The Joy of Six 1385

Sam Bright looks at new research that suggests effective attack lines to use against Reform UK: "Farage’s shtick is to pose as a champion of the working man, fighting against out-of-touch elites and corrupt institutions. But this new research shows the importance of exposing Farage’s foundational myth: namely, that Reform isn’t a grassroots rebellion; it’s a vehicle bankrolled by the financiers who crashed the economy in 2008 and the austerity-obsessed corporate vandals who have profited ever since."

Like it or not, Britain's membership of the European Convention on Human Rights is going to be an issue at the next general election, and we're going to need better arguments than we were able to come up with during the European Union referendum. Here, George Peretz makes a social democrat case for Britain's continued membership of the ECHR.

Dan Friedman counsels Democrats against getting entangled in conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein as there are more than enough real Trump scandals to expose.

Michaela James and Mayara Silveira Bianchim find that it's not so much activity as feeling confident and in control when they’re active that boosts children’s wellbeing: "autonomy, confidence and competence – were stronger predictors of wellbeing than more traditional measures like deprivation (normally we’d expect deprivation to positively or negatively affect wellbeing) or even total time spent being active."

"Nowadays, it’s hard to believe that Durrell was once ranked among the best prose stylists of the postwar period. Such is the fickle nature of literary legacies that the main charge made against his writing – its luscious language and bewildering structure – was originally considered its unique achievement." Guy Stagg on the decline of Lawrence Durrell's literary reputation.

"I contend that The Rising of the Moon is Gladys Mitchell's greatest stylistic achievement: she sets out to create a world filtered through the eyes of her thirteen-year old narrator, Simon Innes, and to that end she succeeds on every page. It's not just a perspective, it's an entire ideology that Miss Mitchell offers in her young protagonist. Simon and Keith have scruples; they are cunning and resourceful, in the best meaning of those words; they have their own particular code of honor. They also have a thorough understanding of how their world operates (parental laws; omissions which are not the same as lies), and Simon's subdued narrative prose bolsters this point." The Stone House celebrates an extraordinary book.