April
An age of extinction is coming. Here’s how to survive
The digital era is killing us softly by distracting us from the activities that sustain ordinary life and making existence at a human scale seem obsolete.
January
Trump’s restoration won’t guarantee a happy ending. Remember Napoleon
If the fates do their spinning and snipping appropriately, the Trumpian pageant can only really end in some final epic diminishment.
June 2024
Joe Biden must quit now, in case he does actually win
The prospect of Biden as president for four more years is too scary to contemplate: the entire global order will be endangered if there is an empty vessel in the Oval Office.
February 2024
Biden should step aside – but what is the safest way to do so?
Hanging on or handing over to Kamala Harris both contain huge risks. There is a third choice if the president wants to take it.
Birth rates are falling. Why family-friendly policies are not enough
The stunning fertility collapse in some countries is “not primarily driven by economics or family policies”. It’s more to do with culture and psychology.
October 2023
The victory Hamas has already won
Hamas is not as exposed as the Islamic State — not even close. Hamas and its terrorists have held or expanded their popular support across the Muslim world.
January 2023
Five rules for a world dominated by ageing, not climate
Pensions, family sizes, even innovation and fighting wars cannot be the same in societies that are not replacing themselves.
October 2022
Is nostalgia killing conservatism?
The libertarian policies of Liz Truss look weirdly out of step. Until you consider the failings of both centrists and right-wing populists in Europe.
September 2022
Ukraine’s wins will start reshaping the politics of this war
Russia had hoped to break Ukraine with a gas war on the West. Now it looks as though the battlefield will be decisive.
August 2022
Why culture needs less Netflix and more Miranda Priestly
Fashion stores, music labels and streaming services are chock-full of copycats. Here’s how to resist the age of the algorithm.
January 2022
Don’t Look Up deserves a second cut and a better ending
The Netflix hit allegory on climate change and populism lets the expert class off far too lightly.
May 2021
The lab leak theory, like the virus, won’t go away
After 3.5 million deaths, a question persists: did COVID-19 escape accidentally from a Wuhan institute rather than leaping from bats or pangolins to humans?
April 2021
Forget FDR and Lyndon Johnson, Joe Biden is channelling Donald Trump
A close look at the Biden agenda reveals a President seizing the populist opportunity that his predecessor let slip away.
January 2021
More than a riot, but not a coup: how Trump made a fantasy real
Rather than the first act of a mortal threat to American democracy, the mob storming of the Capitol was the culmination of the distorted reality that is 'The Trump Show'.
November 2020
There will be a Trumpism after Trump
Despite plague, economic crisis and his own immense faults, Trump was a competitive candidate with a coalition that was more blue-collar and nonwhite than the Republican vote in 2012.
In a polarised America, landslides give way to nail-biters
This election is one more sign, as if we needed more, that our system’s method of uniting power with legitimacy is slowly losing both.
October 2020
There will be no Trump coup
One can oppose Trump, even hate him, and still feel very confident he will leave office if he is defeated, and any attempt to cling to power illegitimately will be a theatre of the absurd.
COVID-19 was a missed chance to transform this presidency
By choosing wisely, Donald Trump could have vindicated his world view and taken rapid action to contain the plague he has now caught.
September 2020
Why Gen X is the new bastion of America's Republican vote
The generation that came of age in the stability of the Reagan era is not as tempted by the left as are Baby Boomers and Millennials.
Not all of America's virus failures are Trump's
I have argued that the blundering of the Trump administration, while real and deadly, may not be responsible for the bulk of America's coronavirus fatalities.