Outside the system
Section: Argument
Honestly held opinions and provocative argument based on current events or our recent reports.
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That’s True Too – In Pursuit of Pluralism – Politics with a Difference
Byline Times is delighted to welcome former Green Party MP Caroline Lucas to our roster of regular columnists. Her monthly musings will be ‘in pursuit of pluralism’ – an approach to politics, and life, more necessary than ever.
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On the Record – A Friend for Fergie
Nobody has been more affected by the fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein affair than me, and I am very grateful to Byline Times for allowing me to put the record straight.
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‘Brook House is a Money Machine’
Private contractors are taking hundreds of millions of pounds from a system critics believe incentivises maximising profits by keeping people trapped in it. Ruth Hopkins reports
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What Kind of World Am I Leaving For My Children?
With the number of hate crimes, including offences motivated by race and religion, recorded by the police in England and Wales rising for the first time in three years, Nikesh Shukla reflects on the conversations we all need to be having around racism and the rise of the far-right
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Letters – December 2025
Submit a letter for consideration about this month’s edition by emailing the Editors: Miss Hardeep Matharu and Mr Peter Jukes on letters@bylinetimes.com
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Mandrake – Splitting Heirs
With a piece not so long ago by its star columnist Richard Littlejohn headlined “Please don’t pretend two dads is the new normal”, the Daily Mail has scarcely been at the forefront of the campaign for gay rights. Soon, however, the media empire may find itself leading very much by example.
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Sonia Purnell’s Perspectives – Social Immobility
The UK is a country bursting with talent, innovation, and creativity – but a lot of it is wasted. If you are born poor or with limited horizons to make use of those qualities, that is more than likely how you will die.
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Notes on Now – Indignity
There are few people more ‘now’ than Lea Ypi, author of the deservedly worldwide bestseller Free: Coming of Age at the End of History. It’s a brilliant account of her growing up in Albania and experiencing, aged 11, the abrupt replacement of its autarkic communism with market ‘freedom’.
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Peter Oborne’s Diary – Merger and Assignations
Rather than challenge a morally corrupt system, Keir Starmer has chosen to become part of it
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Labour’s Biggest Problem Is Not a Lack of Leadership but a Lack of Ideas
Until Keir Starmer’s party decides what it really stands for, the question of who leads them will remain a hollow one, argues Adam Bienkov
