Contents COLUMNS Letters 8 Helen Joyce Mutilation theology 6 Law Yuan Yi Zhu: Letting criminals go free 9 Woman about Town Sarah Ditum: Doing shots 10 Sue Gray’s inbox Simon Case doesn’t get the email 11 Graham Stewart Is Scottish independence dead? 13 Serious business Ned: DEI is plain good manners 21 Sounding Board Marcus Walker: Shares into swords 26 Arty Types D.J. Taylor on Cecilia Featherstonehaugh 31 Economics Tim Congdon: Playing the long game 32 My Woke World Titania McGrath: The war is over! 35 Everyday Lies Theodore Dalrymple: A very innocent man 43 Romeo Coates Hush, nepo baby 84

Adam Dant on … 101 uses for an ex-Tory MP 56

FEATUR E S Revive the roots Paul Goodman urges the Tory Party to return power to local associations 14 Say it ain’t so, Joe Jude Russo asks if it is democratic to hide Joe Biden’s frailty 16 A real education Sebastian Milbank says we need a revolution in what and how we teach to equip pupils for the modern age 18 State of the arts coverage D.J. Taylor rails at the BBC’s culturecowardice 22

This month’s cover is illus trated by Robin Heighway Bury Is cricket leaving home? Hugo Gye warns of danger ahead for Britain’s national summer game 24 The Goose and the golden egg Andrea Valentino says the City of London Corporation survives for one reason: money 27 Evelyn Waugh at war Max Bayliss worries the novelist’s themes of sacrifice, service and tradition have been cast aside 33 The birthday party Claudia Savage-Gore literally dies as Will’s dad-dance moves go viral 36 The cinematic future is bright Rob Hutton on rays of hope from the projection room 38 The melting pot that boiled over Iason Athanasiadis takes the temperature in Beirut, a city in decline 40 Big tech’s ally: big privacy Andrew Orlowski says the privacy lobby acts as “controlled opposition” to the likes of Google and Meta 46 The mean queens of the book world Nina Welsch on an industry where political conformism is embedded 47 Don’t shoot the piano man Jonny Best tells how he was cancelled from his job as the BFI’s pianist 50 Profile: Terence Rattigan Alexander Larman hails the subtly subversive chronicler of the melancholy undercurrents of Englishness 52 STUDIO Lisa Hilton: The Worlds of Marco Polo: The Journey of a Thirteenth-Century Venetian Merchant; Palazzo Ducale, Venice 58

BOOKS Amelia Butler-Gallie: Sir Edwin Lutyens: Britain’s Greatest Architect? by Clive Aslet 62 Alex Middleton: Rivals in the Storm: How Lloyd George Seized Power, Won the War and Lost His Government by Damian Collins 64 Daniel Johnson: Hitler’s People: The Faces of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans 66 Haydn Middleton: Britain 1947: Hope Amid Hardship by David Kirby; 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left by Robyn Hitchcock 68 Neil Armstrong: The Newsmongers: A History of Tabloid Journalism by Terry Kirby 70 Kirsty Stark: The Missing Thread: A Women’s History of the Ancient World by Daisy Dunn 71 Peter Sarris: Cypria: A Journey to the Heart of the Mediterranean by Alex Christofi 73 Samuel Rubinstein: Jerusalem Through the Ages: From Its Beginnings to the Crusades by Jodi Magness 74 Jonathan Gaisman: Wagner’s Theatre: In Search of a Legacy by Patrick Carnegy 76 Gavin McCormick: Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Produced a Cultural Revolution by Eric Kaufmann; The Counterweight Handbook: Principled Strategies for Surviving and Defeating Critical Social Justice Ideology by Helen Pluckrose 78 Michael Henderson: Bill Edrich: The Many Lives of England’s Cricket Great by Leo McKinstry 80 John Self : Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner; Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard; Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes 81 THE SECRET AUTHOR Let publishers publish 83

I G H W A Y B U R Y

H E

I N

B Y R O B

I O N

I L L U S T R A T

C O V E R

the critic 4 aug | sep 2024