Will Hutton has written another eminently readable and hugely ambitious book about the state we’re in. It is true that some of his assertions about Britain’s miserable condition and the high cost of leaving the European Union don’t really stand up, and that many of his proposals for financial, corporate and social reform are unlikely […]
The first Red Queen was Lewis Carroll’s. She was irrational and unpredictable, characteristics widely attributed by men to women. When the broadcaster Michael Cockerell conferred the title on Barbara Castle in his brilliant BBC television profile of her in 1995, it was not meant entirely as a compliment. Castle, however, always saw it as one […]
The five central figures in this book – Jeremy Corbyn, Ken Livingstone, Diane Abbott, John McDonnell and Tony Benn – are finished. Corbyn, Livingstone and Abbott have been thrown out of, or suspended from, the Labour Party. McDonnell is still a member but will never again sit on the front bench. Tony Benn’s fate was […]
By any measure, the American and British political and journalistic establishments are growing more and more intertwined every year. Andrew Sullivan, one of the large fraternity of American-based British journalists, recently wrote, for example, that Blairism is not merely influenced by late Clintonism: ‘It is late Clintonism.’ He is right. Both have adopted the rightwing […]
Political wives and husbands do not have an enviable lot, and Prime Ministers’ consorts are no exception. Theirs is a thankless task – whether they forget their own identity and faithfully support their spouse as the other half, or try and retain a semblance of independence by doing their own thing. Either way it’s a […]
The words ‘Now a Major TV Series’ might profitably have been emblazoned across the cover of John Biffen’s new book. Now the cameras are at Westminster and the goings on there are brought to our screens with the frequency that schedulers usually reserve for Coronation Street or Neighbours, those unversed in the esoteric habits of […]
From his first article published in the Spectator in 1941 when he was still an undergraduate, to his death last year, Peter Utley lived and wrote by the principles of Toryism. The wisdom of the past, the importance of existing social institutions, of prejudice and the instincts of the ‘amateur’ over the intellectualism of academics. […]
‘Writing is payment for the chance to look and learn’, says Martha Gellhorn in this collection of journalism from five decades. She is best known for her work as war correspondent in the thirties, but these peace-time articles show the same determination to be at history’s front-line, in whatever country it is set. They are […]
Are ambulancemen a kind of helmetless fireman – because they answer 999 calls? Or are they a kind of car-borne nurse – because they get the sick to hospital? The shadowy answer to this question took the ambulancemen off into an overtime ban in mid-September. They said they were firemen by another name. Kenneth Clarke […]
For two such different books, one by a single author concentrating on the future, the other a collection of many voices assessing and reminiscing about the past, there are unexpected points of contact and mutual illuminations. With contrasting degrees of scepticism and self-assurance, A Future for Socialism and Out of Apathy reflect a sustained argument […]
These ‘essays on the fate of Central Europe’ could not have been published at a better moment. They place in context what is happening today and give the reader the background to judge all that is likely to happen over the next months and years. Timothy Garton Ash’s The Uses of Adversity is a collection […]
Europe, it has been said, is a bore. The government of Europe bores absolutely. Not the least of the virtues of Larry Siedentop’s Democracy in Europe is that it serves to undermine this generalisation, rescuing as it does some of the key issues of our time from the arid grip of the politicians and the […]
In Europe, Europe Hans Magnus Enzensberger, renowned poet, essayist, journalist and dramatist, has turned his hand to a type of protracted travel-writing. His pen-portraits avoid the ‘great powers’ of Europe, dwelling instead on the satellite countries and giving an impression of a lumpen Occidental under-class which strikes a resounding note of discord with the ‘white-heat’ […]
Citizen Ken by John Carvel proclaims itself as the ‘first full report’ on the life and political progress of Ken Livingstone – head of the Greater London Council and one of the youngest and most radical Labour local government leaders for decades.
A little over two years ago on a cold Sunday morning I stood with a group of journalists at a gap in the Berlin Wall and watched thousands of East Germans file through to the West for the first time in their lives. I clearly remember our conversation that morning. Everyone agreed that communism in […]
Since 1945, there have been about 150 conflicts of all kinds; perhaps 20 million people have perished in them, not to speak of the maimed, the bereaved and millions of refugees. In this grim catalogue of mayhem, the Lebanon occupies a unique place. It used to do so, in the troubled Middle East, as an […]
One of the most comforting facts about the tempestuous life of Thomas Paine is that he didn’t do anything of any significance until he was nearly 40. If there hadn’t been a series of revolutions and threatened revolutions in the last quarter of the 18th century, no one would ever have heard of Thomas Paine. […]
Leo Abse has done it again. At eighty-three, the Freudian ex-MP to whom we owe the reform of the laws relating to divorce, homosexuality, suicide and children’s rights has produced a book that is brilliant, disturbing and entertaining, at times bewildering, but always stimulating. His opening is characteristically provocative, informing us in detail of how, […]
It’s tempting to think of Thompson in the past tense. Along with his alma mater, Rolling Stone magazine, he was a counter–cultural babe. Seeing him still knocking around is akin to coming across an old–time sage with tales to tell from another time. Certainly, Thompson’s patented ‘Gonzo Journalism’ style – which set up the reporter […]
Governments of the left need radical vision in order to succeed. Dick Crossman has made a good case that the post-war Labour administration was rejected by the electorate when, having done what it set out to do, it had no clear aim in view. The recent Labour government’s major success with inflation was achieved by […]
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Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm