On the morning of January 3, U.S. forces struck Caracas, seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, and flew them out of the country. Once again, the United States has undertaken a military operation that was efficiently executed in pursuit of an uncertain political objective. A dramatic first step has been taken, while the… Read More Venezuela, Trump, and the End of the Beginning
Ending HIV: How Public Health Quietly Delivered One of Britain’s Biggest Successes For most of my adult life, HIV has been treated as a permanent fact of modern life: tragic, manageable, but ultimately ineradicable. Something you mitigate, not solve. That assumption is now wrong. The UK is on track to eliminate new HIV transmissions by… Read More Reasons to be cheerful
Predictions This year has been dominated by a convergence of authoritarian and illiberal governments, antisystem parties — typically on the far right — and sympathetic private actors coordinating their messaging and lending each other material support. Many people who would historically have recoiled from far-right politics have instead been drawn in through a constant churn… Read More Political Predictions for 2026
The final round!!
Albums of the Year Streaming platforms want music that doesn’t demand anything of you: records designed to soundtrack scrolling, workouts and shopping baskets, optimised for playlists rather than people. In 2025, the most interesting albums were the ones that resisted that logic — music that asked for attention, patience and sometimes discomfort, and in doing… Read More Music | 2025
TV in 2025: Streaming, Distraction and the End of Attention For a century, the business of running a Hollywood studio was simple. The more people watched films, the more money studios made. Box office receipts were the signal. Attention equalled profit. Streaming broke that relationship. Netflix audiences don’t pay for individual films or shows. They… Read More TV | 2025