DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
Latest editorial
The corrosive megalomania of UK power elites
There is a disturbing circularity about Britain’s decline, a form of costume drama time loop so inescapable it could almost be the stuff of fantasy, writes GAVIN O’TOOLE
DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR: Boris Johnson pictured in front of Clifford's tower in York while on a Vote Leave campaign
STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
MIK SABIERS revels in a band that ploughs an idiosyncratic furrow of expletive laden, guitar-driven alt rock
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
The bard invites readers to a gig, raps for Clacton, and lays out the Burnham-Hurzeler conundrum
RON JACOBS recommends an important book that enhances the oppositional theories put forth by Fanon and, in doing so, remakes psychology itself
United Kingdom
by Adrian Bingham
Polity £12.99
THE convulsions being induced in the United Kingdom by its latest Conservative psychodrama are a timely example of the underlying theme woven throughout this book.
They are a dramatic illustration of the secular decline of a country badly failed by its political establishment, so limited in their vision they have been unable or unwilling to fashion a narrative about a collective future compelling enough to escape an omnipresent past.
The absence of that narrative, while largely survivable as the country grasped temporary lifelines to mitigate the loss of empire — Commonwealth trade, the EU, Cold War alliances — may now have created the conditions for a terminal fever to consume a prostrate patient.
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GAVIN O’TOOLE recommends a methodical unmasking of the US media’s complicity in the Israeli genocide, that should be a template for what’s needed to bring Britain’s corporate media to book
A US air strike in north-west Nigeria, publicly framed as a Christmas act of counterterrorism, reveals a deeper shift in how power is exercised in Africa, argues RAIS NEZA BONEZA
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GEORGE FOGARTY is captivated by a brilliant one-man show depicting life in HMP Strangeways