Features

Kill or be killed: the charming cut-throats of the wild frontier

Visiting the site of a long-forgotten siege in the Hindu Kush

Breaking taboos with clay

Jo Bartosch interviews ceramicist Claudia Clare, whose uncompromising work has upset the censorious art world

On the passing of the great generation

In memoriam Simon Preston CBE, ob. 13.V.2022 & James Bowman CBE, ob. 27.III.2023

The elegant extremist

Ian McEwan has always tempered his shocking stories with polished prose

Paradise dimmed

John Milton’s Paradise Lost is the greatest poem in the English language, yet it seems to be fading slowly from public view. Who could write a new national epic?

Don’t hobble the house

Proposals for constitutional reform will only weaken our parliamentary democracy

Rethinking “free speech”

Censorship is not only desirable but necessary if a democratic society and its laws are to function correctly

The dissenting doctor

A leading psychiatrist is worried that a new government bill threatens his groundbreaking talking therapy for gender dysphoria

Don’t mention the war

A rosy-hued invocation of the Blitz spirit was a hopelessly misguided metaphor for the Covid pandemic

Profile: Professor Arif Ahmed

The philosopher charged with defending campus free speech is robustly independent, happy to take on vested interests — and not easily pigeonholed