Cheeky blinder
Isobel Williams’s treatment of selected poems is literary charcuterie, as neat as it is naughty
Thick as Thebans
Frederic Raphael reveals how Paul Cartledge makes the case for a central historical role for Oedipus’s home town
Public Enemy Number whatever
Frederic Raphael defends his friend, the writer Joseph Epstein, latest victim of America’s cancel culture for daring to mock Jill Biden’s doctorate
A letter to Jesus
Frederic Raphael poses some pertinent questions to the son of God
The misanthropic history man
Yuval Noah Harari has become an intellectual superstar, but his predictions have become wilder and sillier
Nova’s diary: Everything’s different now
Rishi is helping our neighbour, Big Jeremy, with his sums
The crisis in the universities
A Critic panel brought light as well as heat to the troubled question of higher education
Is Britain a Christian country?
The UK has an established religion alright — the worship of the self
Why we should resist this “conversion therapy” ban
It would enshrine dubious claims as unarguable facts, and it endangers freedom and young people
Saving London from the czar
London’s nightlife could be great — but it needs real change
Google has a history problem
As much as we might wish that history had been different, virtue cannot grow from the soil of falsehood
How the Ukraine delusion may end
Biden might entertain peace to cut his losses and boost his election chances
The true lie of the land
Landowners are reviled as enemies of the environment by the Jacobins of the green movement but these Poundland Robespierres are simply blinded by prejudice
The reality of tobacco control
To have a law does not mean that it will be respected
The establishment prefers distractions to solutions
Politicians discuss irrelevances rather than confronting the obvious
