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In the October issue of The Critic, the magazine for open-minded readers, Paul Lay takes his place in the queue of mourners for Queen Elizabeth II and reflects on monarchy and Midlands’ identity, the Rev Fergus Butler-Gailie defends modern expressions of grief and the historian, Andrew Roberts, reveals that the young Queen’s relationship with her first Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was nothing like its portrayal in Netflix’s The Crown. Besides a new king, there is a new government: Patrick Porter decries Liz Truss’s neo-con foreign policy instincts, and Tom Hamilton assesses whether Keir Starmer finally has reasons to be cheerful. As the party conference season commences, veteran conference-goer, James Kirkup, lifts the lid on the horrors he has experienced and why he cheerfully comes back for more. Julie Bindel finds an absence of farmers but an abundance of “lifestyle” opportunists at her local farmers’ market; Lisa Hilton mixes it with Venice’s In and Out crowds, architecture critic Charles Saumarez-Smith ranks this year’s Stirling Prize contenders, Alexander Larman considers Philip Larkin in the centenary of the poet’s birth and Boris Starling salutes football’s resurrection man, Christian Eriksen.