History
The historical role of the maîtresse-en-titre
Nigel Jones looks at how the mistresses and girlfriends of rulers have exerted political power throughout history
Bursting the bubbles
Surely it would be better for economies if the markets were to run on a more even keel?
Between war and empire
Jeremy Black weighs in on two recent historiographical offerings
“A metal barbie on the crest of an £143,000 turd”
Mary Wollstonecraft’s statue is a failed attempt to depict an “everywoman”
“Left flanking or straight up the middle with bags of smoke?!”
Not another Armistice Day to get through. And what about all the other pressing issues for which there is no poppy?
Dickens derailed
Tom Chesshyre recounts Dickens’s troubled history with trains
Hail to the Chief (Part V)
Graham Stewart talks to Prof Jeremy Black about how the power of the US president has been exercised since the end of the Cold War
History wars roll on
In Britain, contentious historical issues receive attention to an unprecedented degree
Keep buggering on
We could do worse than adopt the twin maxims of the western world’s two wartime leaders
Stephen Cohen: historian, polemicist and friend of Gorbachev
Cohen was a prophet of America’s decline
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
Information rage
Jacob Siegel’s new book The Information State is profound and troubling
Botox, bodies and bogus feminism
What Planned Parenthood’s turn to Botox tells us about feminism today
Publishing has an AI problem
From reviews to actual books, creativity is being outsourced to machines
No taxation on expatriation
With no navy and minimal evacuation efforts, the UK’s demand that citizens abroad pay up is ludicrous
Britain’s AI gamble reeks of desperation
The government is betting it all on AI — it could lose our trousers
Critical briefing: local elections
Our political editor explains what to look out for in Thursday’s elections
UnappEaling comedy
A “loose, loose reimagining” of Kind Hearts And Coronets does not really work
Cofnas, Cambridge and academic freedom
Truly provocative ideas are still unwelcome in our universities
Critical briefing: the Chişinău Declaration
Why the Chişinău Declaration is more of a symbolic gesture than a chance for real reform
Good news for the rule of law
Activists who break the law should not be able to appeal to their high-minded motives
The pro-nature case for regulatory reform
England’s environmental regime hasn’t delivered a restoration of nature — only decline, delay, and bureaucracy