|
Kate MaltbyThe Guardian |
Itamar Ben-Gvir grew up in a suburb of Jerusalem. His parents were Mizrahi Jews, from the closed Jewish communities who had lived for centuries in...
Last month, Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre cancelled its production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream . Previews had already begun; the press...
This week, my Jewish friends and I marked a year since 7 October, 2023. Some of my non-Jewish friends marked it too, a little differently. Perhaps...
I’ve stopped eating at my local café. The food’s cosy, the service cheerful and they make a decently priced double espresso. I had been going...
How do you solve a problem like Elon Musk? Too successful to dismiss, too chaotic to predict, Musk shares a perturbing talent with his frenemy Donald...
In 1778, a teenager named Christel von Lassberg was found dead in Germany, close to the home of the writer Goethe. Goethe’s servants discovered her...
This summer, I joined nearly a million women – and a few hundred thousand men – who sang our socks off at one of Taylor Swift’s Eras concerts in...
When Queen Elizabeth II died, obituaries lauded her skills as a diplomat. She was a priestess of paradoxes: never political, never “meddling”, but...
At one point in my misspent youth, I lived with a group of highly committed American social conservatives. We talked of our future dreams, as students...
A few days after he won the November 2016 US Presidential election, Donald Trump took it upon himself to instruct the UK in how to appoint its...
For Rishi Sunak, 5 July will live in the memory as the date on which he offered his resignation as Prime Minister. The running jokes about the...
During Boris Johnson’s days in Downing Street, Friday evenings were tightly protected – for work, of a sort. As The Mirror infamously reported...
In October 2019, the Labour MP Rosie Duffield went viral. Duffield had been in Westminster for only two years, although her campaign to win the seat...
As a novelist, Arundhati Roy warned us about the power of the police to enforce the injustice of mobs. Her best-selling 1997 novel, The God of Small...
In 2021, the Sunday Times took up the cause of Douglas Laing, a man who wrote to the paper “in support of the move to legalise assisted dying”....
Book festivals always make me a tad nervous. There is something rather indecent about meeting one’s favourite authors, especially the novelists. I...
Walk past a British protest against the Israeli military’s action in Gaza and you’ll soon spot the phrase “war criminal”. It pops up on...
On 4 January, Keir Starmer set out his New Year’s resolutions with a speech, in which he promised “change” no fewer than 20 times. His specific...
Harvey Weinstein remains a convicted rapist. On Thursday, the New York Court of Appeals upheld the film mogul’s procedural complaint against his...
In his new book, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder , Salman Rushdie reflects on his recovery after the knife-attack which nearly killed...
On 6 December, 1989, a gunman walked into a classroom at the École Polytechnique, part of the University of Montreal, and ordered the nine women...
Ed Miliband, then leader of the British Labour Party, made an official visit to Israel in April 2014. Like most dignitaries, one of his first stops...
One month ago, the playwright Edward Bond died at the age of 89. Obituaries will tell you that Bond was a pivotal figure in “the abolition of...
When I was a year older than Prince Louis is now, my mother experienced a cancer scare. I have one abiding memory from that time. Not from home, where...
In June 1688, a swathe of the population of these islands became convinced that their queen had faked the birth of a son. Mary of Modena was the...
In October 2022, two banners appeared above a motorway in China. They were unfurled over the motorway bridge in Beijing by a man in an orange...
The United Nations has taken its time. Five months after the Hamas attacks of 7 October, a team led by Pramila Patten, the UN Secretary-General’s...
“She was a beautiful dancer. She was a wonderful daughter.” This is how Sarah Everard‘s mother describes her child in a statement which heads...
The last time I went near a Conservative Association meeting was 2019. It was the tail end of the love/hate relationship I’d had with the party...
Seven weeks ago, ITV aired the first episode of its true-life series, Mr Bates vs The Post Office. As I wrote then, it marked a watershed in ITV’s...
In 1982, the future Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas submitted his doctoral thesis to the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Soviet Academy of...
Even the least sympathetic observer would spare a thought this week for William, Prince of Wales. His wife Catherine, with whom he shares three young...
One of my favourite internet memes concerns the “milkshake duck”. For readers unfamiliar with the term – and honestly, congratulations on...
Last May, I tried and failed to pitch a piece to a national news outlet about the Post Office Horizon scandal. The outlet in question had run...
The poet John Donne might have done well in The Traitors. Donne, a Jacobean-era priest, is known for his “metaphysical poems” about sex and God...
According to official legend, the princess’ future was written in the Tarot cards. At the age of 28, a Tasmanian woman named Mary Donaldson –...
In the year 1537, every ambitious mother in England competed to persuade Jane Seymour, new queen of England, to name their daughters as...
In 2015, Jeremy Clarkson punched a subordinate named Oisin Tymon, a producer on his hit BBC show Top Gear. A review found Clarkson had subjected Tymon...
A few years ago, I met up for dinner with a woman who had just become a member of the House of Commons. She was shaken. Her face blanched. My...