As conflict wracks the globe, two exhibitions – “The Family of Man” and “Children’s Games” – offer a powerful vision of our shared humanity
Inside England’s ultra-disciplined schools
Schools like Michaela Community boast of high grades and obedient students – but at what cost?
Book review: Harvard’s Quixotic Pursuit of a New Science
The birth, life and death of the Department of Social Relations at Harvard University is a cautionary tale of failure, scandal and intellectual breakthrough.
Losing our humanities
With the job of Prime Minister up for grabs, and the leadership race amongst the Conservatives tightening, the conversation in England has turned to a divisive subject: the value of a university education. The former chancellor Rishi Sunak has promised, were he to be voted in, to crack down on “low value” degrees. He thinks […]
Blasphemy in the classroom
What does the dismissal of a teacher for using a Muhammad cartoon in class say about the state of Britain?
Two Holocaust memoirs stick close to the grubby truth
Reviews of two new Holocaust memoirs, “Escape from the Ghetto” by John Carr and “Yellow Star Red Star” by Agnes Kaposi.
Book review: Infinitely Full of Hope
On becoming a dad, philosopher Tom Whyman was confronted with the question: “is it cruel to bring new life into an awful world?”
Cubs of the Caliphate
Image from the Rojava Information Centre report In the Kurdish autonomous region of Rojava, in North Eastern Syria, the Al-Hol and Al-Roj camps hold family members of ISIS fighters and individuals displaced by the fighting between ISIS and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Much has been written about the 60,000-plus camp residents, mostly women […]
Mother and baby homes: when sorry isn’t enough
The mass grave at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home, Galway The extent of the tragedy surrounding Ireland’s mother and baby homes was exposed in January in a government report, which found that almost 60,000 women passed through the system, while 9,000 children died – that’s a shocking 15 per cent of all the […]
Does Britain have a free speech problem?
The phenomenon of “cancel culture” has made headlines around the world in the last few years, with “woke” mobs supposedly shutting down organisations, people and ideas that they believe are not politically correct. At the centre of the media furore is the fear that the western world is experiencing a free speech crisis. Concerns have […]