Out With a Bang
It’s the end of the road for Lebanon
Letter from Washington: To burn or not to burn?
What a Never-Trump divide says about the future of the Republican Party
When Political Families Fall Out
Has the dysfunctional family replaced the dynastic one in politics?
Reality has been Cancelled
Helen Dale reviews Cynical Theories, by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay
How united is Italy?
Professor Jeremy Black and Political Editor Graham Stewart discuss the strength of Italy’s national unity
Food for Thought
The saga of the Rex Whistler restaurant and Tate Britain
Two Cheers for Nuclear Proliferation
An obsession with the dangers of proliferation overlooks its positive effects
BLM racists don’t speak for me
How have racial slurs become progressive politics?
Drop the agitprop
David Hare is an extraordinarily accomplished writer when he doesn’t revert to contemporary politics
Mission Accomplished
Finley Harnett reviews the BBC’s Once Upon a Time in Iraq
The man who made antiques cool
Christopher Gibbs inspired a generation of dealers, aesthetes and designers
Young man in a hurry
Is Douglas Ross ready to lead the Scottish Conservatives?
The death of Theatre Criticism
The great critics always began before they were forty. Who are their equivalents today?
Ignoring the Covid evidence
Far from following the science, the government turned its back on all available data
Reining in the police: Action or cop-out?
The aftermath of George Floyd’s death is a Me Too moment for race relations and the law enforcement agencies
Short-changed by society
Small people like me face life-long discrimination – and now size has been “medicalised” for profit by drugs companies
Degrees of Mental Illness
Cassandra Russell on the university students who game the system by self-diagnosing as psychologically unwell
Writer who caught the reality of war
Vasily Grossman was not only a great correspondent in World War Two but a courageous dissident
Return of the dragon
China’s Covid belligerence will only isolate it further
Bishops’ different hymnsheet
The Church of England has worked to broaden its diversity of background, but its diversity of opinion has declined
A plague on lazarettos
Buildings born of plagues do have a life as something other than problematic ruins
As the world burns, don’t forget about feminism
As feminists, we must hold on to our victimhood at all costs. It is the source of our strength
Dr Green’s Dictionary: Narrative
In politics, narrative is now less synonymous with events than with their exposure as a pack of lies
England’s soft underbelly
Patrick West reviews The Channel, by Charlie Connelly
Footnoting the Belfast Agreement’s invisible annex
Owen Polley reviews Breaking Peace: Brexit and Northern Ireland by Feargal Cochrane
What would Terry Pratchett have made of 2020?
Hard graft and moral clarity were central to the Discworld author’s success
Brought to Book: James Marriott
Larman on the Editor hounded off Twitter for saying male novelists are being excluded
Romeo’s 2020 Lockdown Awards
How have the great and the good delivered in recent months?
The sadder side of summer
Tragedy struck Gustav Mahler, the archetypal summer composer, in 1907
To the streets, via the Crush Bar
Robert Thicknesse on Opera
A little bit of curve
In praise of pop smut
Taste of the high country
Lisa Hilton savours sublime cookery packed with the flavours of Slovenia’s Julian Alps
Simplicité sur l’herbe
The rules for the perfect picnic are simple, says Felipe Fernández-Armesto
When in Romania…
Christopher Pincher explores the Wine Ambassador restaurant and emporium in Bucharest
Closing the books
Thomas Woodham-Smith finds the latest research is online