Contents COLUMNS Letters 8 Helen Joyce Post-truth medicine 6 Law Yuan Yi Zhu: The new equality bar 9 Woman about Town Lisa Hilton: Draining the swamp 10 Sue Gray’s Inbox Hot desking 11 Arty Types D.J. Taylor on Eric Fogey 17 Serious business Ned: We need more have-yachts 23 Sounding Board Marcus Walker: In defence of hereditary peers 27 My Woke World Titania McGrath: Free speech is fascist 31 Economics Tim Congdon: Public sector pay 46 Everyday Lies Theodore Dalrymple: “Bold vision” 49 Romeo Coates The Old Vic under siege 76
Adam Dant on … Who owns Britain’s shit? 52
FEATUR E S Death by a thousand cuts David Elstein performs a damning postmortem on public service broadcasting on British television 12 Wanted: a plan to reform the NHS Henry Hill says the Tories must not sit out the ideological battle over the remorseless rise in the cost of health and social care 15 Calm down, dears! Jude Russo says European liberals should stop panicking about a second Trump presidency 18 When the music stopped Alexandra Wilson reflects on the
This month’s cover is illustrated by Pastiche decline in arts education and the rise in identity politics and managerialism 20 How the Tories can win again Johnny Leavesley suggests the new Conservative leader should concentrate on winning over small businesses 25 A real plan for growth Jon Moynihan argues Britain’s prosperity is strangled by immigration and soaring public spending 28 Don’t bet on green energy John Constable and Debra Lieberman say groupthink has blinded us to the reality of solar and wind 32 Bonfire of the verities Jonathan Clark plots a path through the new politics 34 Why I, as a mother ... Victoria Smith argues that both Left and Right ignore the fact that motherhood can change perspectives and priorities 38 Profile: Shiva Naipaul George Cochrane on the overlooked younger brother of a controversial Nobel Prize winner 40 The future that never came Nicholas Boys Smith describes how post-war London was saved from a modernist masterplan 42
Out of power for half a century Jeremy Black urges the Tories to heed the lessons of the long Whig Supremacy of the eighteenth century 47 Farewell to Larry Siedentop Patrick Nash recalls his friend, political philosopher, sage and Oxford don 50
STUDIO William Cook: Sean Scully in France 54
BOOKS Neil Amstrong: The Haunted Wood: A History of Childhood Reading by Sam Leith 58 Brendan Simms: The Retreat from Strategy: Britain’s Dangerous Confusion of Interest with Values by David Richards and Julian Lindley-French 60 Andrew Orlowski: The Everything War: Amazon’s Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power by Dana Mattioli 62 Jo Bartosch: Takedown: Inside the Fight to Shut Down Pornhub for Child Abuse, Rape, and Sex Trafficking by Laila Mickelwait 63 Nina Power: Liberal Bullies : Inside the Mind of the Authoritarian Left by Luke Conway 64 Fred Skulthorp: The Atomic Human: Understanding Ourselves in the Age of AI by Neil D. Lawrence 65 Robert Jessel: Hounded: Women, Harms and the Gender Wars by Jenny Lindsay 67 Daniel Johnson: The Enlightenment : An Idea and its History by J.C.D. Clark 68 Christopher Bray: On Elizabeth Taylor: An Opinionated Guide by Matthew Kennedy 70 Ben Sixsmith: The Happiness of Dogs: Why the Unexamined Life is Most Worth Living by Mark Rowlands 72 John Self : Munichs by David Peace; Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans; The Singularity by Dino Buzzati 73
THE SECRET AUTHOR Is Cheltenham beyond parody? 75
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the critic 4 oct 2024
