Issue: April 2022
Such sweet sorrow
Lent is an ideal time to take pleasure in a gentle, contemplative and very English strand of musical melancholia
The Roman roots of the English church
Perhaps two new church histories have a salutary message for today’s C of E
Studio: The “Fallas” of Valencia
Fierce rivalries in a shared sport
Ukraine’s patriotic master
The painter Ilya Repin straddled both Ukrainian and Russian cultures
Dress rehearsal
A 2015 comedy starring Volodymyr Zelensky is now showing on Channel 4
As easy as pie plant
How to pamper your rhubarb patch
Send in the spivs
War offers so much more in the way of profitable procurement than even the pandemic
Pulsating panorama of a complex decade
A new history of the Interregnum rescues this forgotten period of history from oblivion
Armageddon: a win for social justice
Destroying the planet would be an act of white supremacy — but there are some advantages
Close, but no cigar
Dilyn the Dog and Bozzo have been playing dress up
Most Read
American strategy in Iran is wiser than it seems
President Trump’s intervention will leave the world safer than it was
Saint Nicola
Nicola Sturgeon wants sympathy for her husband’s crimes—but after years spent avoiding awkward questions, her latest reinvention may be the hardest sell yet.
The lonely death of Henry Nowak
We must draw lessons from a horrendous and disgraceful case
Rewatching the English
English identity has become too surreal and discomfiting to define
A failed war on fags
The black market has taken over the tobacco trade Down Under
Canis lupus labor
Europe is a wolf coming up the path to devour the Labour Party
QAnon for centrist dads
Peter Chappell’s What If Reform Wins is less a political forecast than a Westminster panic attack in novel form
A second Northern Ireland?
How the SNP squandered a major opportunity for independence
Beware the British ICE
Mass deportation of Muslims will not solve antisemitism, but feed feelings of alienation
New model Auntie
David Elstein spells out the big decisions that Matt Brittin, the BBC’s new director-general, needs to make very quickly in order to save the Corporation
The EU is changing on immigration
A firmer stance is being taken — but will it be enough?
The problem with optimisation
Feeling maximally healthy and productive is not the point of life
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill is a masterclass in self-defeat
Labour’s tobacco crackdown will fuel crime, hurt retailers, and push smokers towards worse habits
Indefinite leave, unlimited access
While Westminster fixates on survival, a deeper battle will decide whether mass migration becomes a permanent and costly feature of the state
The American chaos machine
The United States’s current aggressive expansionism and domestic strife are an intrinsic part of its national character
Iran has been fatally misunderstood
The US and Israel were foolish to imagine that the Iranians would crumble