PHOTO: ALAMY/SALLY ANDERSON NEWS
Singer Barbara Dickson says a ‘Hail Mary’ every night before she goes on stage 10
COLUMNS
Christopher Howse’s Notebook ‘I changed to a room with a horse chestnut outside, which didn’t even rustle in the wind’ / 5
Madoc Cairns ‘The incipient collapse of the UK economy … extracts barely a peep from bishops’ / 9
CONTENTS 5 NOVEMBER 2022 // VOL 276 NO. 9476
FEATURES
4 / Crisis? What crisis? The roots of the United Kingdom’s current muddle lie deep in imperial history.
Britain must alter the way it is governed if it is to survive / BY NICOLAS BOYLE
6 / Dancing with the devil As the November midterms approach in the US, the Democrats may have misjudged the issues that most concern voters / BY MICHAEL SEAN WINTERS
8 / The tangled roots of abuse A government inquiry has laid bare the life-long impact of child abuse. Is it now time to invest more resources into prevention? / BY GWEN ADSHEAD
10 / The Tablet Interview: Barbara Dickson Scotland’s best-selling female singer and actress says that her life has always been infused by faith / BY PETER STANFORD
12 / Unauthorised versions There are more different translations of the Bible in English than in any other language, and all are the creation of fallible scholars / BY JOHN BARTON
REGULARS Word from the Cloisters 15 Puzzles 15 Letters 16 The Living Spirit 17
NEWS
24 / The Church in the World / News briefing
25 / ‘Address women’s role in Church life’
27 / View from Rome 28 / News from Britain and Ireland / News briefing 29 / Cause opens for World War I hero, Fr Willie Doyle
COVER: STEPHEN REID; ALAMY/RAGGEDSTONE
BOOKS / PAGE 18
Anne Chisholm A Private Spy: The Letters of John le Carré ED. TIM CORNWELL The Secret Heart: John le Carré, an Intimate Memoir SULEIKA DAWSON Bruce Clark After the Romanovs: Russian Exiles in Paris between the Wars HELEN RAPPAPORT Guy Stagg The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club CHRISTOPHER DE HAMEL
ARTS / PAGE 21 Exhibition The Afterlife of Mary Queen of Scots JOANNA MOORHEAD Theatre Mary MARK LAWSON Cinema Living ISABELLE GREY Music Mahler Symphony No. 8; An Anatomy of Melancholy ALEXANDRA COGHLAN
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5 NOVEMBER 2022 | THE TABLET | 3