Issue: May 2020
Criminal insanity
Nigel Biggar reviews Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot, by John Lloyd
Mass-goer who glorified mass production
Christopher Bray reviews Warhol by Blake Gopnik
Unpacking the shoeboxes of history
Robert Hutton reviews House of Glass by Hadley Freeman and Inge’s War by Svenja O’Donnell
The big state heir to Blair
James Kirkup reviews Remaking One Nation by Nick Timothy
The week the war ended
Seventy-five years ago this month, peace finally came to a destroyed Europe
What price coronavirus?
Politicians had no choice but to order a national lockdown — but the cost to the country may still be too great
The return of Project Fear
It didn’t take long for the Remainiacs to weaponise the coronavirus crisis
Unfinest Hour
Our character has been all too gruesomely on display in our response to the pandemic
Empire of conformists
The NHS is immune to criticism because its deficiencies are seen as departures from its essential goodness
Capitalism 1, Big Government 0
South Korea did testing as we have done food — giving the market its head
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
Dancing with death
The rush to judge Liam Scarlett was cruel and unjust
From Newton to newts
Putting badgers on the banknotes may avoid controversy, but it also avoids saying anything meaningful about Britain at all
Day of judgement
The judges were determined to maintain the honour of France; it almost worked
The government must end its war on the price mechanism
The government is stubbornly ignoring the harms and risks of its interventions into markets
Reform’s man in Makerfield
An interview with Rob Kenyon about online controversies and national priorities
North Korea’s rogue state development
How Kim Jong Un is embracing the modern world
Won over by a stately Italian saga
A fictional Italian president and a cinema spin-off
In defence of Gary Stevenson
If economists were only those with doctorates, we would have to ignore both the market’s wisdom and many of its most perceptive critics
Soft competition
There are participation prizes to everyone at the Venice Biennale
Andy Burnham’s immigration double game
Andy Burnham might make sceptical noises about mass migration but they mean nothing in practice
A case for Classics
Eager minds are being failed by a smug and short-sighted cultural establishment