Issue: May 2025
Can Russia hit the high notes again?
Russian music faces an uncertain future
Making a good example
Winning back higher education for free speech has to start somewhere
Rite of spring
The first day of the season at Lord’s isn’t really about cricket
Criticising judges
If a judge cannot tolerate public scrutiny, they have no business being a judge
Goodbye to Goodison
The staccato clatter of wooden seats: a thundering drumbeat that vibrates direct to the heart
Riefenstahl: artist or propagandist?
Riefenstahl is a standing refutation of the comforting myth that great art only comes from the good guys
Forlorn Hoop dreams
The club needs consistency, not the constant psychodrama of play-off hopes followed by relegation fears
Strange new world
AI-obsessed policy wonks are trying to re-shape Britain
Ed Davey in rat-infested custard
Even torture wouldn’t stop Davey from voting for cleaner streets and better-run councils
Iran: deal or devastation?
Donald Trump’s dealings with Tehran veer between negotiation and sabre-rattling
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 EU is getting worse
Ursula von der Leyen’s left-wing managerial agenda is failing
Peston’s Inbox
Farage: I’m not worried
The trains have to run
Populists have had success in persuading people that they can govern — but can they actually govern?
How the cranks won
Britain’s ruling ideology is founded less on what elites believe than on who they fear
Peston’s Inbox
Kemi doesn’t give her kids Easter eggs
A magnificent navy on land
The state of the British Armed Forces triumphantly vindicates Parkinson’s Law
Manchesterism is dead in the water
Andy Burnham already appears to have abandoned hope for meaningful change
Europe should defend itself
European states should invest more in their own defence, and the US should let them
The masses against the classicists?
Reflections on the virtues and vices of academic gatekeeping
The shadow of the thorn tree
Christian culture must combine tradition and modernity
No, the King has not converted
A bizarre conspiracy theory
that Charles III is a Muslim is
easily shown to be false