Shooting the messengers

From post-truth to post-freedom

In February, the Speaker of the House of Commons, did

If I ruled the world

All prime ministers talk about families, which isn’t

Letters & opinions

Luke Harding (“Click for regime change,” February)

Posturing behind “the people”

The populist insurgency is a veil—masking money and power

The Trump trap

By trying to ban us, the President is stopping me leaving

Labour pains

By-election jitters reflect a more profound loss of the party’s historic plot

The scary science of continental drift

Brexit is already hitting Britain in the brains

How Britain can still count after it quits

On foreign policy, 27+1 could add up to more than you might think

Candidate for a country at a crossroads

Emmanuel Macron is a French anti-Trump. But he is making the running

Reader’s block

Amid the frenzy of Beijing there is little room for the slow pleasures of the book

Is the government’s city devolution agenda really a cover for cuts?

Is the government’s city devolution agenda really a

A world going grey

Western societies have long worried about getting old—but, in time, there will be a dearth of workers in their prime across the planet as a whole

High crimes, low odds

You’re never going to oust Trump using the law—unless the politics turns

Trumpeting a global trade war

The US underpinned the liberal economic order. So what now in a world of America First?

War of attrition

The right to abortion has long been under assault in many individual American states. Now Donald Trump’s Washington is joining in the attack

Brief encounter

Experimental psychologist

Take back control

We’re being asked to pre-commit to a pig-in-a-poke Brexit. Here’s how we can retain a free hand

Don’t care was made to care

The priority for fixing the NHS isn’t more cash for hospitals, but supporting the frail at home

May’s way

The prime minister has clambered up the greasy pole in a stealthy style of her own. Don’t imagine she’ll be easy to dislodge from the top

Getting it together

Having teased out democracy’s paradoxes, Amartya Sen is keeping his cool as politics runs wild

Spooked

Spies see everything, and they’ve seen everything before. Except Donald Trump

Silence in court

Open justice let the light in on rendition; secret rulings will prevent us learning those lessons

The vision thing

Roger Penrose is still defining the way we see the universe. But, in today’s world of ultra-specialised science, could a thinker of such breadth ever emerge again?

Minuting the frenzy

In Whitehall one person above all has a ringside seat watching the shambles at the heart of government, finds Sue Cameron

Sorry, I don’t feel your pain

Sharing in other people’s woe might seem the right thing to do, but it can lead us to make bad decisions, argues David Edmonds

Recommends Art

In 1960s America, print-making underwent a revolution.

Recommends Theatre

“Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations

Recommends Classical

Celebrate International Women’s Day with a concert

Unearthly powers

His critics accused him of being a mere entertainer with highbrow airs. But Anthony Burgess was one of the most astonishing writers of the 20th century, argues Kevin Jackson

Recommends Film

Paul Verhoeven, director of Basic Instinct and Showgirls

Can they kick it?

When rap music first burst on the scene, it was surprisingly wholesome. So what changed, asks Alex Dean

Recommends Opera

Wagner’s only mature comic opera is also one of his

Recommends Science

While computing power has transformed our world, the

Books in brief

Europe’s Last Chance: Why the European States Must

Events

The Prospect Book Club meets every third Monday of

Leith on language

What’s a liberal? The question is coming to seem, as

Life of the mind

My teenaged son phoned me up on his way home from school

Matters of taste

Fiona Provan is 52 years old. It’s taken her a long

Wine

When you think of the Douro Valley you probably think

DIY investor

The logic of being a DIY investor is clear: I want

The generalist by Didymus

7 Fountain of Boeotia at the foot of Mount Helicon

Enigmas & puzzles

Six friends Apple, Babble, Crumble, Dibble, Earwig

The way we were

The special relationship