Biography
Terry tackles literary lightweights
Is a distinguished professor right to hold intellectual biography in low esteem?
David Bowie was a political shapeshifter
The pop enigma veered between the far right and the right on
Strong, silent — but still box office gold
Clint Eastwood is as much a part of the American landscape as the Grand Canyon
Michael Wharton: satirist of genius
A satirist of genius who mercilessly mocked the modern world
Poet, artist, tantric Christian
William Blake opposed the dreary image of the God of reason via a “reexpanded imagination”
Allies and enemies
A fascinating if flawed dual biography
A fearless, serious historian
A tribute to John Charmley, bold revisionist biographer of Chamberlain and Churchill
Lord Boothby
A sexually voracious bisexual buffoon who was rescued from infamy by powerful friends
Man or superman?
Loud’s biography of Emperor Frederick I is neither a hagiography nor a hatchet job
A writer unsure who he wanted to be
Emile Zola: A Determined Life by Robert Lethbridge; Émile Zola: Writing Modern Life by Rachel Bowlby
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The martyrdom of Young Bob
On ebbing power of the political influencer
Grooming gangs and the truth
We should not give ammunition to deniers of the grooming gangs scandal
Babies need women
Leaving children with only men who are not their parents is foolish and dangerous
Stop ignoring the Islamisation of our democracy
The British state is bending to Islamism, not attempting to defeat it
Why has Keir Starmer been so unpopular?
He was the perfect embodiment of a failing system
Why are doctors special?
Doctors have a lot less to complain about than other workers
NigeDosh: an urgent appeal
Tonight’s political coverage is repeatedly interrupted by urgent appeals for charities that may or may not be fictional
The fire in him
Gary Oldman is superb in Krapp’s Last Tape at the Royal Court
The cost of equal outcomes
By treating disparities in mental health detention as evidence of racism, the NHS is sacrificing safety
The real problem with rigmarole
A journalistic focus on proceduralism distracts us from deeper political questions
Sex wars, what are they good for?
On Norman Mailer, Germaine Greer and the virtues of intellectual combat
The roots of hatred
Antisemitism, an ancient subject, has once again become a hot topic
New model Auntie
David Elstein spells out the big decisions that Matt Brittin, the BBC’s new director-general, needs to make very quickly in order to save the Corporation
Fence-sitting in a time of peril
Daniel Johnson condemns the Prime
Minister’s impotent handwringing when
America called for help in the Iran war
Tedious transgression
The mainstreaming of porn is dangerous, hypocritical and very, very boring
QAnon for centrist dads
Peter Chappell’s What If Reform Wins is less a political forecast than a Westminster panic attack in novel form