In Time of Schism

Fraser MacDonald, 16 March 2023

Kate Forbes’s evangelical supporters appeal to plurality of thought, to liberty of conscience, even to protected characteristics, though they are not always known for extending these considerations within...

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You didn’t have to work in the financial services industries to be a yuppie, but the most famous cultural depictions were from that sector. Even their clothes and accessories acquired a broader audience....

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Short Cuts: Libel Tourism

Peter Geoghegan, 16 March 2023

If you have enough money, even being sanctioned by the British government is no impediment to using London’s courts to silence your critics. The Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 explicitly...

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What might it mean​ for the way we think about abortion if we take seriously the problem of what fictional narrative – novels and stories and films – says about it, or doesn’t say, what it makes...

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Short Cuts: Israel’s Liberal Bubble

Tareq Baconi, 2 March 2023

Palestinians understand that Israel is a democracy for Jews and an apartheid regime for non-Jews. But just like the Green Line, this is a false separation, since the Jewish democratic system itself is...

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Diary: In Beirut

Charles Glass, 2 March 2023

When I returned last year, the garbage was piled so high on the pavements that pedestrians had to compete with lunatic drivers for right of way. The private electricity generators were mostly quiet –...

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Against America

Barclay Bram, 2 March 2023

When Deng Xiaoping visited in 1979, images of everyday life in the US were broadcast on state television. Everyone had a car, a refrigerator, a TV. A society capable of producing so much for so many must...

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All of us depend, in early age and often at the end of life, on the care of others. To think about care is to shuttle back and forth between social totality and the irreducible complexity of individual...

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Short Cuts: In the Inflation Basket

Izzy Finkel, 16 February 2023

Unlike GDP growth or trade imbalances, inflation gets close to measuring something that people can feel. It is easy to forget this, because a market logic so often creeps in and addles the brains of those...

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Guano to Guns

Laleh Khalili, 16 February 2023

Britain holds fast to its fourteen British Overseas Territories – from the offshore havens of Bermuda and the Caymans to the thornily disputed Falklands/Malvinas and Gibraltar to the sovereign military...

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Rudy Then and Rudy Now

James Wolcott, 16 February 2023

A rundown wind-up doll, Giuliani seems oblivious to the slapping waves of mocking laughter or outright ire that he provokes, unchastened, undaunted, and is never at a loss for half-assed excuses or conspiracy-mongering....

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Short Cuts: Above Public Opinion

Simon Wren-Lewis, 2 February 2023

If political advantage were the only consideration, you would expect the government to quickly settle disputes where the strikers have public support. A poll at the end of last year suggested that 66 per...

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Not Even a Might-Have Been: Chips’s Adventures

Geoffrey Wheatcroft, 19 January 2023

To accuse Henry ‘Chips’ Channon of snobbery or social climbing is almost absurd: society was what gave his life meaning, and it’s thanks to his fascination with the rich and the grand that he left...

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Friends with Benefits: The Five Eyes

Tom Stevenson, 19 January 2023

Secrets tucked into trench coats miss the point of the Five Eyes and obscure its political implications. The history of Anglo-American surveillance matters, from its late imperial beginnings to the contemporary...

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In Clover: What does McKinsey do?

Laleh Khalili, 15 December 2022

The primary product sold by all management consultants – both software developers and strategic organisers – is the theology of capital. This holds that workers are expendable. They can be replaced...

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Why were​ supporters of the Democrats – including seasoned election-watchers – so easily persuaded by Republican triumphalism? The polls were one reason, of course. But susceptibility to Republican...

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I am in the hell: The Refugee Underground

Daniel Trilling, 1 December 2022

Official refugee resettlement programmes – often held up by Western politicians as the alternative to smuggler routes – only take ‘measured sips’ from the world’s displaced populations. To be...

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Short Cuts: In Sharm El-Sheikh

Laleh Khalili, 1 December 2022

COP27 took place in the vast grounds of the Tonino Lamborghini convention centre. The presidency occupied the permanent buildings and most of the rest of the conference was held in temporary structures....

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