Contents November 2021 | Issue 22 COLUMNS Letters 8 Jonathan Meades Le Pétain nouveau 6 Law Joshua Rozenberg: Rooms with a view 9 Man about Town Robert Thicknesse: Egotist ergo sum 10 Dilyn the Dog Hostile terrain 11 David Starkey Wake up to reality! 12 Arty Types D.J. Taylor on Hermione Simper 28 Sounding Board Marcus Walker: Voting on theological issues seems odd, but makes sense 33 Economics Tim Congdon: Too much of a good thing 41 Everyday Lies Theodore Dalrymple: French fancies 43 My Woke World Titania McGrath: Gandhi: what xe would have done 47 Romeo Coates Rogues’ Gallery 76
This month’s cover is illustrated by John Broadley
On Solzhenitsyn’s shoulders Roland Elliott Brown on the great writer’s intellectual heirs warning of the “soft totalitarianism” of woke culture 44 Grappling with evil Daniel Johnson says historians are better placed to explain malicious acts than philosophers 48 Aromatherapy for chaps Johnny Leavesley says happiness is a cold, autumnal day and a warm gun 50 Sublime in Seville Christopher North witnesses a perfect moment in the bullring 54 STUDIO Matthew Lloyd Roberts visits Liverpool in the wake of losing its UNESCO world heritage status 56
Miriam Elia on ... Creating a crisis
Adam Dant on … The mind of east London
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FEATURES Putting muscle behind the Union Henry Hill on the new breed of “muscular unionists” seeking to rebuild the British state 14 How to alienate good people Charles Wide says the Church’s Racial Justice Commission insults good Christians 17
Border skirmishes Henry McDonald says the European Commission is endangering peace in Northern Ireland 19 When victims become folk devils Jo Bartosch on the “transwidows” reviled for telling the truth 22 Show trials for social workers Julian Vigo on the chilling treatment meted out to those who refuse to accept the medicalisation of children 26 Playing the Ace card Michael Collins on Stonewall’s new cause: people who identify as asexual 29 Auntie’s quota-led new faces James Innes-Smith says the BBC risks putting social justice above excellence 31 The American who let the Nazis rebuild Germany Adam LeBor on John McCloy, who freed Hitler’s favourite industrialists 34 Stateless in Gaza Janine di Giovanni says the Palestinian enclave can no longer be left to rot 38 Bollocks to Babel Lincoln Allison says the Erasmus scheme is a European political project we were right to reject 42
BOOKS Richard Overy: Through Adversity and Undaunted: Britain and the Commonwealth’s War in the Air 1939-45 volumes 1 and 2 by Ben Kite 60 Owen Matthews: To Break Russia’s Chains: Boris Savinkov and His Wars Against the Tsar and the Bolsheviks by Vladimir Alexandrov 62 Christopher Pincher: Henry “Chips” Channon: The Diaries 1938-43 edited by Simon Heffer 64 Sumantra Maitra: A War of Empires: Japan, India, Burma and Britain 1941-45 by Robert Lyman 66 Jessica Douglas-Home: Children of the Night: The Strange and Epic Story of Modern Romania by Paul Kenyon 68 Kit Wilson: Human Frontiers: The Future of Big Ideas in an Age of Small Thinking by Michael Bhaskar 69 Christopher Bray: Magritte: A Life by Alex Danchev 71 John Self: Burntcoat by Sarah Hall; The Fell by Sarah Moss; Life Without Children by Roddy Doyle 73 THE SECRET AUTHOR Bring back the panjandrums 75
the critic 4 nov 2021
