The best we can hope for
Brilliant psychologist Daniel Kahneman died this year
Well, well, well
The amazing discovery of a thousand Orvieto pots in a water shaft
Cops, guns and judges
What the Supreme Court’s ruling on firearms officers means
Studio: Donatello at the Palazzo Strozzi
A magnificent celebration of the artist who was midwife to the birth of humanism
Studio: Piranesi
Alasdair Palmer visits an exhibition at the Fondazione Marco Besso, Rome
Risky business
When it comes to booking a holiday abroad, we need to protect our right to take risks and make our own decisions
An unrepentant serial killer
The Happy Traitor tells Blake’s story in a witty and sophisticated way, fully alert to its complexities and ironies
Blinded by science
Alasdair Palmer says there is little evidence to show that lockdowns are effective
Raphael & Rome after Lockdown
For art lovers, now is the perfect time to visit The Eternal City
Can bad people be good artists?
The moral standards of creative giants
Eerie decadence
“Blink Twice” accelerates from black comedy to dark drama
Two cheers for pedestrianisation
Pedestrianisation cannot solve all of Oxford Street’s problems
The problem with Rachel Reeves’s pension pretensions
Bigger funds are not the key to effective investments
“Bold vision”
An action or choice can perfectly well be bold without being good
Towards a hospitable environmentalism
Green ideas must transcend misanthropy and austerity
March of the guys
How did one honorific colonise our language?
Inflation and inflated expectations
To understand inflation, we must understand different kinds of inflation
Something has gone very wrong with “human rights”
When the “rights” of foreign sex criminals are being prioritised above the safety of Britons, we need change
My “state of the nation” book
England’s Mean Unpleasant Land: How the Tories, Trump and TikTok Screwed Up Britain
Cities of the mind
19th century English towns live on in our collective imagination
London and the laggards
In the eighteenth century London was booming, but many towns weren’t doing so well
