Issue: October 2023
The making of Sunak
The P.M. has the brittle self-confidence of a true Wykehamist
Clothes maketh the nation
How servants of the Crown dress is not trivial. It refl ects Britain’s decline
Keir’s woman problem
Labour’s dishonest and weak handling of “the trans issue” hardly instils confidence that it will stand firm against sex denial extremists
In defence of the Dark Ages
The early medieval period really was “dark” both in terms of the historical record and in contrast to the sophistication of Rome
Fathers of the republic
A long overdue reassessment of the whiskered High Victorian statesmen whose fervent but nuanced nationalism did so much to forge modern Ireland
Mairead McSweeney
“Irish” novelist
The same old soap opera
The Bank of England will continue to ignore the real lessons of boom and bust
Why do we persist with Opera?
Dependent on state subsidies, artistically ossified and only a few go to see it
Half a century of the World at War
It was then the most expensive documentary ever made and, many think,the greatest
Colin Watson and the lost art of figurative painting
In an age when figurative art had fallen out of fashion, Watson fixed his gazed unerringly on the mystery of life as it is
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 chairwoman of the board
A story driven at a whip-crack pace, pulsing with manic energy and nail-biting
The truth about Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was actually a black woman
Infamous five
To most of us, the Cambridge Five are just names
Eric Snapper
Anti-biographer
The torment and the tourists
Holiday-makers must stop enabling the abuse of horses in Egypt
Canis lupus labor
Europe is a wolf coming up the path to devour the Labour Party
Indefinite leave, unlimited access
While Westminster fixates on survival, a deeper battle will decide whether mass migration becomes a permanent and costly feature of the state
How the “Burnham bind” will rewrite British politics
If Andy Burnham wins in Makerfield, Labour has a bigger opportunity than people think
The forlorn hope of growth
Voters are struggling economically but wrongly believe the country to be rich
Labour’s battle of egos
There is little love left to lose between those plotting regicide in Downing Street
The fire in him
Gary Oldman is superb in Krapp’s Last Tape at the Royal Court