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.

LESS WILL BE BETTER

The Critic

Restoring sanity takes time • The mindset of the narcissistic identitarians joining in workplace witch-hunts is that of the Crusaders, who made converts at the point of a sword

Letters

Laugh? You had to be there • Much, perhaps most, legal “humour” is seldom more than mildly amusing

Woman About Town

NOVA’S DIARY

THE 15-MINUTE BAIT AND SWITCH • They promise nicer neighbourhoods, but the reality of 15-minute cities is restricted freedom and a town hall traffic-fine bonanza

Sheikh up the Telegraph • We are fortunate that the UAE still wishes to invest in so unstable a country

HOLLOWED-OUT HUMANITIES • The bigotry of low expectations, the tyranny of DEI, the canard of “decolonisation”, the rise of the bureaucrats — all have contributed to a perfect storm

Why not the Taliban Line?

WHAT ARE UNIVERSITIES for? • It is up to academics to restore the founding ideals of institutions that have become mired in a morass of managerialism, low standards and ideological activism

KILLING THE GOLDEN GOOSE • Britain’s universities have lost their soul in a disastrous dash for cash, typified by their reckless pursuit of poorly-qualified overseas students paying inflated fees

IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE • When did elite seats of learning become bastions of radical left ideology? When arts departments started trying to imitate the requirements of research universities

IT’S TIME TO STOP THE ROT • Students denounced by tribunals over private conversations, lecturers cowed by ideological agendas, unprincipled managers with little interest in truth or freedom …

Dumbing down the priesthood • Unless the Church reinstates rigorous college-based training for clerics, it will wither away

CAMPUS CONFIDENTIAL • Conservative-leaning university students now have to meet in secret to avoid the “cancel” mob and risk derailing their careers for the crime of having unfashionable views, says Charlie Bentley-Astor

EVERYDAY LIES WITH THEODORE DALRYMPLE

Professor Noam Chomsky • The influential linguistics professor and “libertarian socialist” remains at odds with his government and people and is more outspoken than ever at the age of 95, says Graham Elliott

The wrong kind of groupthink • Why do so many economists deny that the value of money is related to its quantity?

THE FALLACY OF SOFT POWER • Global politics is not a popularity contest of culture and values. It works on cold national self-interest backed by military might

THE CASE FOR MORE ROYALS • With the King and the Princess of Wales both confined to the sidelines, this is no time for a slimmed-down monarchy

Grizelda Buncombe • Peripatetic creative writing tutor

The greats’ Dane • Burton and Gielgud were always likely to be a combustible mix. Now the story of their famed Broadway production of Hamlet has been turned into a West End play.

THE MISANTHROPIC HISTORY MAN • Yuval Noah Harari has become an intellectual superstar, but his best-selling books are sloppy and simplistic

The Boy who never grew old • Barendina Smedley says Eric Ravilious’s ethereal watercolours have found a new appreciation not because of misty-eyed nostalgia, but because the artist’s striking modernity and graphic verve chime with today’s sensibilities

Adam Dant on …

STUDIO • Orvieto-ware

How not to investigate the origins of Covid

Man of letters: reading between the lines

Could it be magic?

Encouraging evil for the common...