Ideas Lab
In September 2026, the rapper Macklemore was dropped from Ed Sheeran's US tour due to pressure from advocacy groups and venue owners after saying “Free Palestine” at a New Jersey show. His offence wasn’t a slur, scandal, or a bad performance; it was an expression of his
Explainers
You hear it everywhere: a newspaper is "right-wing” or someone’s views are "too far left." But nobody stops to explain what the words actually mean. These terms originated in 1789. During the French Revolution, members of France's new parliament sorted themselves by where
Ideas Lab
Somewhere in a factory in Dhaka, a woman is sewing a shirt she will never own. She might earn around 33 US cents an hour, while the shirt will hang in a shop in London or New York with a £30 price tag. Of that price, the wage of the
The Perspective
Somewhere right now, a 14-year-old girl is being pulled out of school. Maybe her family needs help at home. Maybe the nearest secondary school is too far, or too expensive, or her parents simply don’t see the point of educating a daughter who will “just get married
The Perspective
In 1897, British soldiers marched into Benin City, in what is now southern Nigeria, and burned it to the ground. Before they did, they looted thousands of bronze sculptures so detailed that European experts refused to believe Africans had made them. Two centuries earlier, Dutch visitors had compared the city’