SCOTT ALSWORTH foresees the coming of the smaller, leaner, and class conscious indie studio, with art as its guiding star
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Taking class out of history’s narrative
An unfocused approach to Britain’s last 200 years offers no innovative understanding, writes ANDREW MURRAY
‘MASS STUPIDITY’: Vote Leave supporters Clacton-on-Sea in Essex ahead of the EU referendum vote
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
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
Britain’s Contested History
by Bernard Porter
Bloomsbury £20
HISTORY is a central front in the “culture wars” supposedly roiling British politics. Indeed, it may be the central front, other than the issue of trans rights.
The empire and its reverberations, who should and shouldn’t be on statues, what should be taught about the past in schools – the politician, particularly the Tory politician, who doesn’t have a sharp soundbite ready on these questions will have a cloudy future.
That is not surprising. Control the past and you have a fair shot at controlling the future too. You can set the parameters of the expected and the acceptable, framed by a common understanding of who “we” are and what “we” do.
For example, a book published a few years ago argued that Britain was more or less unique in never having had a revolution. This observation, entirely inaccurate, would, if accepted, appear to preclude having any sort of revolution in the future.
Today, there is nothing Tories like less than being reminded of Britain’s record in the slave trade, in colonial violence and exploitation, all of it resting on racism.
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Just as German Social Democrats joined the Nazis in singing Deutschland Uber Alles, ANDREW MURRAY observes how Starmer tries to out-Farage Farage with anti-migrant policies — but evidence shows Reform voters come from Tories, not Labour, making this ploy morally bankrupt and politically pointless
