A meeting of misfits: Seascraper, by Benjamin Wood, reviewed
An unlikely friendship develops between a taciturn local youth and a fast-talking American film-maker in a grim coastal town in postwar Britain
One of the boys: From Scenes Like These, by Gordon M. Williams, reviewed
An accident on the football pitch ends young Dunky Logan’s dreams of playing professionally – leaving him trapped with the lads in the ‘lair of their ordinary world’
From apprentice to master playwright: Shakespeare learns his craft
The Theatre itself, and the works staged at England’s first purpose-built playhouse in Shoreditch, all emerged from the guilds that formed the bedrock of the urban economy
Charles I at his absolutist worst
The months preceding the outbreak of civil war saw distrust of the King become widespread and a ‘new temper’ take hold
How Macron triumphed over Starmer
‘Small boats’ are the big talking point from this week’s Franco-British summit. The consensus is that there are slim pickings…
The Washington Post can’t cancel John McEnroe
From his lofty BBC and ESPN perches at Wimbledon, John McEnroe is agitating people… again. In particular, he has irked…
Rupert Lowe cleared by standards watchdog
Well, well, well. It transpires that Independent MP Rupert Lowe – formerly of Reform UK – has now been cleared…
Britain’s mental health crisis isn’t what you think
Britain has a widespread and collective mental health problem – but it’s not what you might think. Specifically, it’s that…
The hypocrisy of those attacking Moygashel’s migrant bonfire
The marching season – when a section of Northern Ireland’s unionist community take to the streets to commemorate the triumph…
We’ll all pay for Ed Miliband’s zonal pricing folly
Philosophers have debated the concept of ‘fairness’ for centuries. Intellectual heavyweights like Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, and Aristotle have all…
Who’s telling the truth: Unite or Rayner?
Some big news in Labour land today. Angela Rayner, the party’s deputy leader, has had her membership of Unite suspended…
Rachel Reeves’s GDP hypocrisy
Well, well, well. Today the Office for National Statistics released its estimate for May’s GDP. It showed a contraction of…
Is Britain an ally or an enemy of Israel?
Even as the British parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) published its stark warning yesterday that the Islamic Republic of…
Unite suspends Rayner over Birmingham bin strikes
Uh oh. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has been suspended by Unite the Union over the Birmingham bin strike –…
On holiday with Goya
When I’m first invited to a sojourn in Madrid to learn about the life and work of Francisco Goya and…
South Korea’s pensioner time bomb is about to go off
Think of South Korea and K-pop, Korean cuisine, films, and perhaps even skincare products spring to mind. The fact that…
A trio of scandals
“Who will guard the guardians?” That question, posed two millennia ago by the Roman poet, Juvenal, is just as relevant today. It recurs every time we learn of a…
Starmer’s migrant deal is just a sticking plaster
As French President Emmanuel Macron visited Britain this week for the first French state visit in over a decade, a…
