers put their names to a defiant document — a list of ‘Scholars and…
The students fight back
Last week, students at York University staged a walkout from the sexual consent classes organised by their student union women’s…
Unhappy Pill
A study came out last week that should have caused great alarm. For 13 years, researchers at the University of Copenhagen studied…
Who comes after Merkel?
A year from now, 60 million Germans go to the polls in the most important general election in mainland Europe…
Why cathedrals are soaring
Something strange is happening in the long decline of Christian Britain. We know that church attendance has plummeted two thirds…
A pint of Landlord
Down a lane in Keighley, in the old West Riding of Yorkshire, they brew the greatest ale in the world.…
A pint of Landlord
Down a lane in Keighley, in the old West Riding of Yorkshire, they brew the greatest ale in the world.…
In search of Mayism
What does Theresa May believe? The new Prime Minister has had the summer to settle into her job and has…
The May machine
Theresa May isn’t much given to shows of emotion. When Andrea Leadsom called her to concede in the Tory leadership…
Doctor’s orders
Second acts in British politics are vanishingly rare these days and Liam Fox, restored to the cabinet by Theresa May,…
May’s beard
This week, the Tory party conference ought to be gripped by the question, who the hell is Nick Timothy, the…
Of rats and men
‘I really, really hate rats,’ Sir David Attenborough has boasted. ‘If a rat appears in a room, I have to…
New York Notebook
The first presidential debate was a disappointment. Half an hour into the big Trump-Clinton show on Long Island, many among…
Croatia
Advocates of New Zealand often boast that the country is like Britain was in the 1950s. This is all well…
Croatia
Advocates of New Zealand often boast that the country is like Britain was in the 1950s. This is all well…
The party’s over
This leadership contest was meant to topple Jeremy Corbyn, or at the very least weaken him. It looks almost certain…
Importing the gentleman
Beijing Gerard Manley Hopkins said that if the English had done nothing but ‘left the world the notion of a…
Bombs astray
Soon, soon, you will see a wondrous sight,’ says the Isis anthem, ‘for your destruction, my sword has been sharpened.…
The missing lynx?
Sometimes an idea is so barmy that worrying about it ever becoming reality seems pointless. So when the Labour MP…
Victory of the swashbucklers
On 14 June, a short email popped up in the inboxes of all Financial Times editorial staff. It came from…
Five Go Back to Blyton
Six years ago, the publishers Hachette took the well-meaning yet preposterous step of making ‘sensitive text revisions’ to Enid Blyton’s…
