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.

The state we’re in

The Critic

Saints and sinners • The dotty suggestion the Queen be canonised is an expression of a hope she will not be forgotten

Miriam Elia on…

Letters • Write to The Critic by email at letters@thecritic.co.uk including your address and telephone number

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? • Sadiq Khan has been ordered to explain his ousting of Met police chief Cressida Dick

Woman About Town

THE DIARY OF LARRY THE CAT

Live on TV: history at work

The lockdown bonfire of Britain’s freedoms • john jolliffe says the Government’s chaotic handling of the Covid-19 crisis resulted in an arbitrary rule by diktat of dubious legitimacy that should never be repeated

A world fit for humans • Ben Sixsmith says the internet must change and our physical shared spaces improved if we are to have …

Regathering the Russian lands: the rationale for Putin’s war in Ukraine • Derek Offord says the president’s inflammatory rhetoric is informed by two centuries of Russian nationalist thought centring on a distrust of Europe and a mission to recover all the lands of “Ancient Rus”

Make a spectacle of oneself • Don’t skimp on the coronation. The monarchy is a drama that speaks to all our hearts

How the world turns a blind eye to African slavery • Paul Raffaele investigates the slave-owners of the Sahara, where more than 100,000 people were born into inherited captivity

Drag queens teach vital lessons

Upper-class darling of the metropolitan elite • Michael Collins says Harriet Harman’s drive for equal rights has resulted in the divisive identity politics that so alienates traditional working-class Labour voters

Don’t trust Trussonomics • There’s nothing anti-growth about sound money and strong public finances

Ideology or therapy? • Trainee psychologists are being taught harmful dogma and are encouraged to abandon evidence-based treatment in the name of Critical Race Theory

Danny Lestrange Eternal Columnist

Failing to see the woods for the trees •  RICHARDNEGUS SAYS THERE IS LITTLE WONDER THE GOVERNMENT IS FALLING SO DISMALLY SHORT OF ITS TREE-PLANTING TARGETS. NO THOUGHT HAS BEEN PUT INTO THE BASIC LOGISTICS OF GROWING HARDWOOD SAPLINGS AND TRAINING STAFF

EVERYDAY LIES WITH THEODORE DALRYMPLE

CAN SCIENCE HOLD ALL THE ANSWERS? • Kittie Helmick revisits the thinkers who challenged the scientific method’s claims to have a monopoly on the truth and offer privileged access to reality

WHY GERMANY MOURNED OUR BRITISH QUEEN • Daniel Johnson says that while few Germans lament the loss of their own emperors and kings, they admire the British idea of monarchy

Time for a U-turn on “B Corps”? • It’s the business of companies to make money first and think about society later

Remembering an “effervescently affable man”: Kurt Vonnegut at 100 • John Self considers a writer who is much admired and even more loved but who is now most celebrated for the wrong novel

A COLOSSUS UNJUSTLY IGNORED • Britain has never warmed to Rubens, whose finest works can be seen in Antwerp

Adam Dant on …

STUDIO • The history of Britain in maps

Reconstructing a self-destructive life • Richard Bratby is a classical music writer, critic and historian

The boy who would be King of the World

Not necessarily the end of the world

The long shadow of the Great Helmsman

Tackling men’s problems

The regal rise of le petit caporal

A thoughtful old-fashioned rambler

A grand...