Permanent Secretaries
The problem with career civil servants
Officials have little incentive to deliver
Most Read
Tame Impala fails to impress
unconquered by a
taste of Crusader food
A shameful Bill
Labour is spectacularly failing the British people on immigration
Going Green
A day out with Zack Polanski and friends
What is wrong now was wrong before
Julia Gillard should not pretend that the “unintended consequences” of the gender debate were unknowable
Pleasure and persuasion
Jean Sibelius: Symphonies 1-7 (Ondine)
Heart of darkness
Alexander Adams encounters an unflinching master of sex and death in Vienna
How the war wasn’t won
The Supreme Court judgment on sex and the Equality Act is still being opposed and undermined
When art took on fascism (and lost)
Abstract activist concerns have overshadowed aesthetic production
When can we believe what we read?
Technology can make knowing the truth more difficult — but we should always have asked more questions about what we read
Conservatives should learn from Labour
We might disagree with the ideas of Labour politicians, but we can learn from their methods
Any foreigner can have a UK degree — for a fee
Every British university has been chasing the benefits of foreign income with frenzied excitement
Herodotus and the birth of enquiry
Before there were historians, there was Herodotus — a wandering Greek determined to discover why civilisations rise and fall
Women should not have to apologise for their rights
There is nothing cruel about women wanting single-sex spaces
Saved from the flames
We should feel fortunate indeed to have the Aeneid
In defence of lunchtime drinks
Hannah Spencer is being a tedious puritan
The Middle Kingdom and the middle powers
China’s clash with Western power shattered its civilisational self-image. Europe is heading for a similar reckoning