Why universities are making us stupid

The quiet consensus

Britain’s fundamental problems – dismal productivity, regional inequality, dilapidated infrastructure – long pre-date the EU referendum.

Letter of the week: Moving on from Blairism

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Why the prospect of Dorries’ stories worries Tories

Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.

The EU must accelerate its next enlargement

Admitting eight countries in eight years would be a daunting challenge for the European Union – but it would…

Iain Dale’s Diary: An eerie Washington DC, Keir Starmer’s own goal, and the conundrum of Isabel Oakeshott

The Labour leader fumbled his justifications on LBC – but much of the outrage over Sue Gray’s appointment is…

Mary Harrington: “Make sex consequential again”

The journalist and author on what liberal feminism gets wrong.

Rishi Sunak is moving at speed – but can he outpace the spectre of Boris Johnson?

This spring’s prime ministerial activity has a frantic velocity we haven’t seen since the days of New Labour.

Today’s global economy may look like that of the 1970s, but the crises we face are worse

Drawing parallels between recent price shocks and the fiscal turbulence of 50 years ago is misleading.

To succeed, Keir Starmer needs to be much more than “business friendly”

Labour should forge a new settlement that prioritises the common good over private profit.

Everything my brother taught me about life

Kinship can be found in the most unexpected places.

Adam Gopnik’s pursuit of the perfect sentence

The New Yorker journalist’s latest book, The Real Work, sheds light on a career spent obsessively attempting to master…

Britain’s broken tax system

How political expediency overrides logic and fairness in the UK’s chaotic finances.

Nigel Biggar’s whitewashing of empire

The historian is right that Britain’s colonial legacy is morally complex. So why is his defence of it so…

From Janet Malcolm to Sebastian Barry: new books reviewed in short

Also featuring Deep Down by Imogen West-Knights and Why Women Grow by Alice Vincent.

The myths of “the north”

Alex Niven’s The North Will Rise Again is a missed chance – a sustained swipe at a government long…

Michael Parkinson – The last interview

The veteran talk-show host on broadcasting’s halcyon days, car-crash interviews and today’s “charlatans in high office”.

From Roald Dahl to Ian Fleming, censorship is good for the book trade

Releasing bowdlerised books into a predictable storm of ridicule and then making the “classic texts” available is clever business.

Allelujah is Alan Bennett’s ode to the NHS

His 2018 play, set in a Yorkshire geriatric ward, is now a starry movie – with a pandemic-focused final…

How the tabloids outed George Michael

A new Channel 4 doc explores the media’s glee at the singer’s arrest for “lewd acts” in 1998. But…

The Weigh Up explores life after anorexia

This BBC Sounds podcast is a first-person account of how recovery from the eating disorder is possible.

It was only when my husband was stranded on the motorway that I felt truly married

Forget the ring or the piece of paper, elation at the sound of your partner’s key in the door…

On a train that is delayed due to a suicide on the tracks, I contemplate time

What else could I have done in that time? I could have flown to New York.

This England: Black and white inking

This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain…

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Sherine Tadros Q&A: “Since leaving TV I barely watch it”

The human rights activist on Arab socialism, comfort-watching Friends, and the allure of marine biology.