St Bartholomew the Great, London.

02/09/2020 - 8:00am

Middle-class patriotism goes underground An Evensong service left me with an emotion I realised I hadn’t felt for some time

Saturday, February 8

The voice of manual work in the world of letters Bud Smith's account of working in an oil refinery shows how both worlds view the other as more authentic

Mary Harrington

Friday, February 7

As long as universities are businesses, forget about free speech The government's opening salvo in the culture wars ignores the bigger problem

Mary Harrington

On campus free speech, the government will have a fight on its hands Encouraging signs from the Education Secretary, but it's only a start

St Hilda’s demolishes its chapel, and the humanists crow A 'multi-faith space' is about as spiritual as a dentist's waiting room

Thursday, February 6

Being wrong isn’t being hateful The shifting definition of hate speech is flawed and dangerous

Geek tip: if it doesn’t say “Registered Report,” don’t trust it A new study shows how effective the academic system to avoid bias really is

What Walter Bagehot would say about the State of the Union The essayist understood the difference between the political and ceremonial

Wednesday, February 5

It’s time for the church to go green Lent is the perfect opportunity for Christians to reclaim environmentalism

Mary Harrington

Boris is right — mercantilists are everywhere Unilaterally adhering to free-market ideology doesn't seem to be working so well for us either

RIP George Steiner, prophet of attention The deceased cultural critic understood that our attention is our highest gift

Elizabeth Oldfield

Tuesday, February 4

My three-year-old should not know about ‘stress’ We have been subject to increasingly shrill claims about a crisis of childhood

Take that, Leavers: some British things might be slightly foreign The Brexit-themed Horrible Histories has re-ignited a stupid debate

And the winner from Iowa is… Donald Trump Only the Republicans benefit from the chaos in Iowa

In (partial) defence of Grace Blakeley The commentator is right to say that alternatives to neoliberalism are being heard

Monday, February 3

WATCH: Boris on the end of the ‘B word’ More classical rhetoric from the prime minister...

The Google Maps hack underlines our powerlessness It is a metaphor for the defeatism of postmodernism

Mary Harrington

Andrew Yang, the ‘think outside the box’ candidate The geeky former tech executive has a unique bipartisan appeal

Saturday, February 1

This piece about the 1990s rave scene takes me back Today's rave revisionism points to a culture in decline

Mary Harrington

Friday, January 31

After Brexit night, what next? Five of the most thought-provoking, from the archives...

For a different image of freedom, read Stalingrad Douglas Murray missed out Vasily Grossman's all important prequel

These days, Peter the Hermit would have a blue tick Medieval-style cults headed by dysfunctional people are rising to power online

Thursday, January 30

Blair Jr campaigns against the university model of Blair Snr Euan Blair has some different ideas from his father

WATCH: Danny Kruger maiden speech The Devizes MP touches on community, culture and Christianity

Coronavirus leaves no room for cultural sensitivity In a globalised world we need to hold our neighbours to higher standards

Wednesday, January 29

Social media broadens our opinions? Sorry, don’t believe it A new report aims to debunk the idea of social media 'filter bubbles'

The House of Lords should become the Future Chamber It's time to turn the 'revising chamber' into the 'long term chamber'

Memo to the heterosexual heterophobe: why not try chastity? The biggest taboo in contemporary sexual politics is simply going without

Mary Harrington

Tuesday, January 28

Evidence: The Trump impeachment is backfiring on the Democrats Two datapoints will be bringing a smile to Trumpland

Labour must decentralise or die The party has always fallen prey to the top-down, micromanaging Left

Monday, January 27

Ed Balls has been on a journey… in more ways than one A trip to Europe gives the former MP a new political perspective

Office sports chat doesn’t ‘exclude’ anyone It is not, as a BBC interviewee puts it, a gateway drug to more offensive behaviour