Issue: March 2020
The real Amis?
X.Trapnel on the book world’s latest guessing game
He was right all along
Michael Bentley reviews The Englightenment that Failed by Jonathon Israel
Adventures in La-La Land
Simon Callow reviews A Fate Worse than Hollywood by David Ambrose
P is for Plum Pudding
Jonathon Green reviews A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order by Judith Flanders
An American icon is born again
Kanye West was mocked for rediscovering faith, but he has genuine concerns about the modern world he helped fashion
Brief encounters and romps in the park
George Orwell pursued women with enthusiasm and varying degrees of success
Lost elysium of the Cambridge Backs
One of Britain’s most celebrated views will soon be dramatically changed
We didn’t want to be poor no more
Growing up in the Eighties was a story of aspiration — and anxiety
March 2020: Letters to the Editor
Are we the fattest, drabbest people in Europe?
Populist smears of an unpopular elite
The conservative debate over nationhood is one of the most consequential in years
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
Gender self-ID was never the law
Barrister Akua Reindorf KC speaks about the controversial trans guidance the government is so loath to implement
Calypso and carnage
A seismic Test series and a harbinger of a new force in Test cricket
Self-inflicted misery
Super troupers
Zackonomics is incoherent and outdated
Zack Polanski is a great political entrepreneur but he is terrible at economics
The Hollywood starlet and the immigration albatross
Free marketeers were too content to ignore the negative externalities of immigration
Where is Britain’s vision?
Modern Britain has acquired a lack of national purpose, except for policies that are self-harming
Why Ed Miliband can’t change course
He would have to abandon his self-appointed role as an agent of progress
Britain must call its exiles home
The nation cannot continue to lose its top talent
Today Havering, tomorrow Westminster
The local elections exposed a political class united mainly by its inability to feel embarrassment
Sing for victory
The days when recording a novelty single was a pre-tour duty are long gone
Marriage and muscular liberalism
The Fury controversy exposes the contradictions behind Britain’s new marriage laws