Culture
Romcom revival
Making romcoms modern: plausible obstacles to happiness and a broadening of vision
Read for pleasure
Against the functionalist approach to literature
Inescapable crisis
Have our worn-out imaginations reached their limits?
Happy Gothmas
Get your festive Morticia Addams on
Ship of fools
A summer of ecstatic, eccentric and not-so-operatic audiences at opera fringe
I miss the stiff upper lip
Some social constructions deserve to be kept
The day after
Mourning that befits her memory
Flatpack classic
Summer theatre where anything, including a return to rehearsal-room Brechtian, goes
Let there be light
Raphael’s masterful depiction of divine light owes much to Dante, who incorporated the latest
optical thinking in his visionary poetry
Bach in town
We need more classical music in public spaces
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
Andy Burnham’s immigration double game
Andy Burnham might make sceptical noises about mass migration but they mean nothing in practice
A bewitching Sink drama
Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe make Shakespeare compelling for Gen Z
Sir David Attenborough at sea
RRS Sir David Attenborough is a ship worthy of the great man’s name
No, rent controls don’t work
Stop toying with failed ideas and build some damn houses
Bring back borstals
Antisocial teenagers need structure and discipline before it is too late
The dumb-dumbs of war
When it comes to Iran, the Conservative Shadow Cabinet are donkeys led by a donkey
The dog that failed to bark
Jeremy Corbyn hoped the local
elections would be a launch pad for
his new party. Instead, Your Party
has mostly been arguing with itself
In defence of lunchtime drinks
Hannah Spencer is being a tedious puritan
Where is Britain’s vision?
Modern Britain has acquired a lack of national purpose, except for policies that are self-harming
We have to tame Big Tech
We must act to regulate social media before it does a lot more damage
The Islamopopulist march continues
Overshadowed by the Reform and Green surges, the Muslim vote continues a long march through the corridors of power