Issue: December/January 2023
Clients
Value neutral language drains meaning from discourse
Exploding the Anglosphere Dream
Is canzuk revivalism scary enough to need book-length refutation?
A farewell to Carmen
Why will there be no more Carmen Callils?
Norse mode
How John Gabriel Borkman is a hard Ibsen play to like
The pontiff who looked the other way
David Kertzer unearths dramatic evidence from recently-released Vatican files
The Roots of Conservatism
The Conservative Party’s almost total loss of its historical tradition is the principal reason for its current plight
Puncturing Putin’s dangerous myths
Everyone reveres WWII myths — but the cult of the Great Patriotic War defines modern Russia
Odesa: The Battle for a City’s Soul
Putin’s war has only strengthened the Ukrainian identity of a port where many have turned against their own Russian language and want to tear down Moscow’s imperial monuments
Inquest into the death of ENO
The cause of death, in this coroner’s verdict, is a prolonged failure to address reality
Missing the point on lockdown
A new book on civil liberties and the pandemic is bogged down by petty proceduralism
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 does it mean to be free?
Women are caught between different experiences of freedom and loss
Left-wingers are wallowing in post-truth politics
Complaints about right-wing “fake news” have obscured the biggest misinformation problem
The sickness of Sickfluencers
Social media and AI are enabling the exploitation of our benefits system
Against the scolding mob
MPs have helped to create the puritanism that is now coming for their drinks
Orbánism is not dead
The veteran Hungarian prime minister is going but his agenda lives on
Light my fire
A perfect spy requires a spark for his cigarette
In the trenches
Hannah Betts considers whether the
classic trench coat is the GOAT
Legal curiosities
The pursuit of justice in small or atypical jurisdictions has sometimes led to some unusual legal quandaries
Right-wing fight night
A debate over the future of right-wing politics in Britain offered little heat and less light
The costs of independence
Northern Ireland offers sobering lessons on the consequences of devolutionary radicalism
Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law
Punishing anyone before they have even been convicted of anything makes me uneasy