When national survival is at stake, you call in the experts and worry about the electorate’s consent later
When national survival is at stake, you call in the experts and worry about the electorate’s consent later
Best of the week, 25 January 2020
Everything you know about Europe is wrong
British liberals have created a Europe of their imagination, but how closely does it resemble reality?
Latest from The Post >
Going vegan will not save the planet
Weekend read
08:00
Going vegan will not save the planet
The system of resource extraction remains environmentally destructive
Mary Harrington | 25 January
Why the mummy wars are really class wars
Notionally scientific parenting questions are in truth vehicles for class and cultural debates
Notionally scientific parenting questions are in truth vehicles for class and cultural debates
The inconvenient truth about transwomen
Self-identification puts women, children — and trans people themselves — at risk
Self-identification puts women, children — and trans people themselves — at risk
Identity politics is Christianity without redemption
Woke notions of white supremacy and the patriarchy bring back old ideas that people are damned at birth
Woke notions of white supremacy and the patriarchy bring back old ideas about predestination
Latest from The Post >
Going vegan will not save the planet
Weekend read
08:00
Going vegan will not save the planet
The system of resource extraction remains environmentally destructive
Mary Harrington | 25 January
Our writers.
There is no mental illness epidemic
Thanks to celebrities, more people are demanding help — while those most in need are overlooked
Rural Cornwall is right to be anxious
If the duchy is to survive Brexit, something must be done about its not-so-splendid isolation
Why don’t we remember these 100 million dead?
If we forget the scale of the Spanish Flu horror, we'll be doomed to repeat it
Cultural heroes, please stay out of politics
The finest minds lose all their nuance when they get political on Twitter
What Sajid Javid should say at Davos, but won’t
Dear Chancellor, we’ve written your speech for you — no need to thank us
There is no mental illness epidemic
Thanks to celebrities, more people are demanding help — while those most in need are overlooked
Salvini’s plan to smash Italy’s red wall
Italy's populist leader appeals to millions battered by EU austerity and globalisation
Italy's populist leader appeals to millions battered by EU austerity and globalisation
Why the drugs don’t work
Thousands of people are given ineffective medicines because trial data is being purposely skewed
How Brexit broke up the ‘special relationship’
Trump's weakening of our military alliance is part of a long-term trend — but Brexit and Iraq accelerated it
Reaction
17:11
I disagree with the Church about sex, but I’m not leaving
Ambivalence about the church you are a member of is not disloyalty, it is maturity
Giles Fraser | 24 January
Reaction
15:04
The Joe Rogan endorsement is a big win for Bernie
Critics of the YouTube star overlook his anti-establishment appeal
James Billot | 24 January
Debate
13:27
OK Lisa Nandy, I’ll give you my vote
The Wigan MP is the least uninspiring of the Labour leadership candidates
Paul Embery | 24 January
Idea
08:30
Time to introduce virtue into AI ethics
Could courage, or love, or patience, be part of ‘ethical data’?
Elizabeth Oldfield | 24 January
Audio
17:04
Audio: Giles Fraser meets geneticist Adam Rutherford
The author and scientist tackles the difficult topic of race and science
UnHerd | 23 January
Reaction
14:52
France still sees itself as the Protector of Catholicism
The Macron row shows that France takes religion more seriously than Britain
Ed West | 23 January
Spotted
07:00
Tyler Cowen is pulling on a dangerous thread
The economist's new ideological framework is missing a moral dimension
Peter Franklin | 23 January
Seen Elsewhere
17:00
Two cheers for the Welsh smacking ban
The ruling raises questions about where parental authority should give way to the state
Mary Harrington | 22 January
Reaction
12:53
China’s coronavirus will not be the next Black Death
The swift response shows the world has learned from its past failures
Tom Chivers | 22 January
Series: The Twenties are still Roaring
The Twenties are still Roaring
From international relations to art and culture, the 1920s made the world of today
The Twenties are still Roaring
From international relations to art and culture, the 1920s made the world of today
The day America went dry
A century ago today the US banned the sale of alcohol, destroying its native breweries and empowering the Mafia
The Great Awokening started a century ago
The 2020s are merely re-enacting the culture wars of the 1920s
When female undergrads were ‘semi-demented spinsters’
A century ago the first women graduated from Oxford — and another obstacle to female emancipation fell
Like the 1920s, the 2020s will be an age of anxiety
Below the surface, the first 'modern decade' was an era of increasing worry about the future
Russia’s brief encounter with the sexual revolution
Long before the swinging Sixties, the USSR initiated free love, gay rights and legal abortion. The results were unexpected...
The war that saved Europe from Communism
A century ago only the Polish army stood between Bolsheviks and a severely weakened Europe
How Britain created the Middle East crisis
The carve-up of the region after the First World War led to the fanaticism and conflict of today
The Scottish town that rejected nationalism
In East Fife, Scottish nationalism has slowly become more attractive
Rural Cornwall is right to be anxious
If the duchy is to survive Brexit, something must be done about its not-so-splendid isolation
Boris must be bold: it could save lives
Norway has eradicated child road deaths. With the same political will we could fix our own intractable issues
Why are we locking up patients for profit?
Cygnet's fatal failings highlight the shocking flaws in our approach to mental health problems
Giles Fraser talks to Adam Rutherford about his new book.
Freddie Sayers gets opposing views from Peter Franklin and Phillip Blond on whether the Hungarian Prime Minister's dangerous reputation is justified.
Richard Layard’s Confessions — History, happiness and mental health
Giles talks to the happiness expert about his journey from the humanities to science, why individualism is making us depressed and how we can be more happy.
Charles Moore’s Confessions — Thatcher, theology and the Tories
Giles talks to the former Telegraph editor about becoming a Catholic, how the licence fee is dividing 'somewheres' and 'anywheres' and why he's never liked the Conservative Party.
Jonathan Sumption’s Confessions – Rights, rhetoric and rationalism
Giles talks to the historian and former Supreme Court Justice about leaving academia behind for a career in law, the problem with human rights and the art of persuasion.
Why does Corbyn’s party hate Britain?
The modern Labour Party decries patriotism and believes Britain's enemies always 'have a point'
The modern Labour Party decries patriotism and believes Britain's enemies always 'have a point'
In defence of Facebook
There are problems with Zuckerberg's monopolistic intentions, but breaking up his company could do more harm than good
John Clare, poet of the Somewheres
The politics of the Peasant Poet feel unexpectedly fresh and increasingly urgent today
What unites the Nazis and Communists?
It is well worth climbing the literary mountain that is Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate
What would you sacrifice for integrity?
Terrence Malick's new film interrogates a moral dilemma with pernicious modern relevance
How to argue with a racist
Adam Rutherford's new book wrestles with the difficult subject of race and science
1917 pretends good soldiers don’t kill
Sam Mendes' epic drips with contemporary sentiment and hackneyed stereotypes
How would you respond to the rise of Nazism?
Sebastian Haffner’s powerful 1939 memoir Defying Hitler can help us make sense of current uncertain times
America has always been a circus
Kurt Anderson's Fantasyland explores the US tendency to blur fact with fiction
The cost of liberal economics
Tim Jackson's Prosperity Without Growth shows us how to bring the global economy back into the service of human flourishing
The End of the World is always nigh
Richard Landes's much underrated Heaven on Earth explores our lust for Armageddon
