It can also be quantified. The World Inequality Report (WIR) 2026 shows that about 56,000 people – 0.001% of the global population – corral three times more wealth than the poorest half of humanity.

Looking back on this crazy year, one event, right at the start, seems to me to encapsulate the whole. In January, recording his podcast in a studio in Austin, Texas, the host, Joe Rogan, and the actor ...

I know what “civilisational erasure” looks like: I’ve seen the graph. The European Commission published it in March. It’s a chart of total fertility rate: the average number of children born per woman ...

I began by trying to discover whether or not a widespread belief was true. In doing so, I tripped across something even bigger: an index of the world’s indifference. I already knew that by burning ...

If this were just a climate crisis, we would fix it. The technology, money and strategies have all been at hand for years. What stifles effective action is a deadly conjunction: the climate crisis ...

I was lucky. Last week, I was cycling downhill at night when I hit a pothole. The front wheel folded into an infinity symbol. I went over the handlebars and, with no time to put my hands out, landed ...

Forgive me if I’ve got this wrong, but I seem to recall the country voting the Tories out last year. Part of the reason, if I remember correctly, was their staggering incompetence and insouciance, ...

The election of Zack Polanski as Green Party leader could be the moment our political drought begins to break. Nor can the government point out the blindingly obvious: that it is not asylum seekers ...

I packed a toothbrush, books and a notepad in a small rucksack, took my laptop from the house and hid it, gave my phone to a friend to look after and put a “bust card” (lawyers’ details and legal ...

No one can be trusted with power. Any government will oppress its people if not constantly and inventively challenged. And the task becomes ever-more urgent as new technologies of surveillance and ...

Those of us who try to defend wildlife are horribly familiar with bad laws. But we’ve never seen anything like this. The government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill is the worst assault on England’s ...

All the talk now is of how we might defend ourselves without the US. But almost everyone with a voice in public life appears to be avoiding a much bigger and more troubling question: how we might ...