Issue: December 2020
The Russians aren’t coming
New music was not officially muted in the Soviet Union. It just got left at home, says Norman Lebrecht
The meek inherit nothing
Islamism is increasingly held not to be a deviant from Islam, but an orthodox aim of the “religion of peace”
Joe should go back to school
Here’s how the new president can unite the country — and pick up votes
Timelessness trumps timely
What we have is pure storytelling delight, a page-turner that works forwards and backwards as the reader fills in the gaps
Fond memories of Sean Connery
I struggle to think of a more glorious spectacle than the sight of Sean flashing that winning smile
The Marxist cell in Number 10
Adam LeBor investigates the former communist cult that has found common cause with the prime minister and the Brexiteer Conservative right
No one guilty at the BBC
No one in BBC management ever pays a price for the BBC’s mistakes.They just happen, like the weather
December 2020: Letters to the Editor
In praise of lockdown
The paradox of Nazi culture
The Nazis were so obsessed with the otherness of the Jews that they created an alternative cultural universe for them
Pointless protest
Spare us the snooty superiority of “real” writers affronted by celebrity novels
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
Conservatives should learn from Labour
We might disagree with the ideas of Labour politicians, but we can learn from their methods
The great creative course illusion
How universities mistook access to courses for access to creative life
Where are Britain’s moral voices?
On decriminalising abortion up to birth, the Archbishop of Canterbury must talk the talk, not walk the walk
Seeing colour
Donald Locke, Resistant Forms at Camden Art Centre
No, rent controls don’t work
Stop toying with failed ideas and build some damn houses
Spirits, a seven-year-old and a death camp
Balancing the gap between what the narrator knows and what the reader does
The emperor’s new AI
A satirical X account is doing what the media class has failed to do, and report on the great AI delusion
The Starmer strikes back
In a galaxy far, far from stable, Labour’s leadership chaos overshadows the King’s Speech
A step forward for academic freedom
It is time to take the fight to censoriousness in higher education
Final Analysis
The real measure of a degree
The pathologies of outdated ideologies
Our managerial elite will go the way of the Mamluks, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Moriori