Issue: March 2021
Blueprints for laughter, life, love and belonging
Fiction works on the understanding that none of it really happened; we agree to believe it anyway, says John Self
Putting a price on scholarship
Charles Saumarez Smith on the battle to safeguard the future of some of Britain’s oldest and best-known learned societies
Sealed with a Glasgow kiss
From trans rights to its independence strategy, a bitter war divides one of the most popular parties in Europe
Cancelled by his college
How a panicking Cambridge institution obliterated the memory of one of its most famous sons
An exercise in self-flagellation
Bruce Coleman finds that this book on the West India Interest is more polemical than historical
Culture club
A cherished hub of post-colonial Indian life in London is under threat of closure
Short cut to a Mob takeover
Today the multiply-tattooed Balkan war criminal look is popular
Whitehall takes the knee
When the MoD’s top man signs off with a BLM hashtag it’s a brave official who doesn’t get the message
Blinded by science
Alasdair Palmer says there is little evidence to show that lockdowns are effective
Faith Masks
The ideological significance of face masks, the new vestiture of the faithful
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
No, rent controls don’t work
Stop toying with failed ideas and build some damn houses
Westminster is not Manchester
Andy Burnham would find being the PM a lot more difficult than being a mayor
An anti-gambling bonanza
Don’t expect a lot of objective and thorough research from a new “gambling harms” organisation
Tedious transgression
The mainstreaming of porn is dangerous, hypocritical and very, very boring
Not so good after all
Can left-leaning journalists finally acknowledge the challenges British society faces?
An elusive eatery
Total failure, redeemed by souvlaki and chips at the kebab stand
Talent and temptation
William Walton: Two symphonies
First time thrills
Most of all, it was a tournament of heroes and villains
Lost railway art
Art should matter in all its guises, above and below ground
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
Tony Blair cannot escape politics
And our politics cannot escape from Tony Blair