Issue: April 2024
Putting a gloss on big ideas
On the outsize influence of small magazines
It’s time to transition babies
Even in the womb, many foetuses can sense their own trans identity
Keystones of Britain’s history
Far too many young people are woefully ignorant of the splendour and meaning of our rich ecclesiastical architecture
A decade of economic disaster
Only one verdict is possible: Conservative rule has been a comprehensive failure
Let there be love
Filmmakers have fallen out of love with romantic movies, but it’s time to bring back passion to the picture house
Chasing votes on foreign soil
Viktor Orbán has created a pipeline of support for his Fidesz political project by granting full citizenship to thousands of ethnic Hungarians in Romania
How to lose an empire
The rise and fall of the Sassoon family, whose yearning for social acceptance brought titles at the cost of success
Bevis Marks Synagogue
Britain’s oldest purpose-built synagogue faces a new, more insidious threat
A monumental work on British buildings
Gavin Stamp’s posthumous book is a magnificent tour d’horizon, a bible of the styles available to architects between the wars
When classicists attack classics
Sanskrit isn’t the only ancient language to be affected by academic imperialism
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
What is anger for?
If young women are going to be radical, they need to make it worth it
A second Northern Ireland?
How the SNP squandered a major opportunity for independence
The right does not need religion
We should not mourn the end of the Quiet Revival
In defence of the Freedom of Information Act
We should not let our access to information held by public authorities be diminished
Why tradition, not utopia, protects expression
Free expression thrives on human frailty, debate, and tradition — not on utopian zeal or moral legislation
A country at war with itself
Washington politics can
best be understood through the history
of bitter factional in-fi ghting within both
the Democratic and Republican parties
Time for change?
A new book might overstate the durability of Trumpian politics
Sundown on Sandown
How can we save British seaside towns?
The great betrayal
MAGA will always be Trump’s, but how much is an ever-shrinking coalition actually worth?
Better Slayyyter than never
Like the first Strokes album if Max Martin had produced it
Starmer’s union trap
Labour has handed power back to the unions, and is now discovering the cost of obedience