Labour Pains
After a crushing general election defeat, the Labour Party faces a difficult path back to power under its new leader. In this special section, six writers examine the career and character of Sir Keir Starmer, outline the massive challenges he faces in making his party electable again, and advise him how to set about his formidable task
What Labour owes to Scotland
Can Keir Starmer succeed without the land of Keir Hardie?
Can Labour learn to love the market?
As state socialism advances on all fronts, what is Labour’s real electoral future?
The Man Within
Expect Starmerism to make much more sense in practice than in theory
The “real” Labour Party
Since Blair doesn’t seem to count for many members, they have no positive model of Labour in power
My FGM Hero
On the issue of sexual and other forms of violence against women, Keir Starmer has a sterling record
The Opposition Trap
The next Labour leader will start with the opposite of a blank sheet: an overstuffed, losing manifesto
Five Rules for Ruling
There’s no problem with a witchhunt when there really are witches
Wanted: A new Labour foreign policy
It comes as no surprise that Jeremy Corbyn leapt to Russia’s defence after the Salisbury poisoning
Is the culture war over?
Populist political victories do nothing to change the reality of progressive institutional dominance
Resist Labour’s managerial revolution
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are grimly committed to expanding the state and entrenching bureaucracy
The grim quasi-religious doctrine of “unconscious bias training”
Baroness Royall’s commitment to the idea should concern Oxford students, academics and administrators
This is England, nor are we out of it
Englishness isn’t an ethnicity, or even an idea. It’s more like auto-destructive art
An abuser hiding in plain sight
There was shock when a feted theatre director turned out to be a paedophile who collected child rape porn but were the clues there all along?
Light in the darkness
In conversation with Nigel Biggar about his career and the work of the Pharos Foundation
Leo Varadkar is still stirring division
The former Taoiseach should have more humility
The Critic guide to glass ceilings
On the self-made men (and women!) of the Labour Party
The triumph of Irish populism
The three major parties went with what is popular, rather than what is right
They call it Poppy love
Poppy is, simply, a dog who knows what she wants
Is the law going coconuts?
The acquittal of a pro-Palestine protestor on free speech grounds should not be a one-off
