World
Oxford U-turns in chancellor ‘wokeism’ row
Uh oh. The dreaming spires are once again caught up in controversy. Ministers have accused Oxford University of attempting to…
Campus unrest is coming to a city near you
It is 10 p.m. at the University of Texas at Austin’s South Mall. The night is quiet, a stark contrast…
A crackdown on AI energy consumption would be a mistake
AI has an energy problem: it consumes an awful lot of it. Firms like ChatGPT creator OpenAI demand eye-watering levels of…
Pennsylvania at the polls
It’s nicknamed “the Keystone State” because, if my memory of junior-year Pennsylvania history class serves me, in America’s early founding…
Zelensky feels the pressure as Russian offensive intensifies
Volodymyr Zelensky this morning cancelled all of his upcoming foreign trips. He was scheduled to travel to Madrid on Friday…
What I learned from working-class Americans
It’s a month before publication day for my second book, Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America’s Working Men and Women.…
AI and the new way of war
What is happening in Gaza now provides a glimpse of how all wars may be fought in the future —…
Biden’s base rebels over Gaza
Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is a multifront war. Unfortunately for him, the youngest soldiers in his coalition would rather fight…
Everything is an emergency after SNP rule
After nearly 17 years in office the Scottish government has finally accepted the truth: it is incompetent. It has declared…
Why can’t Starmer be honest about reforming the Lords?
Sometimes life comes at you fast. Barely 18 months ago, Sir Keir Starmer, beginning to scent general election victory in…
Will Ofcom ‘grow a backbone’ over politician presenters?
What comes around goes around. Instead of Ofcom doing the scrutinising, the media regulator found itself under the microscope this…
Could Farage save the Tory right?
Talk to almost any right-wing Tory MP these days and one of the first things they raise – with me…
The ins and outs of fatherhood
Alexandria, Virginia It is impossible to read through the transparent eyelids of an eight-day-old just what kind of young lady…
How to be friends with young people
Can an older person like me ever really be friends with a young person? At one time I would have…
Gazing at the eclipse in Walt Whitman’s perfect silence
The day before the April 8 eclipse — our postage stamp of ground sat smack dab in the middle of…
Should elders be respected?
For the left, the world has always been, and always will be, a scandal. In this American election year, it…
Loving Las Vegas
After ten hours of flying and too much bad airplane coffee, the beef carpaccio from 8 East at the Circa…
On D-Day at eighty
Traveling to Normandy fourteen years ago, we encountered a rare guide. He was a middle-aged Frenchman native to the neighborhood.…
What Hunt should really do to stop people claiming benefits
It is hard to deny the assertion made by Jeremy Hunt and the Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride that…
A terrible tale of a French village
The new prime minister of France, Gabriel Attal, has promised to “take care” of Oradour-sur-Glane. The village, in west-central France,…
The plot to erase the Anglo-Saxons
Sea-thieves messenger, deliver back in reply, tell your people this spiteful message, that here stands undaunted an Earl with his…
The Galápagos evolution even Darwin didn’t foresee
Lonesome George, a Pinta Island giant tortoise, spent the latter half of his hundred years munching on cacti and roaming…
Dispatch from an unloved borough
Once a year, Nick, a surgeon who lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, visits Staten Island. Almost as…
Why are Scottish nationalists so thin-skinned?
Scottish nationalists are not happy. What’s new, I hear you ask. Did they lose another leader? Has Sainsbury’s been selling…
Summer flavor pairings
Does anything say “June” quite like strawberries and cream? The sweetness of sun-ripened strawberries allowed to remain on the plant…
