Opinion & Ideas

America, don’t diss our repressed British blokes. That’s our job

Taylor Swift’s engagement to Travis Kelce has led some to believe she tired of Brits. Maybe, but leave the rest to us

Britain is being left behind the cancer treatment revolution

The country is an uneven mosaic when it comes to cancer care, but we could learn from Denmark

Sir Keir can refresh his No 10 crew but he still needs to steer the ship

Decisions about direction as well as personnel are needed to get the government out of a hole

Be confident that a new age of Enlightenment is possible

The principles that opened the door to modernity were great in 1784 and remain great in 2025

Modern racism has become loud and proud

The response to a photo of a class in London shows how ethnic notions of national identity have seeped into mainstream conservatism

AI won’t replace us human literary translators just yet

Yes, it can turn French words into English ones, but true translation is so much more than that

The government has not learned from the horror of 7/7

We are living in an environment of evolving and accelerating extremism. Why is there no counter-extremism strategy in place to combat it?

History’s women have more to tell us than their fashion choices

The art market: the perfect forum to wash filthy fortunes clean

The jailing of dealer Oghenochuko Ojiri chimes with the public’s perception of a world of hucksters. But it is our sense of beauty that is most damaged

British values aren’t colour-coded

Immigration and identity are important subjects, but racialising them is not the answer

There is a way to solve the small boats crisis

This political and moral puzzle has no easy remedy, but we can start by opening our doors to the neediest people from refugee camps

The networker: Universities must learn to embrace AI

Students are already using tools such as ChatGPT. Academic institutions should embrace them too

Eva Wiseman: the loss of life's rough edges

AI, Botox, weight-loss drugs… are we in danger of losing the wrinkles that give life its grit?

David Mitchell: the oddest scrap in British politics

Liz Truss is promoting whiskey and Tony Blair is backing AI. Who comes out on top?

‘We’re in two minds on migration. Let’s find a way to strike a balance’

Labour can solve the asylum crisis. Here are the three things it must do

Elon Musk's term was a bad drug dream

The Observer view: the moron premium

Fantasy economics has become the populists’ calling card. The consequences are anything but imaginary

The thinker who saw the flaws in liberalism