FEARLESS, INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM ON CULTURE, POLITICS AND TECH

WEEKEND EDITION

Election day is coming for Orbán and Hungary: and this time we dare to dream he may be toppled

Apr 2, 2026

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9 min read

Election day is coming for Orbán and Hungary: and this time we dare to dream he may be toppled

The prime minister has swept all before him for 16 years. But now his authoritarian facade is crumbling – and a challenger is offering a hope we had all but abandoned, writes novelist Krisztián Marton

Director François Ozon: 'In France, we consider cinema as an art. I'm not sure in England it's the same'

Apr 2, 2026

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10 min read

Director François Ozon: 'In France, we consider cinema as an art. I'm not sure in England it's the same'

The French film-maker, whose new movie, The Stranger, is out next week, talks to Ellen E Jones about stars, politics, Camus and the Cure

Ellen E Jones

Apr 2, 2026

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9 min read

Your pension, Palantir’s war machine

USS, the UK's largest private pension fund, has £45m invested in the AI company that, its CEO boasts, can bring ‘violence and death’ to America's enemies. University union leaders want change, reports Ian Tucker

Ian Tucker

Stewart Lee: Farage already has his dog-whistle excuse prepared in case he loses - ‘family voting’

Apr 2, 2026

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12 min read

Stewart Lee: Farage already has his dog-whistle excuse prepared in case he loses - ‘family voting’

What do you do if you’ve been beaten hollow by a Green female plumber and people don’t like your links to Trump? Undermine faith in democracy!

Apr 2, 2026

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6 min read

The Recommender: Romola Garai

The award-winning TV, film and theatre actor shares her latest cultural discoveries

Review of the Week: Romeo and Juliet / Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Apr 2, 2026

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7 min read

Review of the Week: Romeo and Juliet / Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Two inventive, high-profile openings pay striking testament to the dangerous power of love, writes Dorian Lynskey

‘Epstein would find unsupported children and tell them: I’ll save you’

Mar 31, 2026

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17 min read

‘Epstein would find unsupported children and tell them: I’ll save you’

At the Laugharne Weekend festival, Lucia Osborne-Crowley, one of four journalists in the courtroom daily for Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial, talked to Robin Ince about abuse, justice and the ‘rape myths’ that silence survivors

Apr 2, 2026

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4 min read

The Nerve Weekend Dish: Kate Young’s roasted spring onion tart

The novelist, cook and food writer shares a vibrant dish from her inventive new book

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POLITICS & INVESTIGATIONS

Small talk, lager and limp handshakes: face to face with MattGPT in the studio

Mar 31, 2026

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6 min read

Small talk, lager and limp handshakes: face to face with MattGPT in the studio

After his critique of Matthew Goodwin’s rightwing manifesto Suicide of a Nation went viral, Andy Twelves was invited on to GB News for a live debate with the failed candidate for Gorton and Denton. How did Goodwin's defence of his book work out?

Andy Twelves

The UK tech energy grab: how AI data centres are delaying the building of homes

Mar 27, 2026

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11 min read

The UK tech energy grab: how AI data centres are delaying the building of homes

Artificial intelligence infrastructure is being handed priority access to Britain's overwhelmed electricity grid, pushing housing down the list. But as the US shows, there's an alternative: make Big Tech pay for the power it needs. Report by Nicole Kobie

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

‘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

CULTURE

Mar 27, 2026

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15 min read

Orwell, Trump and the persistence of fascism: ‘He was giving us a warning’

Raoul Peck, director of a new film about the author, tells Dorian Lynskey that the dystopia of Nineteen Eighty-Four was drawn from lived experience, not prophecy

Dorian Lynskey

Mar 31, 2026

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9 min read

The Nerve Hotlist

The best culture to check out this week – from a Tony-winning high-school stage drama to Riz Ahmed’s new comedy series – as picked by our team of editors and writers

‘It’s everyone’s history’: the artist Hurvin Anderson on his Tate Britain retrospective

Mar 24, 2026

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9 min read

‘It’s everyone’s history’: the artist Hurvin Anderson on his Tate Britain retrospective

The Turner prize-nominated painter, whose luminous canvases span portraiture, barbershop interiors and the lush landscapes of his Jamaican heritage, talks to Nerve art critic Emily LaBarge