Books
Grimdull
The fantasy genre is afflicted by a dull and tedious obsession with adolescent cynicism, prurient scenes and one dimensional anti-heroes
Murders for February
Hitler, Harlem and the high-life feature in this month’s murder mystery haul
Murders for the New Year
From Oxford to Italy, the murders continue in 2024
The bad old days
The “golden years” of publishing were characterised by booze, bullying and amateurishness
A land of delectable paradoxes
How H.V. Morton deepened and enriched British perceptions of Wales
Tales of Gallipoli
New books keep history alive, as it should be
A masquerade of Rawlsian liberalism
An interesting but unconvincing Rawlsian case for socialism
First-night nerves
Books, beaches and a beloved bullet
Puckish polymath
Italo Calvino’s imagination spanned the cosmos but his concerns were very human
Lewis the prophet
The Narnia author deserves to be remembered as a seer and a sage
Most Read
Tame Impala fails to impress
unconquered by a
taste of Crusader food
Gary Stevenson is wrong about wealth taxes
The popular economist is irritating, but more importantly he is mistaken
Why they hated Ann Widdecombe
Fair-minded people could agree or disagree with her opinions. Left-wing bigots hated her for not abandoning them
What is wrong now was wrong before
Julia Gillard should not pretend that the “unintended consequences” of the gender debate were unknowable
Ethnic minorities are abandoning Labour
It is not just Muslim voters who have been abandoning the Labour Party
Critical briefing: Unite the Kingdom
What you need to know about the Unite the Kingdom march on May 16
Talent and temptation
William Walton: Two symphonies
We must save the right to smoke
Liberals must not put down the sword against paternalism
Operatic satire is a Shaw thing
The old Art has an armoury of skunk-like defence mechanisms to keep the unwashed at bay
How religion shapes football fandom
The meaning of football is intertwined with the meaning of faith
The rise and fall of Star Trek liberalism
We should celebrate real-world achievement rather than identitarian fantasy
The meaning of Zack Polanski
The icon of geriatric millennials is one of life’s drifters
Can Russell T Davies write “terfs”?
In Tip Toe, Russell T Davies is more nuanced than one might expect — much to the dismay of gender ideologues
Soft-Play Britain
Britain’s governing class talks of growth and grandeur but focuses on planters and paint schemes
Eric Snapper
Anti-biographer
Kemi always gets it right
Whatever the crisis, the Conservative leader invariably discovers that events have vindicated her.