Donald Tusk’s botched court reforms have given ammunition to the European Right | Michal Kranz unherd.com/newsroom/pol...
https://unherd.com/newsroom/poland-has-fired-the-starting-gun-on-europes-next-populist-battle/
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Challenging the herd with new and bold thinking in philosophy, politics and culture. Dare to think for yourself, subscribe to UnHerd here: http://unherd.com/join
Defeated Democratic primary candidate Haley Stevens has just endorsed Republican Senate pick Mike Rogers. Its a shocking rebuke to her party and the man who beat her to the nomination, Abdul El-Sayed | Sam Kahn unherd.com/newsroom/hal...
Haley Stevens’s turn on El-Sayed deepens Democrats’ civil war
Going off current polling, the Democrats appear to be coasting towards a healthy victory in the midterm elections. Nate Silver puts the party’s odds of regaining the Senate at 79% and a 54-46…
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George Clooney wants an ‘authentic’ Italian mamma to run his new restaurant. Wealthy people have a patronisingly romantic view of rural life and cooking | Richard Crampton-Platt unherd.com/newsroom/geo...
George Clooney is fetishising peasant cuisine
George Clooney is looking for an “Italian mamma”. Not to replace his wife Amal, but to run the kitchen of a restaurant he’s opening in Provence, near one of his estates. His business partner Graham…
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‘If there’s one thing more toxic than some of the online material aimed at young men, it’s our panic about it’ | Ella Whelan unherd.com/newsroom/is-...
Is the manosphere really a public-health issue?
Cigarettes, pints, and now dodgy YouTube videos: researchers have this week called for “manosphere” and “misogynistic” online content to be treated as a public-health matter. As with obesity or drug…
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‘Even within Europe, there is no ideological consistency out of which a cross-border Right-wing nationalist movement could be born’ | William Nattrass unherd.com/newsroom/the...
https://unherd.com/newsroom/the-global-right-wing-alliance-is-a-fantasy/
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Ilhan Omar’s account of her past marriages doesn’t add up. Now even Democrats are asking questions | Emily Jashinsky unherd.com/newsroom/eve...
Even Democrats are now suspicious of Ilhan Omar’s ‘brother marriage’
Days ahead of the midterms, the investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar comes at an awkward time for Democrats. Because we don’t yet know the legal case, we don’t know whether it’s nonsense. We do,…
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The new Netflix film about Jane Doe v. Cornell fails to challenge activist narratives of sexual politics on campus | Nikos Mohammadi unherd.com/newsroom/net...
Netflix’s Cornell Seven documentary is pure activism
The documentary starts with copies of The Cornell Daily Sun being printed on 6 October. The student paper’s editor-in-chief, Sophia Dasser, begins: “You never know what is going to ignite something…
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‘It is notable that the only directly state-associated actors in this whole episode are the thieves themselves’ | Jacob Russell unherd.com/newsroom/bin...
Binance hack heralds new era of corporate heists
On Thursday, over the course of just a few hours, hackers drained $6.3 billion from Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. While the facts of the case are still emerging, it is easily…
unherd.com
‘What grievous offences demanded this ritual humiliation of a sitting MP?’ | Samuel Rubinstein unherd.com/newsroom/ton...
https://unherd.com/newsroom/tony-vaughan-and-the-myth-of-adult-bullying/
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Pope Leo is set to travel to Latin America next week. His progressivism could go down badly with the continent's MAGA-aligned leaders | David Agren unherd.com/newsroom/pop...
https://unherd.com/newsroom/pope-leo-is-on-a-collision-course-with-latin-americas-maga-allies/
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‘Underneath Obamaism lay the Picard fantasy: listening was compatible with leadership, and eloquence was itself a form of power.’ | Ryan Zickgraf unherd.com/newsroom/how...
How Patrick Stewart shaped liberal politics
Patrick Stewart’s death at the age of 86 has prompted tributes to both the brilliant actor and the famous role that defined him: Star Trek’s Jean-Luc Picard. Matthew Yglesias, centrist liberalism’s…
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‘The AI boom may not have ended, but it has evidently reached a fork in the road.’ | John Rapley unherd.com/newsroom/tec...
Tech stocks crash points to wider AI panic
Enough sweet talk: show us what you’ve got. That’s the message investors have been sending to the tech companies at the vanguard of the AI revolution: that they’re still willing to hold faith in the…
unherd.com
The practice of “loudcasting” is so objectionable because it irrupts through the boundary of our private space, imposing unchosen noise into the stream of thoughts that make for an individual life. | Ben Cobley unherd.com/2026/10/why-...
Why your commute is getting noisier
Michael Caine, seen in “Blue Ice”, (1992), appeared to understand the agony of cacophonous public transport. (Keith Hamshere/Getty Images)
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‘This is the fourth high-street strategy since the financial crisis, and despite the billions of pounds spent, Britain remains stuck in a vicious cycle.’ | Andrew O'Brien unherd.com/newsroom/pou...
Poundland is trapped in Britain’s decline loop
The discount retailer Poundland is on the brink of collapse. It has announced its intent to go into administration, with 12,000 jobs at stake. This follows a profit warning from Greggs, the…
unherd.com
The image of paralysed crabs washing ashore symbolises the impotence of such communities, and their impotence, in turn, has become emblematic of a whole nation’s frustration that nothing, and least of all government, seems to work as it should. | Wessie du Toit unherd.com/2026/10/the-...
The Great Shellfish Apocalypse
“The pots are barren,” Rennie announces in disgust. (All Rivers Spill Their Stories To The Sea/YouTube)
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The difference between dying of thirst immediately and doing so three days later seems somewhat academic; and the same goes for eking out small amounts of food and meds. Are we really supposed to be facing down the apocalypse with half a big shop each? | Kathleen Stock unherd.com/2026/10/are-...
Are you a performative prepper?
Is prepping worth the hassle? (Gilles Mingasson/Getty)
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Labour’s divisions over Europe are becoming increasingly difficult to contain. An early election could give the Right a common cause, writes Peter Franklin 👇 buff.ly/W6uvJjB
https://buff.ly/W6uvJjB
buff.ly
‘Culinary contempt and embarrassment for one’s own country were prerequisites for sophistication.’ | Richard Crampton-Platt unherd.com/newsroom/why...
https://unherd.com/newsroom/why-does-britains-middle-class-hate-its-own-cuisine/
unherd.com
How long can this discordant Downing Street double act go on for? Surely the new dialectic between Burnham’s dad-socialist idealism and its conservative, Healeyite antithesis is bound to be resolved in an electoral and real budgetary synthesis before 2029? | Jonny Ball unherd.com/2026/10/labo...
Labour’s pre-election Budget
“Healey emphasizes continuity with his hapless predecessor.” (Dan Kitwood/Getty)
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The OBR has forecast net migration to fall to 120,000 this year. Excluding the pandemic year, it would be the lowest figure since 1997. | Shea Ferguson unherd.com/newsroom/uk-...
UK net migration set to fall to lowest level since 1997
Net migration to the UK in 2026 will fall to its lowest level since 1997, according to forecasts by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). The OBR expects net migration to fall to 120,000 this…
unherd.com
In this thorough and damning investigation, Julie Bindel uncovers the rot at the heart of British clinical psychology: an affirmation approach that amounts to, as one whistleblower put it, a “trans conveyer belt”. unherd.com/2026/10/how-...
How transactivism captured therapy
(Luis Soto/Getty)
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Prime Minister Carney is attempting to pull off a monumental act of historical reverse engineering — one that would see the New World returning to the shores of the Old. | Harrison Lowman unherd.com/2026/10/carn...
Carney’s doomed EU romance
Mark Carney and Ursula von der Leyen. (Ludovic Marin/POOL/AFP/Getty)
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‘A big Democratic victory will almost certainly reflect voter dissatisfaction with Trump and the Republicans, rather than an endorsement of the party’s priorities.’ | Michael Baharaeen unherd.com/newsroom/ant...
Anti-Trump backlash is not a Democratic revival
We are now officially one week out from election day in the 2026 midterms. As things stand, it’s shaping up to be a very good one for the Democratic Party. President Donald Trump’s approval rating…
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‘If the Government wants to ‘lead from the front’ in tackling misogyny, it could start by taking lessons from the women who’ve been doing it for years.’ | Victoria Smith unherd.com/newsroom/lab...
https://unherd.com/newsroom/labours-anti-misogyny-fund-is-progressive-posturing/
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‘Clearly, our obsession with youth and beauty is threatening to erase individuality.” | Kristina Murkett unherd.com/newsroom/jen...
Jennifer Lawrence has succumbed to Instagram face
In his book Filterworld: How Algorithms Flatten Culture, the writer Kyle Chayka explores how culture is being homogenised as algorithmic bias fuels a cycle of aesthetic optimisation and sameness.…
unherd.com
‘In short, Josh O’Connor embodies an inexplicable suaveness that the franchise needs.’ | Cosmo Adair unherd.com/newsroom/jos...
https://unherd.com/newsroom/josh-oconnor-deserves-to-be-the-next-james-bond/
unherd.com
There is a distinctly Anglo-Irish edge to Swift’s misanthropic vision. | Malise Ruthven unherd.com/2026/10/jonathan-swift-is-laughing-at-us/
Jonathan Swift is laughing at us
“Everyone knows Lilliput: the tiny people in Gulliver’s Travels who tie down a giant.” (Creative Commons License)
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In 2024, Trump was greeted like a king in Dearborn. Today, there isn’t a Trump sign in sight, writes James Billot 👇 buff.ly/rvP0lfI
Meet the Trump-to-El-Sayed swing voter
Abdul El-Sayed is attracting disenchanted swing voters in Michigan. (Getty)
buff.ly
Extreme fitness offers benediction in the secular age. Shared ordeals bind. Injury and death are offerings. The official purpose of fitness culture is about health and wellbeing; when gymgoing becomes a jihad it shifts to something else. | Poppy Sowerby unherd.com/2026/10/crossfit-wont-save-you/
https://unherd.com/2026/10/crossfit-wont-save-you/
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‘The increasing use of Commonwealth institutions for attempts to extract wealth and political concessions from London should raise questions about what the association of countries is for nowadays.’ | Niall Gooch unherd.com/newsroom/bri...
Britain should stop romanticising the Commonwealth
The clocks have gone back, Britons are preparing for the darkest time of the year, and the King has just started his tour of the Caribbean. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) will…
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