FEARLESS, INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM ON CULTURE, POLITICS AND TECH

LATEST EDITION

Pete Hegseth's Crusader tattoos aren’t just symbols – they're a battleplan

Apr 28, 2026

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5 min read

Pete Hegseth's Crusader tattoos aren’t just symbols – they're a battleplan

The US secretary of war has ‘God wills it’ inked on his right arm and a Jerusalem cross on his chest. Now he is directing hostilities against a Muslim country, writes Kat Tenbarge

Deborah Frances-White: Women are being sedated, raped, filmed ... and we can’t stop it on our own

Apr 28, 2026

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5 min read

Deborah Frances-White: Women are being sedated, raped, filmed ... and we can’t stop it on our own

Despite the Pelicot case, the uncovering of an extensive ‘sleep content’ abuse network has been under reported in the mainstream media. We desperately need influential and decent men to confront those who participate in this vile exploitation

Deborah Frances-White

The Palantir pipeline: how Peter Thiel's surveillance firm hired more than 30 senior UK officials

Apr 24, 2026

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8 min read

The Palantir pipeline: how Peter Thiel's surveillance firm hired more than 30 senior UK officials

The AI company holds £670m in UK government contracts. It has also hired dozens of senior officials from the departments awarding them – raising what transparency experts call an 'acute' corruption risk, write Charlie Young, Carole Cadwalladr and Ian Tucker

Charlie Young, +2

Apr 28, 2026

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5 min read

The Nerve Hotlist

This week’s top cultural picks – from a gripping modern Ibsen to an engaging series about teenage girls’ lives – as enjoyed by our team of editors and writers

Sangita Myska: Should Bitcoin investor Nigel Farage be promising to pass laws boosting crypto? Of course not

Apr 26, 2026

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4 min read

Sangita Myska: Should Bitcoin investor Nigel Farage be promising to pass laws boosting crypto? Of course not

In the US, Trump is already riding roughshod over glaringly obvious conflicts of interest. We can’t let the same thing happen in Britain

Richard Gadd’s new show Half Man is hard to watch. But does it have anything to say?

Apr 24, 2026

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4 min read

Richard Gadd’s new show Half Man is hard to watch. But does it have anything to say?

The acclaimed new drama from the creator of Baby Reindeer doesn’t ‘expose’ toxic masculinity so much as simply make a spectacle of it, writes Julia Raeside

Stewart Lee: Epstein’s evil legacy destroys everything it touches. Everything except Palantir

Apr 24, 2026

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5 min read

Stewart Lee: Epstein’s evil legacy destroys everything it touches. Everything except Palantir

Mandelson, and by extension Starmer, are tainted by proximity to the abuse scandal. But the paedophile was a close associate of Peter Thiel too. Why don’t we talk about that?

Apr 24, 2026

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3 min read

Review of the Week: Rose of Nevada

Cornish auteur Mark Jenkin’s drama about ghost ships and gentrification, all shot on 16mm film, is eerie, disorienting and his most audience-pleasing film to date, writes Ellen E Jones

PALANTIR SPOTLIGHT

Revealed: Palantir deals with UK state total at least £670m – including £15m contract with nuclear weapons agency

Jan 27, 2026

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13 min read

Revealed: Palantir deals with UK state total at least £670m – including £15m contract with nuclear weapons agency

EXCLUSIVE Nerve investigation finds Trump ally Peter Thiel's surveillance firm has won at least 34 contracts, including management services for Britain's nuclear deterrent, with MPs warning of 'gaping vulnerability' as US president threatens Nato allies. By Carole Cadwalladr, Charlie Young and Max Colbert

Palantir's social media manifesto is a blueprint for technofascism

Apr 24, 2026

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5 min read

Palantir's social media manifesto is a blueprint for technofascism

The surveillance firm’s viral X post calls for hard power, conscription and the end of pluralism. AI expert and academic Mark Coeckelbergh on what happens when technology becomes the gateway to authoritarianism

‘It beggars belief’: MoD sources warn Palantir’s role at heart of government is threat to UK’s security

Mar 13, 2026

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10 min read

‘It beggars belief’: MoD sources warn Palantir’s role at heart of government is threat to UK’s security

Experts say that claims UK data remains under government ownership miss the point that the company has the capability to build its own detailed picture of the British population, and even infer state secrets. Report by Charlie Young and Carole Cadwalladr

Charlie Young

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POLITICS & INVESTIGATIONS

The five ways Trump could attempt a coup, by fascism expert Timothy Snyder

Apr 12, 2026

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9 min read

The five ways Trump could attempt a coup, by fascism expert Timothy Snyder

Despite the debacle in Iran, a president at war has several pressure points at his disposal to postpone, restrict and ultimately cancel democracy, writes the historian

Timothy Snyder

With Orbán gone, has the British far right lost its magic money tree?

Apr 14, 2026

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7 min read

With Orbán gone, has the British far right lost its magic money tree?

Hungary’s new PM has described his predecessor’s funding of propaganda bodies as criminal and vowed to investigate. This could be bad news for ultraconservatives in the UK – and around the rest of the world, writes Alice McCool

Alice McCool

The billionaires' eugenics project: how Epstein infiltrated Harvard, muzzled the humanities and preached master-race science

Feb 13, 2026

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14 min read

The billionaires' eugenics project: how Epstein infiltrated Harvard, muzzled the humanities and preached master-race science

Edge - Jeffrey Epstein's favourite intellectual salon - was sold to me as a gathering of the world's finest minds, writes Virginia Heffernan. The files reveal it was something far darker: a decades-long project that cloaked eugenics, race science and sexual misconduct in Ivy League respectability

Virginia Heffernan

Nigel Farage wants to build a British ICE. Keir Starmer may have handed him the tools

Apr 8, 2026

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11 min read

Nigel Farage wants to build a British ICE. Keir Starmer may have handed him the tools

Reform’s proposed "Deportation Command” would integrate NHS, police and financial data into a single surveillance database. Meanwhile, Palantir has signalled it won’t stand in their way, and campaigners say Labour’s new data law opens the door. By Rei Takver

Rei Takver

CULTURE

Apr 17, 2026

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5 min read

Stonehenge, carnival, folk and fascists: how Zakia Sewell went in pursuit of the real story of Britain

The 6 Music DJ and writer, whose new book explores her mixed-race heritage and the ancient myth of ‘Albion’, tells Michaela Makusha everyone has a stake in a complex, nuanced country

Michaela Makusha

Apr 10, 2026

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12 min read

Author Patrick Radden Keefe: ‘I don't take lightly the fact that the book will be in their lives for ever'

The award-winning writer of Empire of Pain on the importance of long form journalism, the joy of doing his job – and why his new title feels like his most intimate yet