Issue: June 2020
A body fit only for the bin
The Electoral Commission has repeatedly wilted in the face of hysterical conspiracy theories
The best of Heads
Sir Eric Anderson employed the best and let them get on with it
The NHS is the new Church — Militant and Triumphant
The clinical decisions rushed through in March had a single goal: to protect the reputation of the NHS
Jobsworths home and away
The referee is a blessed form of jobsworth
Boris’s Corona Catastrophe
An indolent, blustering prime minister surrounded by supine, vacuous incompetents
Reckless US faces a reckoning
Trump’s spending spree will mean sky-high inflation and interest rates
Lights, camera, chaos
Our board-treading gossip columnist grapples with actors on Zoom
Men and women and men
John Self reviews Sorry for Your Trouble by Richard Ford, This is Pleasure by Mary Gaitskill and Cleanness by Garth Greenwell
More plausible than real life
John Preston reviews Beneath the Streets by Adam Macqueen
Catch that pigeon!
Patrick Galbraith takes aim at an agricultural pest
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 bonfire of British history
Absentee landlords’ neglect allows architectural jewels to be burned to the ground
Where are all the ambitious Scots?
Whole sectors were once dominated by Caledonian migrants
A second Northern Ireland?
How the SNP squandered a major opportunity for independence
The hollow men
T. S. Eliot understood contemporary politicians better than they understand themselves
Averting irrational egalitarianism
How to stop ideological anti-racism damaging our institutions and our country
The mirage of majesty
Royal charm cannot disguise Britain’s shrinking power in a transactional world
Warm home, wrong decision
Ministers are once again choosing the most politically convenient response to rising energy costs, not the most effective one
The rise and fall of Star Trek liberalism
We should celebrate real-world achievement rather than identitarian fantasy
Tony Blair cannot escape politics
And our politics cannot escape from Tony Blair
The masses against the classicists?
Reflections on the virtues and vices of academic gatekeeping
What is anger for?
If young women are going to be radical, they need to make it worth it