How Bridget Phillipson earned an F
Phillipson’s big ambitions were reduced to performative stunts
The limits of localism
Why Andy Burnham’s localism agenda has a lot more to do with rhetoric than reality
The failed promise of Emmanuel Macron
He claimed that France would become a manufacturing power again. What happened?
Stumbling in the light
J.D. Vance has written a revealing book, for better and for worse
Why assisted dying failed
It was dangerous and it had no democratic mandate
The problem with the SNP’s separatist sympathies
We should not simply “move on” from the horrors of IRA terrorism
How Andy Burnham can raise living standards
Burnham and his team have a chance to change course, but they must be bold and take it
Andy Burnham is a coward
Andy Burnham’s refusal to submit himself to serious questioning tells us more about his premiership than any manifesto could
A good book about great powers
Jan Rüger has written a fine albeit not definitive book on British and German relations
The migrant crime cover up
Why is Labour fighting to keep migrant crime statistics secret?
Sad Scottish schadenfreude
For too many nationalists, England losing is mistaken for Scotland winning
Benches without borders
From Gaza to asylum appeals, Britain’s immigration courts are making decisions that weaken border enforcement.
We do not need mass migration for growth
Critics of mass migration have to be careful not to concede too much in their arguments
A plan to save our towns
Time for a renaissance in our devastated urban landscape
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?
Harassment at the NHS
NHS harassement
Varro and wide
The Romans had no doubt who their greatest intellectual was — the astonishing polymath Marcus Terentius Varro
The sad ubiquity of political dishonesty
Is it too much to expect politicians to be straight with us sometimes?
Best intentions …
A woo-woo approach to summer fashion
The intractable problems pulling modern Britain apart
When does upholding free speech become an act of self-sabotage?
The cosy world of an Oxbridge golden age
Twilight of the Dons: British Intellectuals from World War II to Thatcherism by Colin Kidd
Tinker Bell, Puck, Dobby & Co.
An account of everything even the most dedicated fairy-follower could want to discover
Romance rethink
An optimistic rejoinder to common dating advice
Cosmonaut thriller is absolutely stellar
Strong characters drive Star City forward in an increasingly paranoid hothouse of fear, betrayal and adultery
A triumphant return
Jesus Christ Superstar, the London Palladium
Love on manoeuvres
La fille du régiment, Covent Garden
Spielberg’s ho-hum space chase
Those describing it as a masterpiece cannot have seen Saving Private Ryan or Schindler’s List
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
Tame Impala fails to impress
unconquered by a
taste of Crusader food
The summer chill
Cool soups for hot days