Is Cheltenham beyond parody?
A books bash these days has to offer Geri and Geoff Hurst and that bloke out of Radiohead
Let publishers publish
The protracted corporate decision-making process is stifling the books industry
Twilight of the gods
The eclipse of the gilded 1980s generation can be seen as a welcome changing of the guard
Just show me the money
A body that collects authors’ revenues is going off-book and asking about their gender
New life for a dying trade
The book world is on its last legs. So how we can bring it back from the dead?
Who edits the editor?
The bright young things of publishing want to be involved in every line of every new book
Not everyone has a novel in them
Literature is the only art in which, it seems, every neophyte is convinced they can succeed
Where has all the money gone?
Even Booker Prize-winning novelists struggle to make a living from writing
The bad old days
The “golden years” of publishing were characterised by booze, bullying and amateurishness
Spare us the wagging finger
Few things are more tedious than books moralising about the deficiencies of yesteryear
The fables of Davos Man
Yuval Noah Harari has written another long book with little wisdom
The great British giveaway
The handover of the Chagos Islands reflects a wider lack of realism in UK foreign policy
Let’s leave the Commonwealth
There is no point in being a member just to be browbeaten about our past
The Critic guide to glass ceilings
On the self-made men (and women!) of the Labour Party
Earworms — some Profane, mostly Sacred
Hymns can be as catchy as popular music
Trojan horse separatism
Spanish unity is being bartered away in a game of political greed as a Catalan coup-leader is allowed to stroll back into the country
Progressive realism
Can Labour’s new foreign policy doctrine work in our troubled world?
The British state is failing to protect women
Misogyny, rape and sectarian violence go increasingly unchallenged in the UK
The death of conservatism?
Individually and collectively, we must choose life
Carelessness in the community
Who are the “community leaders” who are currently shaping police policy in Birmingham?
In defence of the incredulous stare
To argue is to indulge in a practice, with all that this entails
