Why ministers fail
Even the more effective politicians do not have time to achieve anything
The case against recognising Somaliland
The Somaliland lobby is being dangerously naive about the realities of the region
The end of Peel’s police?
She invokes a vanished age of policing, but Shabana Mahmood’s reforms point towards a more continental model of policing
Hang up on Britain’s blight boxes
Outdated regulations are keeping thousands of redundant phone boxes on Britain’s streets
Love on manoeuvres
La fille du régiment, Covent Garden
Lessons from the Argentinians
There is little value in complaining about foul play if you cannot win
An idiot’s guide to promoting “public health” policies
How to make irrational authoritarian moralism sound like urgent common sense
Should I buy Breaky Bottom?
England’ greatest vineyard is up for sale for the first time. Henry Jeffreys looks into whether it will make a good business proposition.
Two cheers for Keir
Keir Starmer enjoyed a warm end to a chilly premiership
The problem with scapegoating social media
Social media has become a convenient whipping boy for Britain’s political class
Pride’s heir
Removing Gavin Barwell sends a message, but Badenoch should go much further
Tax hikes? Take a hike
Andy Burnham must get a grip on spending rather than squeezing the taxpayer
An ode to the examination
The end of in-person examinations would be the end of rational assessment
The man who defied the ministry
Tom Rolt, whose rescue of the Talyllyn Railway provided a model of how we can stand up to the homogenistion of our culture
Killing with kindness
The MoD’s drive for a net zero military is an ideological folly that risks national security
Bring back literary vendettas
Grub Street thrived when
there was an “establishment”,
movements and feuds
Sex, success and failure
Sarah Ditum talks with songwriter Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy
A police school for scandal
Is it any wonder there’s a two-tier policing controversy when officer training is focused on political correctness?
David Lean
The cinematic genius admired by today’s directors
Rakes, ruin and refinement
Peter Glanz’s Savage House captures the splendour, squalor and social ambition of Georgian Britain with remarkable historical confidence
The revolution will be half-empty
Britain’s answer to America’s biggest conservative gathering offered empty seats, familiar grievances and a vision of the country that exists largely in the imagination.
Faith in fakes
Baudrillard warned that politics would become a world of signs detached from reality. Manchesterism suggests he was right
How to travel in Europe
For the best in Europe, learn how to travel like a rich native
The intractable problems pulling modern Britain apart
When does upholding free speech become an act of self-sabotage?
Romance rethink
An optimistic rejoinder to common dating advice
Patchett is as good as she needs to be
Whistler by Ann Patchett; The Smiths: A Novella by Michael
Bracewell; Schoolgirl by Osamu Dazai
I’m so over Exposed
Exposed: The Rise of Extreme Porn and How We Fight Back by Clare McGlynn
Spielberg’s ho-hum space chase
Those describing it as a masterpiece cannot have seen Saving Private Ryan or Schindler’s List
When art took on fascism (and lost)
Abstract activist concerns have overshadowed aesthetic production
Not mad for it
I Puritani, Royal Opera, Covent Garden
Sweeter the second time around
There’s a real weight to some lyrics once you’re nearer the end than the beginning
Shooting the breeze
Patrick Galbraith welcomes an ambitious new shoot tenant
Lebanon’s finest
Henry Jeffreys savours some reds and whites from the Bekaa valley
The summer chill
Cool soups for hot days
The praises of a neglected vegetable
Summer calls for cold cucumbers