Autocrats have a habit of falling out, says Janan Ganesh in the FT. Barely a decade into the Cold War, the Sino-Soviet alliance dissolved in a storm of “comrade-on-comrade hostilities”. It’s even worse when the ideologies don’t match: the ethno-nationalist hates the Marxist; “the cleric hates the colonel”; two theocracies of different denominations hate each other. The Second World War “Axis” of Germany, Italy and Japan was really anything but – the powers “rarely viewed each other as racial or civilisational equals”. From Hitler invading Russia to the Iran-Iraq War, what saved the liberal cause in the 20th century “was the elusiveness of a common front against it”.

“There are no facts,” wrote Nietzsche in the 19th century, “only interpretation.” Some think the German philosopher went mad through syphilis, says Giles Fraser in UnHerd – and “a type of madness” has indeed been his legacy. Reality used to provide us with “certain givens”; now many believe we can “uncouple ourselves from those givens” through will alone. Identity, sex and gender are not dictated by biology, but “by will, by wanting it”. Reality used to be something humans would adjust themselves to. These days, it plays “second fiddle” to our desires, “just as Nietzsche predicted”.