Book Review
The SW1nderland gang
Sarah Vine’s memoir is a revealing and readable portrait of a Conservative political elite
Trapped in an identity crisis
The invention of identity is both a tragic and a universal story
The dead hand of decolonisation
A decade into the culture wars, the argument for decolonising museums has run out of steam
Keeping music alive during the Blitz
Pianist Myra Hess brought classical music to the rubble of wartime London
Brunelleschi’s egg
Demythologising a Renaissance genius
The past in pictures
Twelve manuscripts, read and re-read over eight centuries, can tell the heart of medieval Britain
Spinoza, the true conservative
Spinoza’s earth-bound philosophy is a safeguard against idealism
The sacredness of sounds
A fascinating new book explores the transcendent qualities of sound
Beating the retreat
Wokeness represents an autoimmune disorder of liberalism itself
Should we make Classics history?
Enthusiasm may cause less harm, and prompt more good, than cynicism
Most Read
The establishment is still living in an immigration fantasy land
It is influential left-wingers, not the broader public, who have deluded themselves on mass migration
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.
On Britain as a capitalist command economy
It is neither neoliberal nor socialist but a secret third thing
Rewatching the English
English identity has become too surreal and discomfiting to define
Brave new world or fools’ paradise?
For Dubai’s quarter of a million British expats, the Iran war is a mere blip in a luxurious lifestyle
Britain needs the Med mindset
We have to adapt to the sweatier realities of a changing climate
Reset as usual
Labour’s problem is not messaging, presentation or leadership — it is that the party lacks the appetite for the reforms Britain demands
Wunderbar wines
The love affair between British and German wine is an ancient one
It’s time to ban the Brotherhood
Britain can no longer afford to ignore the Muslim Brotherhood’s quiet but far-reaching influence
What’s so illiberal about “illiberal democracy”?
Viktor Orbán has been a political pioneer in Europe
The RAM should face the music
Why the Royal Academy of Music shuts of pupils from private schools
Out with the old?
Reform seems to be thriving, and Labour seems to be losing, but what can actually change?
Auntie’s autumn
Rather than wage war on the Beeb, a Reform government should strip it of its monopoly and force British broadcasting to compete again
Britain must not liberalise surrogacy laws
We are already endangering women and girls
Mahmood music
Shabana Mahmood’s asylum reforms are a lot less tough than they sound