The Week

Leading article

Boris Johnson’s non-existent get back to work campaign

This week was built up by the Prime Minister to be the moment that would mark the return of economic and social life to robust health. But there was no real attempt by his government to urge people to go back to the office. Even Number 10 has admitted there never was a back to work campaign. In

Portrait of the week

Diary

My run-in with the New York Times

It’s never a good sign when you’re watching a scene of street terror in yet another gut-churning YouTube video and you find yourself thinking: ‘Hang on a minute, that’s around the corner from my apartment!’ But there’s a now infamous video from last week where a mob of enraged millennials with their fists pumped in

Ancient and modern

Museums need wonder, not wokery

The British Museum’s aim is to use its collection ‘for the benefit and education of humanity’. If that manifests itself in jerking the knee to Black Lives Matter’s anti-colonial agenda, the Museum might do well to learn from the ancients. Near Eastern conquerors used to dedicate their loot in temples, and so exhibit it. It

Barometer

Who first committed ‘cultural appropriation’?

Culture clashes The pop star Adele was accused of ‘cultural appropriation’ for adopting a Jamaican hairstyle for the online Notting Hill Carnival. Who first committed this alleged sin? The concept has been traced to a paper presented by Canadian art historian Kenneth Coutts-Smith at a symposium of the International Association of Art Critics in Lisbon

From the archives

From the archive: With the Benedictines

From 18 October 1946: Their whole aim and object is to exemplify in their lives and corporate activity their sense of participation in the mystical Body of Christ; and they believe that prayer in common and, above all, the maintenance of a spirit of prayerfulness throughout the day brings them nearer to it than the

Letters

Letters: The growing cladding crisis

Cladding fear Sir: Emma Byrne’s report on the cladding scandal (‘Ill clad’, 29 August) will have given many of those affected real hope that our plight is acknowledged. I am the first in my family to go to university, so getting on the property ladder was a major achievement. I bought my flat under shared