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 NIGEL PRINCIPLE

The Critic

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Children of the revolution • A decade ago, children adopting the trans label were setting rather than following a trend. Now every classroom has a few they/thems

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

Lifting the cloak of invisibility • The puzzling case of the Afghan fighters and the Government’s secret super-injunction

Woman About Town

PESTON’S INBOX

The rip-off behind the ritual • The Old City’s “Buy British” campaign will deliver higher fees and sub-par returns

THE FADING FLAME OF FELLOWSHIP • The institution that was the very quintessence of an Oxbridge college is in grave danger of disappearing

When the young backed Britain • In the 1990s, Eurosceptism was the political cause for a number of politically aware students

How Europe failed us • Ahead of the publication of an ambitious new account of the historical roots of Brexit, it is worth remembering …

Who can rescue the Right? • Reform may kill the Tory party, but it cannot replace it. The Right is crippled by a lack of credible leaders and political coherence

A walk on the wild side • Henry Jeffreys on his eventful time as a council tenant

Return London to pedestrians • Sebastian Milbank proposes some radical remedies for a capital being terrorised by out-of-control cyclists

AUNTIE AT THE PRECIPICE • David Elstein says a perfect storm of looming threats means the BBC must start planning for a post-licence-fee world

The bibliophobe barbarians clearing the library shelves

I DIDN’T LIKE CRICKET. NOW I LOVE IT • Despite a cricket-mad family with more than a century of well-thumbed Wisdens on the shelf, our national summer game left me cold. But then came Jofra Archer, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and the Greatest Game Ever Played …

CLAUDIA SAVAGE GORE: THE CAMPING TRIP

Bulldoze Britain’s brand • Stephen Simmons says the British Embassy in Bangkok helped foster more than a century of excellent UK-Thai relations until Jack Straw and Boris Johnson came along to …

Cooking the books • Anonymous: Scholarly journals and books were once the academic gold standard. Today, digitalfirst texts can be changed, deleted, bundled or sold to train AI bots without the author’s consent

Sir Roy Strong • The mischievous cultural commentator and diarist who changed the way museums think about the past

EVERYDAY LIES WITH THEODORE DALRYMPLE

The Hon. Jeremy Wellbourne • Radical Publisher

The man with a masterplan • Clive Aslet pays tribute to Léon Krier, the visionary architect who eschewed modish modernism to champion traditional, walkable neighbourhoods — and was chosen by King Charles to mastermind the Duchy of Cornwall’s model village, Poundbury

First signs of an Anglican spring • A mood shift seems to be suggesting brighter days ahead for the Church of England

Plausibility is not truth • Robert Hutton says many people fail to grasp the real nature of artificial intelligence

LET’S HEAR IT FOR EARLY MUSIC • Lola Salem on an organisation showing the tone-deaf, identity politics-obsessed Arts Council that a modest grant wisely placed goes a long way

We can’t publish this! • Why books that became beloved classics struggled to find their way into print

Arrest this high priest of hate • Review: The End...