MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
Partygate is a symptom of Tory authoritarianism
GAVIN O’TOOLE recommends a brilliant analysis of how Covid was used to erode civil liberties and sideline Parliament
BONANZA: Personal protective equipment (PPE) at NHS warehouse. It is estimated £10bn were lost to unsuitable or overpriced PPE
MIK SABIERS wallows in a night of political punk and funk that fires both barrels at Trump
Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz
SIMON DUFF recommends a new album from renowned composer and oud player Anour Brahem.
JAMES WALSH has a great night in the company of basketball players, quantum physicists and the exquisite timing of Rosie Jones
A New Awakening: Adventures In British Jazz 1966 - 1971, G3, and Buck Owens
JAMES WALSH is moved by an exhibition of graphic art that relates horrors that would be much less immediate in other media
Emergency State: How We Lost Our Freedoms in the Pandemic and Why It Matters
by Adam Wagner
The Bodley Head, £14.99
A SLOW but sure descent into an authoritarian dystopia has been gathering pace during Britain’s unlucky 13 years of Conservative rule, and has accelerated since Boris Johnson plotted his way into office.
Yet it has taken Covid to consummate the concentration of executive power and bonfire of rights set out in Adam Wagner’s brilliant analysis. The author summarises the legal vandalism during the pandemic that has left cherished freedoms in tatters.
How ironic it is that Johnson swaggers through the ruins of Kiev as a hero of Ukraine’s “war for freedom” in a bid to engineer his comeback, when he is responsible for visiting more damage upon our body politic than Vladimir Putin ever could.
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RON JACOBS relishes a riotous epistolary novel of revenge against sexual harassment and patriarchy
SIMON DUFF revels in a performance by up and coming concert pianist Aidan Chan