A.S. Byatt and the follies of magical progressivism
The late novelist understood the dangers of ego-centred delusions
Against Christianity’s cultured admirers
Faith is far more than worldly fulfilment and success
The decline and fall of community cohesion
We need a more substantive model of belonging
Netflixland
Against the flattened world of modern popular culture
Farewell to the counterculture
Róisín Murphy’s cancellation is a tale of poachers turned ideological gamekeepers
Higher education: a diagnosis
We need to address the underlying causes of academic decline
The tyranny of weed
How the drug took over our public spaces
The crisis of loneliness
We have never been more connected, or more isolated
Cancelling the soul
A culture of censoriousness is stifling our civic life
Ghosts of British life
Remembering a forgotten past
Dressing well is good for the soul
Against the tyranny of scruffiness
Feminists gear up for a new fight
Advocates of surrogacy are ignoring its impact on women and children
The Parallax Clueless
In which Nadine Dorries solves an international conspiracy and drinks a LOT of tea
Block votes and nutters
There was a time when the Labour conference really mattered, before it became a stage-managed platform for social media hits and soundbites
The kids are alright
In defence of the British state school pupil
A Wodehousian pick-me-up
Noel Coward and Friends: A Marvellous Party (Signum Classics)
From monoculture to counterculture: why I am leaving Birkbeck for Buckingham
It is difficult for people with heterodox opinions to survive in modern universities
Napoleon sold short
On Ridley Scott’s Napoleon and the challenge of biopics
Saving Gaza with a Queer intifada
Saving the world with slam poetry
Here we go again
The striking similarities between the tired, unoriginal politics of our age and those of the turbulent 1970s
Imagine there’s no problem
It isn’t hard to do
