Hannah Spencer, the new Green MP for Gorton and Denton, speaking after her victory, while the Reform loser Matthew Goodwin looks on (Andy Barton / SOPA Images / Sipa USA / Alamy)
The Green Party’s Hannah Spencer has won the Gorton and Denton by-election with 41 per cent of the vote. Progressive voters opted decisively for the more explicitly and coherently left-wing party. For Keir Starmer’s Labour, which has staked its existence on appeasing the right, that is a stark message unlikely to be heeded.
When the Taliban blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas in March 2001, the destruction was writ large in newspaper headlines and widely condemned. A year later, the Israeli army bombed the old town of Nablus. The Palestinian architect and writer Suad Amiry wrote about it in her memoir Sharon and My Mother-in-Law. Her first thought was ‘Oh, God, not the soap factory!’ She then remembered the thirteen people who’d been killed and felt ‘rather ashamed’. And yet since October 2023 five thousand years of cultural buildings and ancient libraries have been bombed into dust in Gaza with hardly a whisper from the international media or cultural institutions.
Usually the last days of February are filled with anticipation of the Persian New Year holiday, Nowruz. People shop for new clothes; grocery stalls brim with mounds of oranges; mothers bargain for tiny goldfish in water-filled plastic bags. Tehran used to move faster at this time of year. People spoke with more confidence and even the smog seemed less suffocating. But this year the city is on pause.
A friend who recently defended her doctoral dissertation invited a few of us to her home. When she opened the door, I said: ‘Tehran seems quiet. Shouldn’t it be busier this time of year?’
She gestured at a nearby street vendor. ‘See that woman? Every night she calls the municipality, asking them whether the Americans will attack tonight. People aren’t planning for the New Year; they are planning for the day after an attack.’
Fela Kuti in Lagos, c.1983 (William F. Campbell / Getty)
Fela’s political career unfolded when a distinctly Nigerian left – rooted in universities, trade unions and parts of the state – was at its intellectual and institutional height. His music, public persona and confrontations with military rule cannot be fully understood without reference to that history.
A friend in China messaged me on WeChat. ‘What are your thoughts on the plagiarism scandal?’
‘What scandal?’ I asked.
‘How could you not know? It’s all over the internet.’ They meant the Chinese internet: in particular, social media platforms such as WeChat Moments, Weibo, RedNote and Bilibili. They sent me some links.
Tomàs-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté in the men's single skating, short programme, at the Winter Olympics in Milan, 10 February 2026 (Joosep Martinson/Stringer/Getty)
‘Let the Minion skate!’ people were urging on social media days before the start of the Winter Olympics. Universal Pictures had refused Tomàs-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté permission to perform his Minions-inspired figure-skating programme in Milan. Eventually ‘the internet did its thing’ and he was allowed to go ahead with his performance.
No discussion in British defence and security circles gets very far without someone mentioning the post-Cold War ‘peace dividend’. The idea that the collapse of the Soviet Union bequeathed to Western Europe safe conditions that allowed for lower military spending and higher social spending has become commonplace.