Literary Prizes
Pains and pleasures of anticipation
The best sort of debut isn’t actually the author’s first book
Bad bets by the Booker
In 2021, is the state of the Booker still “not serious stuff”?
Lots in translation
As the winner of the International Booker Prize is due to be announced today, ASH Smyth talks to poet, translator and judge on this year’s panel, George Szirtes
Our Man about Town
On the merits of celebrity authors and literary book prizes
All shall have prizes
There are now so many awards that not winning one must seem a source of shame
Most Read
Gary Stevenson is wrong about wealth taxes
The popular economist is irritating, but more importantly he is mistaken
Tame Impala fails to impress
unconquered by a
taste of Crusader food
Why they hated Ann Widdecombe
Fair-minded people could agree or disagree with her opinions. Left-wing bigots hated her for not abandoning them
Ethnic minorities are abandoning Labour
It is not just Muslim voters who have been abandoning the Labour Party
How to fix the economy
A repentant ex-financial trader tells all
Migration musings
A new book on immigration is welcome in its honestly and openness
On Britain as a capitalist command economy
It is neither neoliberal nor socialist but a secret third thing
Eric Snapper
Anti-biographer
The Reparations Game
Chris and Henry talk to Nigel Biggar about reparations.
The mirage of majesty
Royal charm cannot disguise Britain’s shrinking power in a transactional world
How to build a Europe of the peripheries
Resetting Britain’s relations with the EU should not mean being beholden to France and Germany
These green and printed lands
How William Caxton developed Englishness, and how his Englishness is breaking down
There is nothing authentic about Andy Burnham
The blokeish Labour man is as slimy a politician as the rest of them
Orbánism is not dead
The veteran Hungarian prime minister is going but his agenda lives on
The global risks of the AI illusion
What if AI turns out to be a lot less profitable than we have been told?
Vandalising the law
Activists and politicians should respect the law even if they don’t like it