Bucket hats, low-rise jeans, Oasis on tour, and Tony Blair’s face over our screens. Was it 2025? Or is it 1999? Trick question, of course, for it is both. It has not escaped the notice of many today that a tidal wave of 1990s and 2000s revival has hit us in the West in recent years. On an aesthetic level  alone, a new generation of adolescents have thrown themselves with abandon into the shibboleths of ‘90s/’00s fashion. From Vogue  to Elle  and far beyond, those who experien

Erich Maria Remarque’s beautifully tragic novel, Flotsam (1939) , elaborates the immense hardship many Jews and immigrants faced in the collapse of an already convulsing Europe on the eve of war. His articulate storytelling conveys the brutality many refugees withstood, from the harshness of border officials to the absence of trust between refugees themselves. Like Remarque, Orwell described in Why I Write  the many problems glaring at European leaders during the chaos of the

Finland and Lithuania are about to send a young man to his death. The 21-year-old in question is Daniil Mukhametov , who has fled Russia to avoid forced military service. Pursued by Russian police, he bought a ticket on the Kaliningrad train that transits Lithuania, used keys purchased online to open a carriage, and jumped from a moving train. He then travelled via Tallinn to Finland, where he sought asylum. Now he is at risk of deportation.  It is almost impossible to believ

As Zohran Mamdani seizes New York City, what does this 34-year-old’s feat say about politicians further afield? On November 4 th , Zohran Kwame Mamdani became the first Muslim to be elected to the New York City mayoralty, and the youngest since 1892. He brings a disconcerting contrast to the front door of his adversaries, which include the President himself, whilst raising the crucial question of how the Democrats will use this new method of politics to restore orthodoxy. Mam

It was meant to be different. When Labour rode to a massive 174 seat majority  in July 2024, despite a palpable lack of excitement about the Keir Starmer project, a feeling that at least the adults were back in the room  prevailed. Even if Starmer’s Labour lacked ideas and energy, they would at least provide a period of stability for a country in desperate need of calm leadership. Ministers such as Rachel Reeves, David Lammy, Ed Miliband and Bridget Phillipson had spent signi