This article was originally published on politcs.co.uk on February 14th, 2018. The main point of interest in the Telegraph‘s recent attack on philanthropist George Soros is not whether its authors are antisemitic, but what it tells us about the growth of the paranoid style in…
This article was originally published in Progress magazine on November 29th, 2017. It is a sign of our shallow times that despite the ubiquity of the word ‘populism’ over the last two years, so little attention has been paid to the movement which gave it…
This article was originally published on politics.co.uk on November 20th, 2017. When Alex Salmond was interviewed about his new show on RT UK by Channel 4 News anchor Jon Snow last week, he accidentally flagged up a sinister reality about his latest venture. “It’s edited…
This article was originally published in Open Democracy on November 11th, 2017 (Remembrance Sunday). For the German painter Otto Dix, the First World War really was “all over by Christmas” – only it was Christmas 1918, after he had spent four years on the front…
Review of Kill All Normies by Angela Nagle, originally published in Medium on October 19th, 2017. Is there something about the internet which brings out the worst in people? It’s a question one has reason to consider every day. But a new book by Angela…
This article was originally published on politics.co.uk on October 13th, 2017. Having seen a fair bit of Chris Rock’s stand up comedy, I wasn’t very surprised to hear him use a six-letter word that rhymes with ‘digger’ on Friday’s Graham Norton Show on the BBC.…
Review of The Rage by Julia Ebner, originally published in Progress magazine on October 5th, 2017. The Rage – out today from IB Tauris – is part dedicated to the memory of Jo Cox, the slain member of parliament who suffered the kind of death…
Review of I am Not Your Negro, about James Baldwin, originally published in Little Atoms on April 5th, 2017. I’ll always remember the mind-expanding moment when as a younger man I watched footage of James Baldwin, cigarette in hand, looking down the barrel of a…
This essay was originally published in Little Atoms on January 20th, 2017. As the nation’s political leaders jostled for position after the Brexit vote in the EU referendum, a popular hot take among lazy journalists was to say how it was all “just like Game…
Interview with author Thomas Frank, originally published in Open Democracy on July 27th, 2016. Now that the Republican Party has chosen a coiffured gargoyle as its nominee for president, the panicked eyes of the world turn to the Democrats, who have just selected Hillary Clinton…