Issue: January/February 2021
Friends old and new
Thomas Woodham-Smith doesn’t collect, he simply accumulates stock
Decaying delights
Tom Chessyre on the glory of obscure railway museums
Educating the G&T set
Claudia Savage-Gore on the tricky social nuances of London day schools
The broken circle
A remarkable group of intellectuals in pre-war Vienna used philosophy to explain the scientific progess of their time — until they were halted by murder and Nazism
Six ways to make things better
Bringing back the Net Book Agreement would be a good start for badly-paid authors
Comfort zone
Hannah Betts chooses chic alternatives to dull sweatpants
Best of the year that was
Put down the pandemic novels: Here’s my favourite fiction of 2020
Meet me at Ronnie’s
A new BBC documentary captures the spirit of the club that made London a global hub for jazz
Black gold
Compost is the heart of a garden, says Hephzibah Anderson
A catch that feeds the soul
Heaven is the Outer-Hebrides – with the electric jolt of the sea trout on the line
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
The man who knew too little
Faced with Mandelson, Starmer offers a bold defence: he didn’t know, and that’s what makes him blameless
The Real shooting match
Cue the bogus platitudes that leaders make about sport’s ability to heal divisions
The underworld on the high street
Beneath the façade of everyday commerce, organised crime has quietly captured British high streets
Lost railway art
Art should matter in all its guises, above and below ground
Can the army survive migration?
As Western militaries struggle to recruit young people, Britain may be turning to a familiar solution: immigration
Why does Labour hate our pubs?
The government has to stop taxing the hearts of our communities out of business
A range of Stratford anecdotes
The Walliams dilemma
The NHS is no longer above question
People are finally, if grudgingly, waking up to its flaws
Giles Treadwell
Old-style literary agent
A culture of death
Street gangs and online provocation are fuelling a morbid subculture in British life
American crusades
Populism is susceptible to foreign lobbies and crusading delusions