Media – Ian Birrell

Published by The Spectator (8th February, 2025) Source Code: My Beginnings by Bill Gates (Allen Lane) Shortly before Bill Gates’s seventh birthday in 1962, his parents stuffed their […]

Arts / Books / United States / World

What do we mean when we talk about freedom?

Published by The Spectator (12th October, 2024) On Freedom by Timothy Snyder (Bodley Head) When the Yale historian and bestselling author Timothy Snyder was 14, his parents took […]

Arts / Books / China / Europe / Iran / Russia / Ukraine / Venezuela / World

Conspiracy of thieves

Published by The Spectator (27th July, 2024) Autocracy, Inc – The Dictators Who Want To Run The World (Allen Lane) After staging a failed coup and going to […]

Arts / Books / Europe / Germany

The unbelievable truth

Published by The Spectator (18th May, 2024) White Terror: A True Story of Murder, Bombings and Germany’s Far Right by Jacob Kushner Enver Simsek’s life story was one […]

Arts / Books / China / World

The freedom fighters who dared to take on a communist superpower

Published by The Spectator (6th January, 2024) Among the Braves: Hope, Struggle and Exile in the Battle for Hong Kong and the Future of Global Democracy by Shibani […]

Arts / Crime / Film / Policy

In defence of Brand’s trial by media

Published by The i paper (18th September, 2023) It is the details, as always, that are so disturbing. The violence of the alleged rape, his victim pushed up against […]

Africa / Arts / Books / Ghana

A glorious tale of greed

Published by The Spectator (26th August, 2023) Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Swindled the World by Yepoka Yeebo In the early months of 1981, investors in a Swiss […]

Arts / Music

Britain’s music is being silenced by ministerial failure

Published by The Times (20th July, 2022) Britain does not have many world-leading industries but our music business is most definitely one, relentlessly churning out hits and stars […]

Arts / Books / Haiti / World

A long, dark shadow

Published by The Spectator (18th June, 2022) Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation by Kris Manjapra (Allen Lane) When the […]