The Critic

The Critic is Britain's new highbrow monthly current affairs magazine for politics, art and literature. Dedicated to rigorous content, first rate writing and unafraid to ask the questions others won't.

Are the Tories broken?

The Critic

The “No Debate” dodos

Welcome to cut-price justice • David Lammy’s claim that his quest to abolish jury trials is driven by faith is grotesque. The real reason is to save money

Woman About Town

PESTON’S INBOX

Farage’s new faces • Reform needs to pick hundreds of candidates who are ruthless politically, but are not lunatics

England as it really is • America and American life has been greatly influenced by the English, and this nation still exerts a pull across the Atlantic but US visitors may be in for an unexpected and unpleasant surpise because they see …

Ethics? What ethics? • The decision to prescribe puberty blockers to children is irrational

Where the Eagle dared • The “Pilot of the Future” might finally have reason to be proud of British engineering

The British Bias Corporation • Britain’s national broadcaster can no longer be allowed to resist scrutiny and act as its own judge and jury in matters of impartiality. A genuinely independent inspectorate is urgently needed to monitor its output

The madness of our mental health policy • Patients capable of extreme and random acts of violence are walking among us thanks to failures in legislation and risk management

EVERYDAY LIES WITH THEODORE DALRYMPLE

WRESTLING WITH FICKLE GIANTS • William Beveridge promised to cure British society of its many ills. So why do so many today believe our society is broken?

The crisis in foreign language studies

A NEW AGE OF EMPIRES • What are the structural causes behind the world’s new reality: the rise of three overtly predatory imperial powers in Russia, China and the USA?

LET’S NOT BE BEASTLY TO THE GERMANS • Daniel Johnson says Kemi Badenoch can learn much from the politics of Chancellor Merz, who also faces the twin challenges of resurgent populism and an unreliable USA

And that was the news … • Piers Pottinger laments the decline of British journalism at a time of plummeting print circulation, dwindling resources and a “jungle of drivel” on social media

The warmth of the collective

Stop preaching about politics • The Church is in danger of missing an opportunity to be at the centre of national life

Julian Barnes • This slow starter has ended up outshining all of his peers, excelling equally in novels, essays, short stories and even translations

The world at my feet • D.J. Taylor recalls his youthful rapture when, 40 years ago, he took delivery of the first, gleaming, copy of his debut novel

Bippi Strangeways Activist poet

Art is good for you but it can’t cure all ills • Museums and galleries are increasingly being expected to fulfil a societal mental healthcare role

Adam Dant on …

STUDIO • Jacques-Louis David at the Louvre

An elegant advocate for Van the man

Pollyannaish study is a missed opportunity

Power and the Crown

Revolutionary faith

The republican “we”

Nostalgic fantasies of the British Raj

A persuasive critique of identity politics

A populist wake-up call for centrists

The word from Britain’s streets

How to live better

Life, imaginary love and forbidden lust

Publishing skewered — in 1939 • Anthony Powell’s pre-war novel is still the more reliable guide to the book business

Romeo Coates “Between you and me …”

Why we need orchestras

Kurt also thrived without Bert

Roxy Music but they’re all Kate Bush

Shots fired at...