Labour’s iron lady?
The run-up to the leadership election finds the shadow home secretary in a surprisingly cheerful mood
Forget Chilcot
The national puzzle is this: why did so many informed and sensible people accept transparent twaddle as fact?
Mealybug Nymphs, Gossamer
after Robert Hooke, Micrographia (1665) A warm wall, heavy leaves, hard green grapes and a cluster of…
How to build a school
The first year of Kings College London Mathematics School has proved the value of specialisation – and the risks of regulation overkill
Green with rage
As Britain’s first European Green Capital, my beloved, once-bohemian city is going all-in on pettifogging regulations
Venice Notebook
Even tech entrepreneurs find the new world of oversharing hard to master. Perhaps we all need carnival masks
Dublin
This is a great city – and a small town where a thrown plate of lasagne can resonate for years
Action this day
Peter Parker reviews Elegy by Andrew Roberts, a necessarily bloody account of the first day on the Somme
The history man
Lewis Jones reviews Jay Parini’s Every Time a Friend Succeeds Something Inside Me Dies
Universal appeal
Andrew Taylor reviews Arcadia by Iain Pears, with a little help from the novel’s iPhone app
On the way to the Forum
Jochen Bleicken’s biography comes to praise the first emperor, not to bury him, finds Harry Mount
Quiet desperation
Alex Clark reviews Andrew Miller’s The Crossing, where lurks the most enigmatic heroine
The bitterness of Bacon
Jack Castle reviews Francis Bacon in Your Blood: A Memoir by Michael Peppiatt
All white on the night
Ethnic and gender quotas are fast becoming the norm in the performing arts - but they shouldn’t be
Bad conduct
Peter Phillips on his not entirely successful attempts to persuade orchestral conductors to take on the great choral masterpieces of the Renaissance
Touchy-feely – not
From palpable sculpture to painterly textiles, Claudia Massie explores three new shows at the Henry Moore Institute, The Hepworth and Dovecot Studios
Lifting the veil
The moment of enlightenment came during Amanda Foreman’s chastening new history documentary The Ascent of Woman on BBC2
Shtumming the spiel
Plus: a misguided attempt to adapt Alasdair Gray’s sci-fi epic, Lanark, for the stage and a superb concert from the Zehetmair Quartet
Press night
Once preview tickets are on sale the customer has a right to information about the goods being offered
