Issue: April 2025
Universities must face the music
It is not too late to fix education’s arts crisis
A writer unsure who he wanted to be
Emile Zola: A Determined Life by Robert Lethbridge; Émile Zola: Writing Modern Life by Rachel Bowlby
Free thinking
Is true liberty a matter of independence or non-interference?
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
Publishing has an AI problem
From reviews to actual books, creativity is being outsourced to machines
Awards ceremonies are erasing women
Biological males should not receive awards intended for women
Why are doctors special?
Doctors have a lot less to complain about than other workers
The rise and fall of Star Trek liberalism
We should celebrate real-world achievement rather than identitarian fantasy
Don’t bet against the SNP
The complete ineptitude of their rivals has kept them at the top of Scottish politics
Our oriental roots
Marian Boswall salutes the early plant
hunters who revolutionised gardening
The artist formerly known as Nero
The life and death of Rome’s last Julio-Claudian emperor revealed every Roman fear about the dangers of one-man rule
The EU’s immigration asymmetry
Ten years on, the EU still hasn’t learned Brexit’s hard lesson on migration
Zurbarán on Freud’s couch
An acclaimed new exhibition is full of overwrought symbolism and compositional failures
Escape to the country
Some tractor-acceptance meditation might help with moving day
The price is right
Stories about outrageously profligate eating have the appeal of scandal