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.

WHO NEEDS NATO?

The Critic

Beware the slippery slope

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

Let the people decide • Libel actions once heard by juries are now exclusively tried by judges alone

Woman About Town

PESTON’S INBOX

BUST THE BIG TECH CARTEL • Google and Meta’s market-rigging costs every household around £1,000 a year. It’s time to …

DEI versus “Praise the Lord” • The US is exporting its brand of Christian capitalism here, but will it suit us boozy Brits?

WEIRD but really not that wonderful • A thesis seeking to explain the success of the West has been seized upon by the rationalist right but is riddled with gaps and discrepancies

Give all the islands back

Is it no-go for Nato? • American conservatives are increasingly sceptical over the transatlatlantic alliance and more concerned about addressing pressing domestic concerns

The end of Israel? • The events triggered by the October 2022 attack on the country have prompted liberal voices, internal critics, enemies and even some allies to ask whether this is …

Finding true North • The best way to bolster Canada’s nationhood against covetous US eyes is to repudiate those who have denigrated the country and tell the stories of the people who built it

LIVING ON NOTHING BUT OZEMPIC AND AIR • Victoria Smith says that for all the talk about body positivity, the pressure on women to be ultra-thin has not waned. Today, the richest, most famous and most adored appear to be …

The prophet of combative Toryism • Historian David Starkey has, at 80, returned to guide a new generation of conservatives

A charter for Oxbridge cheats

The revenge of the Blob

More than just a figurehead • A new plan aims to strip the Archbishop of Canterbury of any real power or authority

Can the stage regain its soul? • Jukebox musicals, TV adaptations and bad celebrity casting are turning theatre into a parasitic secondary art form

Arnold Leverett Veteran Playwright

Men of the cloth • Adam Dant on his personal mission to resurrect the lost art of the painter-stainers

Steve Coogan/Peter Sellers • Denied the chance to play his comedy idol in a biopic, the Alan Partridge star has found another way — on stage

The price of virtue signalling • Pandering to the liberal social agenda is a drain on Britain’s productivity

BLOOD, SQUALOR AND A TASTE OF THINGS TO COME • When four very different literary adventurers travelled to witness Japan’s brutal invasion of China, all were filled with horror at the human cost and fear of a greater conflict

NEW YEAR SALE • GET THREE MONTHS OF THE CRITIC FOR JUST £10

Gods and monsters • With Western democracies tested to the limits, Daniel Johnson looks at the chequered history of Europe’s monarchs and dictators

EVERYDAY LIES WITH THEODORE DALRYMPLE

Adam Dant on …

STUDIO • The Kunstkammer

Prickly architect of Gothic marvels

Murder, incest — and a limping collapse

Holy wars and unlikely alliances

A peerless witness

Keeping the faith

Russian roulette

Your front-room friend

Young man — there’s a place you can go …

Understanding the inbetweeners

Being cruel to women

Life stories, writ large

Lines from The Shire

Kick off the new year with a comic novel

How we devalue the book • Literary culture is under threat from...