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    Simon Kuper

    Life & Arts Columnist

    Simon Kuper joined the Financial Times in 1994. He wrote the daily currencies column, before leaving the FT in 1998. He returned in 2002 as a sports columnist and has been there ever since. Nowadays he writes a general column for the Weekend FT on all manner of topics from politics to books, and on cities including London, Paris, Johannesburg and Miami.

    Email Simon Kuper @KuperSimon  on Twitter (link opens in a new browser window)
    Email Simon Kuper @KuperSimon  on Twitter (link opens in a new browser window)

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    • Thursday, 6 October, 2022
      FT MagazineLife & Arts
      The cracks in the Cult of the Dead Leader

      What worshipping Margaret Thatcher can’t do for UK Conservatives

    • Thursday, 29 September, 2022
      FT MagazineEuropean Union
      How the EU got its mojo back

      Boris Johnson accidentally saved the European Union. Now it looks stronger than ever 

    • Thursday, 22 September, 2022
      FT MagazinePopulism
      Populism isn’t over. It’s getting an upgrade

      Brexit and Trump collided with reality. But rising conservatives like Italy’s Giorgia Meloni are more serious about power

    • Thursday, 15 September, 2022
      FT MagazineGender politics
      How to reboot men for the age of gender equality

      At the top and the bottom of society, new definitions of masculinity can help all to thrive

    • Thursday, 8 September, 2022
      FT MagazineClimate change
      We’re moving into a more optimistic era for climate action

      Policymakers are finally moving from stick to carrot, and good ideas will spread fast 

    • Thursday, 1 September, 2022
      FT MagazineLife & Arts
      Truss will only make the UK more miserable. That could be good

      The past has proven that hitting rock-bottom can be a productive national moment

    • Thursday, 4 August, 2022
      FT MagazineSpain
      In 50 years, will anyone still live in central Spain?

      How climate change threatens the world’s most liveable country

    • Friday, 29 July, 2022
      Life & Arts
      Women’s football: the case for reparations

      Stadium bans held the women’s game back for decades. Now’s the time for a financial reckoning

    • Thursday, 28 July, 2022
      FT MagazineLife & Arts
      Splendid isolation? Most people prefer globalisation

      Once insular places like Ireland and Singapore understand the benefits of global exchange. Ukrainians yearn for it

    • Thursday, 21 July, 2022
      FT MagazineWorkplace diversity & equality
      Why Swedes get better jobs than Lithuanians

      We’re familiar with gender and racial discrimination, but a hierarchy of nationalities is also holding many back

    • Thursday, 14 July, 2022
      FT MagazineUK universities
      How Johnson finally sabotaged the Eton-Oxford establishment

      Could the prime minister’s fall be a turning point for Britain?

    • Thursday, 7 July, 2022
      FT MagazineNato
      Is the west’s increased defence spending even necessary?

      Every day, Putin is depleting his army against a non-Nato country, burning his assets like a narcissist-run start-up

    • Thursday, 30 June, 2022
      FT MagazineConservative Party UK
      Why the Tories don’t care about the future

      An ageing electorate has all but killed off the very notion of transformative change

    • Friday, 24 June, 2022
      Summer Books 2022
      Best summer books of 2022: Sport

      Simon Kuper selects his best mid-year reads

    • Thursday, 23 June, 2022
      FT MagazineClimate change
      My hot take on the future of heatwaves

      With scorching temperatures becoming increasingly severe, some places will simply fail to cope

    • Thursday, 16 June, 2022
      FT MagazineWar in Ukraine
      Western Europe’s cynicism about Ukrainian suffering

      Putin’s threat is existential for eastern Europeans. But in western European history, Russia isn’t the chief villain

    • Thursday, 9 June, 2022
      FT MagazineFootball
      Elite football is a meritocracy. Why can’t politics be?

      Failure in sport is clear-cut and gets punished, unlike in government

    • Friday, 3 June, 2022
      The Elizabethan age
      Going Dutch? Why the British monarchy will have to modernise

      In the Netherlands, the Oranjes present themselves as a fairly ordinary if super-rich family that happens to have a crown

    • Thursday, 2 June, 2022
      FT MagazineUrban planning
      The cheap, green, low-tech solution for the world’s megacities

      Poorer megacities tend to be designed for rich people who can afford cars. Bikes are the answer

    • Thursday, 26 May, 2022
      ReviewNon-Fiction
      The Last Days of Roger Federer — Geoff Dyer on age and creative decline

      This most knowing of writers could have written a fascinating study of late-life creation — a shame then, that it reads like disjointed musings

    • Thursday, 26 May, 2022
      FT MagazineSport
      What supporting Real Madrid really means

      Plenty is known about the club’s stars and triumphs. But what of its fans?

    • Friday, 20 May, 2022
      ReviewNon-Fiction
      Chums by Simon Kuper — the Oxford breed of political bluff and banter

      An elegant, occasionally black and white, critique of the elite UK university that nurtured a generation of anti-European Tories

    • Thursday, 19 May, 2022
      FT MagazineLife & Arts
      How we quietly ditched the idea of progress

      The new human mission, both global and personal, is avoiding disaster

    • Thursday, 12 May, 2022
      FT MagazineLife & Arts
      Democracy might be in crisis. But autocracy certainly is

      From the 2008 crisis on, authoritarians were praised for their ‘efficiency’. Their troubles dwarf ours

    • Sunday, 1 May, 2022
      ObituaryMino Raiola
      Mino Raiola, football agent, 1967-2022

      He was a born trader and hardball negotiator who prided himself on his small stable of players

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