Joan Smith
Joan Smith is a novelist, essayist, columnist and campaigner for human rights. Her latest book is Home Grown: How Domestic Violence Turns Men Into Terrorists (riverrun, 2019). She tweets at @polblonde
Prisons must be single-sex spaces
The House of Lords has failed to pass an amendment to ensure female prisoners’ safety
The meaningless models of “public health”
Another brick in the “public health” fortress of unreality
The Conservative betrayal of selective schooling
Grammar schools are great — but there are not enough of them
Good for the sole
April calls for a recipe that combines the incoming and departing treats
The Church of England is practicing a secular religion
Equality, diversity and inclusion can be prioritised over religious faith
Childhood reclaimed
Mobile phones have been constraining our kids’ imaginations — but it does not have to be this way
Love in a remotely-controlled climate
If we outsource our decisions to
machines, we will be less capable
of navigating our own feelings
The truth is out there
Henry Staunton is dismissed as dangerously “erratic” by the powers that be, but he may just be telling the truth, no matter how weird
There is a lushness to this expanded Letters
There is frequent reporting of local news, often betraying a hobbit-like
preoccupation with the availability of beer
Singers have a voice, too
Study of the Western canon is often reduced to a politicised debate: power and patronage versus individual genius. The truth is far more complex
Of course the culture wars matter
It is people who trivialise them who are not taking politics seriously