Sounding Board
Sacred — and vital — spaces
A church is not the same as an old castle or a pub
Are we an oppressor nation?
Marcus Walker responds to an article calling for a re-examination of Britain’s history
God’s comeback
The Church of England has found God again
Purge the puritans
Marcus Walker regrets the new age of joylessness
Crucified again
Marcus Walker laments the new antisemitism
Christmas drinks
Fergus Butler-Gallie blesses that which unites church and pub
Holy baloney
Marcus Walker prays for episcopal consistency
Why are TRAs body-shaming J.K. Rowling?
In the discourse about “TERFs”, vicious misogyny is never far from the surface
Reinvention and rediscoveries
An actress turned author, a Kafkaesque fantasy and a 1960s re-release stir the imagination
The myth of the latest thing
Can Northern Irish politics evolve beyond nationalism and republicanism?
Dedication’s what you need
Down with the gratitude-bloat of authors’ endless lists of acknowledgements
Newly-minted mission statements
The Brexit coin takes bogus aspiration as part-ambition, part-accomplishment
We need to crack down on illegal schools
Unregistered providers are endangering children and harming social cohesion
BBC butterflies
Trans charity Global Butterflies seems harmless — but are they really cuckoos in the nest?
This is not normal, this is not OK
Sexually violent images and messages are reaching teenagers through TikTok
Death of a sporting hero
Lester Piggott was the greatest jockey — bar none
Sounds and sweet airs
Classical music is flourishing in Britain — though if you listened to our cultural elite you’d never know it
Ukraine’s patriotic master
The painter Ilya Repin straddled both Ukrainian and Russian cultures