The Joy of Six 1298

"Starmer was attempting a card trick that mainstream political parties across the West have tried to play in recent years - defeat the hard-right by borrowing their talking points and framing, and then somehow prove that you are better able to deal with this problem than they are." Matt Carr has no confidence in Keir Starmer's attempt to meet the Reform challenge to Labour.

"Syrians are under no illusion that the future will be hard, complicated and may end up being disappointing and even dangerous. Please can we all do them the courtesy of wishing them well, and offering support if it is requested, rather than writing them off now before they’ve even finished freeing and identifying the prisoners from Assad’s concentration camps?" Jonathan Brown calls for optimism about Syria.

Christine Jardine argues that hate crime legislation is not the right way to tackle sexism: "Having once felt the hate crime route was best, I now find the counter argument compelling. It is not just the worst cases – physical and verbal attacks or domestic abuse – that are the end result of misogynistic behaviour. It is everywhere, every day in so many ways."

"Conspiracy theories are not the reason Trump was elected. They are more like the oil that makes the process smoother or faster. What is really being described in the election result is not an electorate declaring it believes every line about theories of secret power structures running the world, but it is an expression of deep disillusionment: how it is to feel disenfranchised, to be poor, that the future is bleaker than the past." Gabriel Gatehouse and Matthew Sweet discuss what America’s rampant conspiracy culture means for truth and democracy now that some of its leading proponents may soon be in office.

Henrietta Billings, director of SAVE Britain’s Heritage, on why the Oxford Street M&S demolition decision exposes a broken planning system and how we need urgent reform to safeguard heritage assets and reduce embodied carbon emissions.

Judit Polgar, the strongest ever woman chess player, calls for the abolition of separate titles (such as woman grandmaster), with lower qualifying standards, for women players. Though they were introduced to encourage women players, she believes they tend to limit their ambition.