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.

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The Critic

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Weaponising weasel words • A common strategy is to declare oneself above the fray. Your position is the only one possible and any claim to the contrary is bad faith

Letters

A lawyer in Number 10 • What of prime minister-inwaiting Keir Starmer’s views on legal issues?

Woman About Town

NOVA’S DIARY

HUNGARY: TREADING A FINE LINE • Can it stay equidistant from the great powers while maintaining trade connectivity?

Keir: more than just a lucky general • Neither Left nor Right can accept that Starmer’s impressive focus and strategic sense is responsible for transforming Labour’s prospects

Five rules for governing

Where the Tories must go from here • The Conservative Party must set aside backbiting and score-settling in favour of building a radical political project that can appeal to young and old alike and offer a vision for a revitalised Britain

The scarlet letter • A touchy-feely Labour government must embrace the ugly reality of business

Why levelling up failed • Emerson Csorba says we must think local to foster growth

EVERYDAY LIES WITH THEODORE DALRYMPLE

Only Biden can save America

Whistler in black and white • Clive Aslet says a video artwork that aims to critique Rex Whistler’s controversial mural in Tate Britain lacks context and nuance and sets out to present the artist — who was an aesthete, not a blackshirt — in the worst possible light

A misguided election briefing • The Church must recognise there are Christians on both the left and right of politics

WHY SO FEW MEN TAKE UP THE PEN • With publishing now such a female-dominated industry, it’s no surprise that there are so few men writing fiction, says Paul Burke

Graham Topman Festival organiser

We must blame the parents • How should France tackle the problem of repeat juvenile offenders?

The Critic Profile • The man cruelly mocked as “not even the best drummer in The Beatles” must be the most underrated musician of all time By Sean Egan

We’ve all been letdown • Daniel Johnson reflects upon the corrosive power of disillusionment in politics and asks why our leaders are virtue vacuums who lack both competence and character

Europe invaded • We must heed the warnings from Hungary and Poland about migration

When things could only get better • Fans of the 1990s aren’t nostalgic reactionaries. They celebrate an era of optimism, peace, prosperity and great popular culture, says Jacob Phillips

Bring back balanced budgets • Britain’s soaring debt may not be as sustainable in the long term as figures suggest

ARTS PRACTICE HAS GAINED THE UPPER HAND OVER SCHOLARSHIP • In Britain, historical musicology, aesthetics, contextual study and anything related to Western classical music are beleaguered, not only from without but also from within academia

Adam Dant on …

STUDIO • The Gradel Quadrangles Gallery at New College, Oxford

Of mice and men and Magdalen

Being economical with the truth

Is Beer the solution to all of life’s problems?

A commanding life

In the beginning: neither fish nor fowl

An optimistic history of women’s rights

The blunders that restored the Crown

Confessions of a left-wing Pope

The savage triumph

Killing with kindness

On the Cusk of austerity

Twilight of the gods • The eclipse of the gilded 1980s generation can be seen as a welcome...