Six of the Best 927

"The dumbing down of democracy has been gradual, but a Pandora’s Box of idiocracy was fully opened with the election of Trump in the US and the EU Referendum in Britain. Both were seismic events that shook the foundations of politics through the blatant manipulation of basic truths." James Melville believes we are losing the art of seriousness, clout, gravitas and diligence in our political discourse.

Peter McColl looks at government's view of the public in the second world war and Covid-19: "In the 1940s the population were thought to prefer safety. In the 2020s the population were thought to prefer work. The patricians of the 1940s were wrong. The behavioural economists of the 2020s are wrong."

Attempting to change someone's sexual orientation is unethical, exploitative and potentially harmful, says Megan Manson as she argues that British charity law is charity law propping up conversion therapy.

Where did the plot against George Soros come from? Hannes Grassegger explains.

Jonathan Fryer celebrates Ronald Searle and St Trinian's.

"The peculiar journey of a world renown piece of Pre-Raphaelite art – that will take us from Clapham Common to Puerto Rico, carefully avoiding Andrew Lloyd Webber’s lefty granny. And remarkably, this painting, Flaming June is back in this country, in the London house where she was painted." The Long Victorian on the strange career of Frederic Leighton's Flaming June.