What does it mean to be critical?
What are the practices and politics behind book reviewing and what does “peer review” mean in reality? In this edition of Black’s History Week, Professor Jeremy Black tells all to The Critic’s deputy editor, Graham Stewart.
Challenge the consensus. Access rigorous analysis.
Former bookseller A.S.H. Smyth enjoys a bestselling bookshop owner’s taxonomy of bookshop people
György Schöpflin on Anne Applebaum’s Twilight of Democracy
Why are we so obsessed with America?
On ebbing power of the political influencer
The British establishment no longer sets the terms of public debate over migration
We should not give ammunition to deniers of the grooming gangs scandal
Leaving children with only men who are not their parents is foolish and dangerous
The British state is bending to Islamism, not attempting to defeat it
Bodies in Brighton and spies in Scotland are features of our first crop of summer murder mysteries
The Supreme Court judgment on sex and the Equality Act is still being opposed and undermined
If the Greens take London, what might happen to policing?
John McCabe: 2 symphonies and cello concerto (Signum Classics)
Rather than wage war on the Beeb, a Reform government should strip it of its monopoly and force British broadcasting to compete again
The Gondoliers, English Touring Opera, Hackney Empire
Keir has my complete backing – Wes
We should welcome the more culturally affirmative moments of pessimistic and condemnatory commentators
British TV drama has become an embarrassing display of liberal neuroses
Kemi doesn’t give her kids Easter eggs
Populists have had success in persuading people that they can govern — but can they actually govern?
