Contents COLUMNS Letters 8 Jonathan Meades In praise of the Midlands 6 Dr Green’s Dictionary Dominic Green on “Trans” 13 Law Joshua Rozenberg: A silk gown doesn’t guarantee a silken tongue 14 Economics Tim Congdon: The BBC must face reality over its future funding 15 David Starkey The great scholars of the Middle Ages had their own Trans troubles 16 Sounding Board Marcus Walker: We’re treating care home residents worse than PoWs 47 Everyday Lies Theodore Dalrymple: Public spending and public health 51 My woke world Titania McGrath: Saintly Sainsburys vs Waitrose’s white supremacists 61 Romeo Coates The courage of Kate Winslet 84
Miriam Elia on... An absurd idea called freedom 7 Adam Dant on… A Cockney map of the USA 56
FEATURES In the grip of Covidland Ian James Kidd and Matthew Ratcliffe warn that the pandemic is creating an alternative reality 10 Dialogue of the deaf Michael Collins is no longer talking to black people about race 18 Neither left nor right Louise Perry believes the old political labels are irrelevant for feminists 22
This month’s cover is illustrated by Ricardo Tomás
Northerly winds of change Graham Stewart visits Orkney and the Shetlands to find the islanders keen on independence — from Scotland 26 WISEMAN’S AMERICA Oliver Wiseman: Trump’s faithful flock won’t be leaving the stage just yet 30 Hajdúszoboszló on my mind Tibor Fischer in Budapest muses on Hungary’s fractious political alliance 32
MUSEUMS SPECIAL Shrinking from shrunken heads Alexander Larman talks to the controversial director of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum 34 Don’t lose your marbles David Ekserdjian urges the Royal Academy not to sell its Michelangelo 36 Signs of the times Charles Saumarez Smith inspects the new-look British Museum 39
A medical scandal Emily Wheater and Ellen Pasternack say the gender change lobby is failing young people who change their mind 43 No more skin in the game Richard D. North charts the rise and fall of the British fur trade 48
Beating the rap Julie Bindel shows how abused women are being let down by domestic violence perpetrator programmes 52 Very Amis, very Hampstead Joseph Connolly treasures his friendship with his literary hero 58 Editor extraordinary Daniel Johnson recalls the colourful life of Sir Peregrine Worsthorne 62 THE SECRET AUTHOR No way to make a living 65
BOOKS
David Goodhart: The Upswing by Robert Putnam, with Shaylyn Romney Garrett 66 Richard Cockett: Conservatism: The Fight for a Tradition by Edmund Fawcett 68 Jamie Whyte: Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present by Yanis Varoufakis 70 Alistair Haimes: Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles by William Quinn and John D. Turner 71 Melanie McDonagh: Russian Roulette: The Life and Times of Graham Greene by Richard Greene 73 Jeremy Black: Diary of an MP’s Wife by Sasha Swire 75 David Pryce-Jones: Hitler’s British Traitors by Tim Tate 76 Michael Henderson: Why the Germans Do It Better by John Kampfner 78 Christopher Bray: An Event, Perhaps: A Biography of Jacques Derrida by Peter Salmon 79 John Self: Trio by William Boyd/What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez/ When We Cease To Understand The World by Benjamín Labatut 82
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