Debbie was scrolling through X in April when some unwelcome posts appeared on her feed. One showed a photo of someone who was visibly underweight asking whether they were thin enough. In another, a user wanted to compare how few calories they were eating each day. Debbie, who did not want to give her last … Read more
One morning recently, historian Yevhen Murza and comedian Feliks Redka, both from the city of Sumy in eastern Ukraine, hitched a lift into Ukrainian-occupied Russia. Their mission on arrival in Sudzha, the town that has been at the centre of Ukraine’s dramatic push into Russia’s Kursk region, was an unusual one: to record the latest … Read more
It is a quiet night in Fairfield, in Sydney’s western suburbs. Inside a small brick building, a dozen Gamblers Anonymous members help themselves to coffee, tea and miniature meat pies. The meeting is taking place in a suburb that has one of the city’s lowest median incomes, and highest levels of gambling losses. A fifth … Read more
As many as 50 Labour MPs could refuse to back the government’s controversial plan to cut the winter fuel allowance, despite Keir Starmer urging back benchers to get behind a measure he has conceded is “unpopular”. While few on the government benches are expected to vote against the policy in Tuesday’s vote, dozens are believed … Read more
Friedrich Merz, Germany’s mercurial conservative opposition chief and a passionate hobby pilot, should be flying high these days as the country’s hotly tipped next leader. One year before the next general election, his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has enjoyed a comfortable lead for months with about 32% support, nearly double the score of its nearest … Read more
This September, the British Fashion Council continues its 40th anniversary celebrations, so we’ve taken the opportunity to revisit the last four decades at London fashion week through the lens of the original catwalk photographer, Chris Moore. As fashion week begins, Mr Moore, who turns 90 this year, won’t be squashed into the photographers’ pen at … Read more
Radical, tolerant, enquiring, pro-consumer, lid-off, helpful. It’ll be no-holds-barred, without being noisy. It should have bite without malice. Wave-of-the-future type stuff, when possible. Whiff of scandal… Serious. Non-expert. Funny.” In early 1964, this was future editor Michael Davie’s vision for the planned Observer Magazine. The project was a long-ruminated riposte to the Sunday Times, which … Read more
When French athlete Aurélie Aubert’s sharp strategy and ice-cool precision won her a boccia gold at the Paris Paralympics, the fervour of the nationwide victory celebrations seemed likely to change the country for ever. Aubert, 27, who has cerebral palsy and competed in the BC1 category, took France’s first ever medal in a sport which … Read more
Once again, the nation is coping with the disastrous consequences of a dysfunctional state and a corresponding public philosophy – one that states that deregulated markets work better than public initiative. Under this bleak worldview, public regulation is, a priori, bad. It was this state and philosophy that together delivered a building safety ecosystem – … Read more
Fans of Oasis received a lesson in how capitalism works when the first tickets for the band’s reunion concerts went on sale. People queued for hours only to find that the price had rocketed from what they imagined would be £148.50 to £355.20 by the time it came to pay. This was due to dynamic … Read more