Literature
Sporting life
This biography on Sir Stanley Rous and sport in the twentieth century is scholarly, balanced and well-written, says Lincoln Allison
Which political diaries are worth taking seriously?
Professor Jeremy Black discusses with Graham Stewart the craft and value of the political diarist
Gloriously bad company
Do we really need another biography about Francis Bacon? The answer is emphatically yes, says Christopher Bray
Wilde encounters
The rambling and discursive nature of the writing lends Rupert Everett’s book an enjoyable appeal
Monuments to self-expression
Serenhedd James finds folly and ruin frequently go together in Rory Fraser’s new release: Follies
Bohemia, SW3
Barry Turner delves into an illuminating and entertaining insight into Bohemian life in the fast lane
Poirot’s little grey cells
Professor Jeremy Black talks to Graham Stewart about Belgium’s greatest fictional detective
Virginia, Vita and the resurrection of the taboo of lesbian love
How choosing a trans-woman to read Virginia Woolf’s most intimate words is at odds with the crux of this Charleston Trust event
Is Leicester’s decision to scrap medieval literature the end for serious literary study?
What is being proposed by the university represents the closing down of intellectual horizons and the deliberate vandalism of a highly respected English department
The talented (if very odd) Patricia Highsmith
On the 100th anniversary of her birth, Highsmith remains one of the great uncompromising writers of the last century
Most Read
The martyrdom of Young Bob
On ebbing power of the political influencer
Grooming gangs and the truth
We should not give ammunition to deniers of the grooming gangs scandal
Babies need women
Leaving children with only men who are not their parents is foolish and dangerous
Stop ignoring the Islamisation of our democracy
The British state is bending to Islamism, not attempting to defeat it
Losing control of the narrative
The British establishment no longer sets the terms of public debate over migration
The simple joy of giallo
Giallo films made for glorious Italian escapism
The trains have to run
Populists have had success in persuading people that they can govern — but can they actually govern?
The centre-left is out of ideas
The new journal Arguably barely makes an argument
Emin: from the bed to the grave
Not so much a fresh start, as an opportunity to finally take her concerns in earnest
We’ve had enough agitslop
British TV drama has become an embarrassing display of liberal neuroses
The EU is getting worse
Ursula von der Leyen’s left-wing managerial agenda is failing
The pathologies of outdated ideologies
Our managerial elite will go the way of the Mamluks, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Moriori
The last of the fine arts
Hockney insisted on doing exactly as he pleased — and his cigarettes were as much a part of his artistic philosophy as his paintbrush.
Peston’s Inbox
Keir has my complete backing – Wes
Grey expectations
Saving England’s native red squirrel will require harsh measures
Manchesterism is dead in the water
Andy Burnham already appears to have abandoned hope for meaningful change