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 can heal sick Britain?

The Critic

Porn is degrading society

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

Thought crimes: a crucial victory • Investigation of so-called “hate incidents” has been revealed as a colossal waste of police time

Woman About Town • SARAH DITUM

PESTON’S INBOX

End the fiction of fiscal rules • Henry Hill calls for more honesty in UK policymaking

THE PARTY THAT LOST ITS REPUTATION • The evidence is clear: the Tory Party’s plight can be blamed on the Liz Truss U-turn that exploded its claim to hard-headed competence

The new prohibitionists • Puritan anti-nicotine policies are successful only in propping up the tobacco industry

The furry fetish that spawned a murder • Evidence left at the scene suggests the killing of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was the first pornography-driven political assassination

Gaza betrayed its Western allies

Don’t keep it in the family • Francisco Ceballos on the dangers of cousin marriage

Stay cool, Mr Trump • Despite recent shockwaves in the Middle East, Washington need not fear losing its position there to Moscow or Beijing

Hurrah for corporate affairs • Workplace romances aren’t always about power imbalances and exploitation

Michael Wharton • A satirist of genius whose “Way of the World” newspaper column mercilessly mocked the modern world.

EVERYDAY LIES WITH THEODORE DALRYMPLE

Putting the mockers on Ms Rayner • The internet sensation whose biting satire strikes fear into politicians and do-gooder campaigners alike

HOW TO WIN BACK THE FARMERS • The Labour administration will reap what it has sown, but Richard Negus spells out what a future government can do to regain the trust of agriculture

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Why Britain is the new enemy • Podcasters and amateur historians are framing this country as an arch-villain

The folly of turning our back to the sea • Britain’s neglect of its maritime heritage has led to shuttered shipyards, ailing fishing fleets and impoverished coastal towns

Cutting the silken threads • A new think tank aims to help a future Reform government be like Gulliver and escape the ties that paralyse the British state

MY KITCHEN CONFESSIONS • Chasing crayfish, baking bread, burning pies, and brining heads. What happened when a new history graduate abandoned the quest for a fancy, well-paid job and went to work in his local restaurant

Why not let the code take the academic load?

RENEWING CULTURE FOR THE RIGHT • The arts sector has long been unthinkingly in thrall to the supposedly “progressive” left but a coherent, coordinated, conservative strategy could, and should, shift the consensus

Could Carry On come back? • Christopher Pincher believes the silliness of a film series that laughed at the British is much needed now

Sebastian Mode Provincial arts administrator

Adam Dant on …

STUDIO • Cezanne 25 at Aix-en-Provence

A heavyweight companion for life

Wrangling over the writings of a rogue

A poet and thinker with plenty to say

Lyrical wormholes into the past

Maker’s dozen

The rise and fall of English Lit.

Suffering: the consequences

Will “they” catch on?

Strong, silent — but still box office gold

Signal failure

From Celtic fringe to Bible belt

Time to start a new chapter • The rapid decline of...