David Edgerton: “The UK needs a politics of modesty”
The acclaimed historian on whether Britain is in decline, the Nairn-Anderson thesis and what Labour gets wrong about economic growth.
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Goodreads is degrading our literary culture
Everyone can, and should, be a critic. But the reviews website is having a sinister effect on books.
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The decadent society
With the nation consumed by sleaze, the serious business of government is at a standstill.
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Mission Intolerable: a stupid franchise gets stupider
Reviewing the Tom Cruise film Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is an exercise as absurd as critiquing porn…
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This England: Duck and dive
This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain –…
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The monsters of feminist art
How the audacious artists of the Seventies embraced disgust and redefined female beauty.
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I turn 60 and my children tease me – until they are reminded that they, too, are ageing
I may have a grey beard, but the wingèd chariot dawdles no more for them than it does for me.
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The right don’t own tradition, but they can keep Morris dancing
How do we connect with the past when this impulse is often exploited by the worst people imaginable?
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From Megan Nolan to James Ball: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring Reflections by Mark Avery and The Black Eden by Richard T Kelly.
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David Scheel Q&A: “I studied octopuses from a yellow submarine”
The marine biologist on the Beatles, eliminating single-use plastic, and animal self-awareness.
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A world built on sand
Ed Conway’s Material World shows that despite our digital lives it is rocks and minerals that power the global economy.
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And Just Like That… is a woke horror show
The Sex and the City sequel is a combination of glib identity politics and extreme shopping – and it’s impossible…
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Can Labour inspire hope?
The sense of fatalism across the country means that the party’s education plan is its most important initiative.
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Austerity is about to return to Europe
The political fallout from the reimposition of the EU’s fiscal rules will be toxic.
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Why cricket is the most moving art
It is complex and it is gladiatorial – yet farce and comedy are never far away during even the most…
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When war comes to Wimbledon
As Russian competitors return to SW19, the Ukrainian player Sergiy Stakhovsky continues to fight on the front line.
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“We’re all Blairites now” in the Labour Party
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
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The Crossbow Killer attempts to fathom an unfathomable act
Meic Parry’s investigation into the 2019 murder of Gerald Corrigan is well-researched but unnecessarily gory in detail.
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The Bank of England is complicit in the Tories’ economic failures
Andrew Bailey incurs the public’s wrath for today’s economic pain, but his predecessors have questions to answer as well.
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My night out in Colchester
Also this week: the worst margarita of our lives, and Russia’s hot-dog rebels.
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