The Joy of Six 1137

"There was never any reason to suppose Johnson could be a successful prime minister. Nothing in his record suggested he was fit for the job. His sole success came in living down to expectations. If he had been a tolerable success as mayor of London that was, in large part, simply because the mayoralty was, in his hands, little more than a PR job. As foreign secretary, rather more importantly, he was palpably out of his depth." Alex Massie says goodbye and good riddance to Boris Johnson.

Michael Crick argues that Keir Starmer will come to regret purging the Labour left.

"Her concerns stretched beyond monetary union. She voiced fears over the EU’s tendency to centralise and erode national barriers, warning that 'the rush to a Single Market … is corroding the social, employment, and environmental structure of our continent.' She even noted how EU freedom of movement would have a depressionary effect on wages." Richard Johnson reminds us that Caroline Lucas used to be a Eurosceptic.

Sarah Menkedick asks why American children are treated as a separate species.

Jonathan Meades reviews a book on heritage and conservation: "Seventy years ago, Augustus John advised in his autobiography Chiaroscuro that we ought not to admire hedges and drystone walls no matter how handsome the patchwork they form, for they are instruments of ownership. Stourton overlooks John. He comes up with the familiar justification that great estates have spared the country mass housing. Familiar but, frankly, bollocks."

Steven Smith, Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne all played club cricket in England. Scott Oliver looks back to those days.