Simon Kuper

For First Time in Decades, Child Deaths Will Rise This Year Almost a quarter of a million more children around the world are projected to die in 2025 than in 2024.

This fetid landmark, this historical stain on humanity is primarily due to the stunningly reckless obliteration of America's foreign assistance agency earlier this year.

Led by the richest man on earth. In secret, on a weekend. With zero analysis or discussion of its catastrophic impacts.

The joy of World Cup travel [FREE TO READ] Next week’s draw for the 2026 World Cup will reveal who’s playing who and where. Simon Kuper — a veteran of nine tournaments — explains why the event is the perfect travel opportunity

The World Cup is the perfect travel opportunity. Me @FinancialTimes, drawing on my own 9 World Cups- walking the battlefield at Stalingrad with England fans, nearly cracking up in the Japanese provinces etc. All based on my new book World Cup Fever. Featuring some brilliant pics on.ft.com/4pFEJLq

🚨Attacks on immigrants, protests, rule of law: all is not well in the United States before the 2026 FIFA⚽️World Cup.

🗓️3 Dec, media briefing on-topic by @amnesty.org @hrw.org @rsf.org @sportrightsall.bsky.social NAACP.

✒️Reporters can DM me for invite, Zoom link, interview requests etc.

2. Last point on flattery: I say that a common industry technique for flattering rich people is to offer them exclusive access (e.g. VIP openings at art fairs). Well, Jeffrey Epstein's network was a classic exclusive-access scheme for rich men - with the twist that access was to underage girls

Witkoff was worried that Russian elite wouldn't understand the flattery etiquette that is so familiar to elite Americans. He needn't have worried; they have it too

Two points that didn't make the column: 1. Steve Witkoff's leaked conversation with Russian aide Ushakov on how to pitch peace deal to Trump is classic coaching in flattery etiquette: "reiterate that you congratulate the president on this achievement...that you respect that he is a man of peace" etc

How flattery became a big, beautiful industry [FREE TO READ] Never before have there been so many rich people to be boosted

One effect of our age of the rich: the flattery industry is booming. Call them luxury hotel concierges, personal trainers, Trump cabinet members, Musk "loyalists", wealth managers etc, but the essential job is flatterer. Me
@financialtimes.com on how the industry works on.ft.com/43SIvbR

What a fun surprise to pick up a @financialtimes.com article just out of interest in the subject (rich people & their boundless appetite for flattery) only to find my own research cited a few times!

Thanks, @simonkuper.bsky.social! Check out my thread below on "competitive depravity" among elites.

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.

They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Very rich blog post by Catherine, which includes me banging on about my writing ideology: don't write a word until you've made a complete plan of what you're going to say

Simon Kuper über sein neues Buch "Die größte aller Partys": „Für uns war Deutschland der Darth Vader“ Simon Kuper spricht über seine WM-Erfahrungen, von Frankreich 1998 bis Brasilien 2014, und erklärt, warum Deutschland für ihn der "Darth Vader der WM-Geschichte" ist.

Mein neues WM-Buch ist gerade auf Deutsch erschienen www.prisma.de/magazin/hall...

The man who weakened strongman Erdoğan [FREE TO READ] Jailing Turkey’s opposition leader hasn’t stopped him looking like the country’s president in waiting

Last year I interviewed the Turkish opposition leader Ekrem Imamoglu. Now he's in jail, and President Erdogan's state prosecutor has just demanded a jail sentence for him of over 2,000 years. Yet Imamoglu is a political star who terrifies Erdogan and could eventually replace him on.ft.com/3X45lcL

New: I can confirm hasty US-Russia proposal being pushed to Ukrainians via Dmitriev-Witkoff to Umerov. It would amount to Ukraine’s capitulation, with people familiar saying it’s Kremlin’s maximalist demands.
-Ukraine army cut 1/2
-Give up certain weapons
-Give up Donbas
-Zelensky displeased
More tk

A parent’s fear: the mother in hiding from her son [FREE TO READ] What happens when the person you gave life to, wants to take yours

on.ft.com/4nWiG1G A parent’s fear: the mother in hiding from her son

He was golden-haired, a “really happy” baby. “He was gorgeous. I absolutely doted on him, I loved being a mum.”

How democrats can fight back [FREE TO READ] Fifty years after Franco’s death, autocracy is going strong

On November 20, 1975, Franco died in his bed, and Spain unexpectedly went democratic - part of the global wave of democratisation from 1974 to 1990. Now we're in the worst democratic decline since the 1930s. But there's hope. Me @financialtimes.com on how to create more Spains on.ft.com/4nRUpK0

How democrats can fight back [FREE TO READ] Fifty years after Franco’s death, autocracy is going strong

On November 20, 1975, Franco died in his bed, and Spain unexpectedly went democratic - part of the global wave of democratisation from 1974 to 1990. Now we're in the worst democratic decline since the 1930s. But there's hope. Me @financialtimes.com on how to create more Spains on.ft.com/4nRUpK0

The World Cup as a Mirror of History: A Conversation with Simon Kuper - Football Makes History Football Makes History sat down with writer and journalist Simon Kuper to discuss his latest book, "World Cup Fever".

'You must understand the World Cup is a kind of religious feast that includes the whole world ... Whereas Easter is only for Christians, the World Cup is for everyone'

A fascinating interview with #WorldCupFever author @simonkuper.bsky.social for Football Makes History ⚽️

Britain’s new ambassador to France: ‘You all play the game of influence’ [FREE TO READ] Mere weeks into the job, ‘securocrat’ Sir Thomas Drew has positioned Paris’s 18th-century Hôtel de Charost as ‘an informal annex to formal discussions at the Élysée’. It’s no small feat

The UK ambassador's residence in Paris (bought by Wellington from Napoleon's sister in 1815) is the house where Churchill's parents married, where Churchill sang in bath while France was being invaded, where a British servant stopped Nazis in 1941 etc. My tour with the ambassador on.ft.com/495OYDF

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Maccabi Tel Aviv vs Aston Villa – What have we learned?
Online discussion 11am Saturday. Sports historian David Goldblatt, Football Supporters’ Association CEO Kevin Miles, Nick McGeehan of FairSquare and others explore the issues raised by the Europa League game
us02web.zoom.us/j/8673874747...

From my FT column on the 3 worst books I've ever read

I'm a Russian living in London - this is what people back home think of Putin Jana Bakunina reveals what pro-Putin friends and family told her while visiting Yekaterinburg, and how opponents are burying their heads in the sand to survive

The Russian Londoner Jana Bakunina on her excellent book The Good Russian, which is out this week inews.co.uk/news/world/r...

Dead famous: The ghosts of Paris’s Père-Lachaise cemetery [FREE TO READ] Many of the bucolic burial ground’s celebrated residents are still, according to local lore, making their presence felt

Happy Halloween. Here's my guide for @financialtimes.com to the ghosts of the world's most visited cemetery, Père-Lachaise in Paris - from Jim Morrison to the fertility and sex god Victor Noir. as.ft.com/r/24de0ea2-c...

How sport unites us [FREE TO READ] In a divided world, fandom is a social superpower

In praise of being a football fan, by my colleague Simon Kuper: as.ft.com/r/349446da-4...
(I am not really a fan, but my son is, and I loved this piece.)

Brilliant story: Suspects of the Louvre jewellery heist appear to be fans of newly promoted Paris FC, which is owned by the billionaire Arnault family. They were arrested while queuing to get into the game against Lyon www.eurosport.fr/football/cam...

How sport unites us [FREE TO READ] In a divided world, fandom is a social superpower

With social isolation rising, about the last thing that brings people together - even across political divides - is sports fandom. Me @financialtimes.com on why fans have more friends, social connections and democratic sympathies - with help from @moreincommonus.bsky.social as.ft.com/r/671ea66b-4...

On the “defeat” of the far right in the Netherlands 🇳🇱

The total number of far-right seats in the Tweede Kamer:

2021: 28
2023: 41
2025: 42 👈

And I don’t even count BBB here, which has radicalized significantly in the last year.

Reupping this ahead of today's Dutch elections, with far right having essentially walked away from government

What nationalist leaders will learn from Geert Wilders [FREE TO READ] By shouting at the system, the Dutch politician moves it rightwards

Me ahead of next week's Dutch elections on the three ways of being a far-right leader: Trump's maximalism, Meloni's compromise, and in 🇳🇱, Geert Wilders' approach of changing the country by shouting from opposition. He's the man who sets the national agenda @financialtimes.com on.ft.com/3Jly9tK

The Trump Supremacy [FREE TO READ] Opponents in disarray, allies in line, followers enthralled — the US president is already on his way to building a new world order

"Such is their fear of jail, bankruptcy or reprisal, that most people I spoke to insisted on anonymity. This was in spite of the fact that many of the same people said Trump would only be restrained by powerful voices standing up to him." My Weekend FT essay. Please read it. on.ft.com/4hqblpr

What nationalist leaders will learn from Geert Wilders [FREE TO READ] By shouting at the system, the Dutch politician moves it rightwards

Me ahead of next week's Dutch elections on the three ways of being a far-right leader: Trump's maximalism, Meloni's compromise, and in 🇳🇱, Geert Wilders' approach of changing the country by shouting from opposition. He's the man who sets the national agenda @financialtimes.com on.ft.com/3Jly9tK