Burton-on-Trent was once the brewing capital of the world, home to such famous names as Bass, Allsopp’s and the famous “Burton snatch”. Stop giggling at the back, Jenkins! I’m talking, of ...

K aty Faust is an American Christian evangelist who campaigns to repeal equal marriage across the United States. I met her at a conference in London last month and as we gave each other a hug and ...

For a discipline devoted to art, contemporary art history can seem remarkably contemptuous about the object of its study.

I hope you won’t think me uncultured, but before I started writing in earnest about the dirty business of water, I hadn’t ...

Will Self has not been well. Almost as unwell as you can be. Yet having survived a stem-cell transplant, a procedure that Self notes has odds significantly worse than Russian ...

In Wednesday’s column, I tackled in passing the allegation that the Conservatives, in focusing their party conference message ...

This article is taken from the 2026 October issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Find our subscription offers here. You are, shall we say, a modestly successful literary ...

We’ve all been there — you’re arguing with someone online, and you get hot-tempered enough that you say something provocative that you regret. In all likelihood, nothing actually happens. It is just a ...

Like most people in Essex, I had little to no interest in the inner workings of local government. Provided that bins were collected, roads were smooth, and local state schools appeared relatively ...

For several years I helped to build SafeBoda — a motorbike taxi company in Kampala, Uganda. Our aim was to make the roads safe, or at least safer, by improving compliance with traffic laws. One of our ...

This article is taken from the June 2026 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Find our subscription offers here. “The English Bible,” said Lord Macaulay, is “a book which, ...