Books
The wrong sort of difficult
Natascha Engel reviews Difficult Women, by Helen Lewis
The man who exposed the watchers
David J. Garrow reviews Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the Surveillance State, by Barton Gellman
Britain’s little Hitlers
Richard Griffiths reviews Failed Führers, by Graham Macklin
Too much of a maverick
Andrew Roberts reviews Haldane, by John Campbell
Matters of life and death
John Self reviews Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell, The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams, and The End of Me by Alfred Hayes
Spuds with everything
Potatoes were hyped as the key to a well-nourished populace by the European intelligentsia in the 1700s
Passing the Tebbit test
Dominic Lawson reviews 10,000 Not Out: The History of The Spectator, 1828-2020 by David Butterfield
Jane’s profound piety
Jeremy Black reviews Jane Austen: Writing, Society, Politics, by Tom Keymer
Decline of the sclerotic West
Richard Reinsch reviews The Decadent Society, by Ross Douthat
Pretty prose and ugly reality
Review: “Believe Me: How Trusting Women Can Change the World” by Jessica Valenti and Jaclyn Friedman
Most Read
The Book of JO’B
James O’Brien’s aggressive incuriosity is becoming ever more embattled as his worldview crumbles
A failed war on fags
The black market has taken over the tobacco trade Down Under
Thank God for Brexit
The EU is a bureaucratic monster and Britain is better off out
I don’t trust the British state
British institutions simply are not functioning in the interests of the people they are meant to serve
The lonely death of Henry Nowak
We must draw lessons from a horrendous and disgraceful case
Exiles from the Rainbow nation
Race, land and why white South Africans are leaving their homes behind
Reform should ignore bad faith criticism
The party is not perfect but that does not make all criticism valid
On a wind and a prayer
Beggaring ourselves will not cool the rest of the planet’s weather
Will we miss Mahmood?
Shabana Mahmood has been a voice of sanity in the Labour Party
Bonfire of the fallacies
Two opposing ideas about hard power and foreign policy — legalism and nihilism — are being exposed by the Trump
administration
No bullshit government
Tom Jones grills the shadow minister for
policy renewal about the plans of a
future Tory administration
Andy Burnham’s immigration double game
Andy Burnham might make sceptical noises about mass migration but they mean nothing in practice
Is this the end of art?
Cultural renewal cannot simply chase demand
Gentrification? Better than deprivation
Elephant and Castle has been radically spruced up, but not everyone is happy about it
Crushing the real progressives
The Islamic Republic of Iran, now under fire from the demonic West, is the most progressive society on earth
Standing up for cultural freedom
We must follow the example of brave artists who oppose censorship