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"One minister described the chaos as 'probably fatal'. It was, said another source, a 'tipping point' and 'the week that No 10 lost control'." Catherine Neilan and Rachel Sylvester listen to the insider voices suggesting Keir Starmer is on the way out.

Michelle Pace says Britain should think twice before copying Denmark's asylum policies: "Refugees I’ve spoken with have told me how they often feel that integration is pointless if they might still be deported. Social isolation and limited rights for asylum seekers are the norm. Families face long waiting times for reunification despite few cases and refugees face temporary permits that hinder long-term planning."

Stephen Cushion finds that Michael Prescott's memorandum on the BBC falls well short of the standards of impartiality he demands of others.

"People burned what they could afford: cheap, sulphur-heavy coal. The cleaner Welsh anthracite was being exported to pay off Britain’s debts. Home fires, factory stacks, and power stations belched black smoke into the unmoving air. The fog – that familiar London damp – merged with soot and sulphur dioxide to create a deadly, acid-laden smog." Londonopia remembers the city's Great Smog of 1952.

JacquiWine went to the Tirzah Garwood exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery earlier this year.

"James Cubitt specialised in Nonconformist chapels during the 19th century, and the Islington Union Chapel was one of his first, and probably one of his most important works. Many of his other chapels across the country have since been demolished, but Union Chapel remains." A London Inheritance appreciates the famous Islington concert venue as a building.

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"His other election address, targeting a different demographic, tells another story. It trumpets Galloway’s record of backing Brexit, opposing Scottish independence and supporting family values. A whole paragraph is dedicated to outlining his opposition to transgender rights and his conviction that 'God creates everything in pairs'. Michael Chessum writing off George Galloway ignores his dangerous appeal to both far left and right.

Katharine Sacks-Jones on the need for urgent action to fix the system of public care for children.

Harvey Morris says London risks shrinking its civic realm: "A short walk across Tower Bridge from the Tower of London, London’s top-ranking tourist attraction, an old grammar school that educated the poor of the parish for 400 years until it became a technical college, reopened as a hotel in 2017. Just around the corner, hotel guests can enjoy an evening cocktail beside the benches of an old magistrate’s court where swift justice was once handed out to docklands’ petty thieves and brawlers."

"In the real case, Edith targeted Rose much more deliberately. It wasn’t her father who initiated the legal action against Rose, but Edith herself. In July 1920, she consulted a solicitor who launched a private prosecution against Rose. Many of the letters Edith sent weren’t anonymous either, but signed 'R', 'R.G' and once, 'with Mrs Gooding’s compliments.' The letters were a clear attempt to frame a rival." Louisa Mellor finds it is harder to sympathise with the true story of Wicked Little Letters.

Barendina Smedley examines the rise and rise of Eric Ravilious: "He achieved his effects by leaving much of the paper bare. Whiteness - snow, chalk, clouds, the blindness of looking straight into the sun - is his hallmark. The consequence, even when viewed on a tiny iPhone screen, is to let a great deal of light radiate out from 'behind' the image. Compare an online glimpse of a Ravilious watercolour with the most playful Rex Whistler painting, the most luminous Paul Nash oil, and you’ll see the difference. One looks flat on the screen - the other literally shines."

Alan Sillitoe's The Death of William Posters may be Britain's most politically radical novel, suggests Simon Matthews.

Ella Ravilious on Eric Ravilious

This is lovely. Ella Ravilious takes us on a personal journey through her grandfather Eric's life. 

She explores the techniques Eric Ravilious learnt and mastered, his influential creative connections, the artists and designers he admired and studied, his favourite subjects to depict, the landscapes he loved and the adventures he had as an official war artist in World War II.

Ella Ravilious works as a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Eric Ravilious - Drawn to War

While the cabinet was falling apart this evening I was at the Showcase in Leicester watching Drawn to War, a biographical film about the artist Eric Ravilious. There weren't many other people there - I suspect this is more one for the Phoenix crowd.

I enjoyed the film greatly. It's wonderful to see Ravilious's paintings on the big screen - in the remarkably varied palette he got from his watercolours he reminds me of another of my favourite artists, John Sell Cotman.

Ravilious died at the age of 39 when his aeroplane disappeared off Iceland in 1942 - he was serving as a war artist.

We are told the story of his life through the letters between him and his wife Tirzah Garwood and through the memories of his daughter and those of a friend of the Ravilious children. Some high-class talking heads tell us of the significance of his work and there are a few short dramatised scenes with a boy playing the young Ravilious.

It's certainly true the Ravilious's reputation has been steadily rising for years, but I'm not convinced he was quite as forgotten as the film tells us.

His paintings may not have been known, but his designs for Wedgwood were celebrated and, from the way they seem to anticipate the art of the 1950s, must have been influential.

There's a page on the Dartmouth Films site giving the details of screenings of Drawn to War around the country. Catch it if you can.

Eric Ravilious: Drawn to War opens on 1 July

From the Dartmouth Films website:

Eric Ravilious: Drawn to War is a true story. Eric Ravilious is as compelling and enigmatic as his art.  Set against the dramatic wartime locations that inspire him, Margy Kinmonth’s film brings to life this brilliant but still grossly undervalued British artist. Caught in the crossfire of war 80 years ago, Ravilious’s legacy largely sank without trace, until now. 

Made with the blessing of the Ravilious Estate, this first full length feature documentary about Ravilious unfolds in his own words, through previously unseen private correspondence and rare archive film. 

Shot entirely on location in the UK, Portugal and Ireland, the film features Ai Weiwei, Alan Bennett, Grayson Perry, Robert Macfarlane with Freddie Fox, Tamsin Greig and many more.

The same page will give you an impressive list of cinemas that are showing the film from 1 July, including the Phoenix in Leicester.

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Charlotte Tobitt explains why the Tory MP arrested on suspicion of rape has not been named in the media.

Liam Thorp on the errors that have led to Liverpool City Council's electricity bill going up by millions of pounds: "The report ... really needs to be read to be believed. It charts a remarkable catalogue of mistakes, failures and communication bypasses that have somehow led this cash-strapped council, already under government intervention, to add a further £5 million onto its electricity bill and potentially cost the city, its schools and its fire service a total added cost of £16 million."

"The term neurodiversity was coined in 1988 by Australian sociologist Judy Singer. It means that neurological differences should be recognised and respected. Rather than using drugs to change the behaviour associated with disorders, such as ADHD and autism, society should be more accommodating of neurologically diverse people." Matthew Smith asks what the future holds for Ritalin, the drug with a long and varied history that has latterly been used to treat attention problems in children.

"Profits grew. Participation slumped. The latest figures show it dropped by 25 per cent in the first five years Harrison was in the job. And that was before the pandemic, when it plummeted again." Andy Bull marks the departure of Tom Harrison, chair of the England and Wales Cricket Board.

"Train Landscape shows us the interior of a third class railway compartment done out in the livery of the Southern Railway, circa 1939, an interior Ravilious has drawn with loving attention to detail. It isn’t just any compartment, but a specific one, with saggy seat cushions and a window sash that is worn with use. We’re in a specific location too, passing beneath the white horse carved into the hillside above the Wiltshire town of Westbury." James Russell contributed an essay to the catalogue of the Eric Ravilous exhibition in Winchester that has just closed.

William Cook meets Bernard Cribbins.

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"Nearly three in four children’s homes and two in five fostering households are now provided by independent organisations, from both the private and charitable sector. For the largest private providers, income levels increased by 7.3% when comparing data between February and December 2020. Among the top 10 of children’s homes providers, seven are now owned by private equity firms." Katharine Quarmby and Sian Norris show how children in public care have become an opportunity for private investors.

Andrew Brown reviews Bleeding for Jesus, Andrew Graystone's exposé of John Smyth's beating of boys and young men and the cover up that followed. 

Fintan O’Toole on John Le Carré’s decision to become an Irish citizen shortly before he died.

"Public House has echoes of Geoffrey Fletcher’s 1962 book The London Nobody Knows, famously turned into a psychedelic documentary film in 1969. Partly it’s the ambling scope of it, the diverting asides, the delight at the curious and arcane. But it’s also the palette of the illustrations, a poppy array of orange and green that gives it a trippy feel of late Beatles and swirling pub carpets." John Grindrod reviews a new cultural and social history of the London pub.

K.B. Morris looks back at a John Bowen's television play: "Robin Redbreast was written at the tail end of the counter culture of the 1960s and Bowen is exploring the dichotomy of reason versus emotion or Apollo versus Dionysus. This conflict, which was so prevalent during that period, fascinated Bowen throughout his writing career."

"Olivia Laing walks the River Ouse in Sussex from its source to the sea, mediating on its flora, fauna, mythology, history and literary associations along the way. Chief among the latter is Virginia Woolf, who lived near the river, walked by the river, wrote about the river, and died in the river." With the help of Eric Ravilious illustrations, Terri Windling reviews Laing's To the River.

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"The media would have us believe that Rishi Sunak is having a good crisis. But this is because it focuses far too much upon presentation and not enough upon policy. The standards for Tory politicians have fallen so low that being able to read a speech fluently suffices to make one a future PM." Chris Dillow considers the origins of the Conservatives' policy disaster on Covid-19 and the economy.

Natalie Bennett on the privatisation of care homes for older people has been a disaster.

"In Russia, it is a deceitful, neurotic, and bullying approach to history. In China, it is the same story but over geography." Ed Lucas argues the regimes in both countries are expending huge amounts of political capital on unnecessary fights.

Margaret Thatcher killed the UK's superfast broadband before it even existed, as Jay McGregor reveals.

"Ravilious ... was a strong opponent of fascism, as one might expect from his light and playful sensibility. He raised money for the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War, and apparently had to be dissuaded by friends from enlisting in the British Army as a private soldier when war broke out." Niall Gooch says Eric Ravilious depicted 'Deep England' but unsullied by any kind of dubious politics.

Mary Reid recalls the pains and pleasures of living near a zoo.

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Marie Le Conte argues that Twitter has made politics more difficult. Now we know what every politician thinks about everything, it is harder for them to work together,

"What use is Popper to a politician?" Bryan Magee once asked. KritiK looks at his answer and calls for a more rational approach to policymaking.

David Watts mourns that there are no headlines when behaviour in school improves.

"Imagine a time without 24-hour news, when we didn’t need to be constantly updated on what was going on, when the BBC and others chose when they broadcast news and sport." Charles Runcie remembers the birth of Radio 5 Live.

"With 20 minutes to go before the start of the English cricket summer a total of eight spectators are scattered around the prim, pretty stands of the Emirates Riverside stadium." Barney Ronay details the latest move in the cricket authorities' campaign to destroy the first-class game in England - starting the season on 26 March.

Samuel Love on Eric Ravilious, tennis and Englishness.

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"If Theresa May were the head of a newly liberated African colony in the 1950s, British conservatives would have been pointing, half-ruefully, half-gleefully, in her direction and saying “See? Told you so - they just weren’t ready to rule themselves." Fintan O'Toole casts a cold eye on events at Westminster.

Lewis Goodall weighs Theresa May's performance: "She has reacted not with humility or contrition or openness, but with a tone so lecturing and hubristic that many MPs have thought her deeply arrogant."

Mark Mazower reviews two books on the Armenian genocide.

Marcus Binney makes the case for saving Richmond House on Whitehall.

"As if the new competition wasn’t divisive enough, the head of Sky Cricket has said in an interview that he hopes to get Michael McIntyre as a commentator for Sky’s coverage of The Hundred. McIntyre is like Marmite, in that most people hate him and the rest of the population is wrong." Being Outside Cricket offers 100 reasons why The Hundred won't work.

Naomi Daw on Eric Ravilious in Sussex.

Eric Ravilious & Co. in Sheffield

This morning I caught a train to Sheffield to see the exhibition Ravilious & Co: The Pattern of Friendship at the city's Millennium Gallery.

This is a major touring exhibition. First seen at the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne (Eric Ravilious's home town), it will be in Sheffield for the rest of 2017 and at Compton Verney, Warwickshire, in the spring of next year.

The Towner Gallery website describes it well:

Based on new research and telling a story that has never been told before, this exhibition of the artist and designer Eric Ravilious (1903-1942), coincides with the 75th anniversary of his death. It explores the significant relationships and working collaborations between Ravilious and an important group of friends and affiliates, including Paul and John Nash, Enid Marx, Barnett Freedman, Tirzah Garwood, Edward Bawden, Thomas Hennell, Douglas Percy Bliss, Peggy Angus, Helen Binyon, and Diana Low. 

The exhibition includes many of Ravilious’ key works shown alongside both well-known and less seen works by his contemporaries, including work by each artist that has never before been exhibited publicly, and focuses chronologically on key moments when the work and careers of these artists coincided, overlapped or was particularly pertinent to the others, such as their time at the Royal College of Art, the 1927 St George’s exhibition, their time spent at Furlongs and Newhaven in Sussex, and their various roles in the Second World War. 

The exhibition represents the wide range of media in which the artists worked, from watercolours to woodcuts, lithographic prints, book jackets and illustrations, patterned papers, and wallpaper and fabric design.

I find Ravilious and the other artists represented here immensely appealing. They offer a version of English pastoral that has been chastened by the war and is also interested in industry. Two of the best things in the exhibition are Ravilious's paintings of a Sussex cement works.

Ravilious's reputation, helped by an immediately recognisable style, has been growing and growing in recent years. But he  had an influence in his own era - he died on a reconnaissance flight off Iceland in 1942.

His ceramic designs, not represented in this exhibition, now have a distinct 1950s feel to them. This is not because he was "ahead of his time", which is about the silliest thing you can say about any artist, but because the next generation of designers knew and admired his work.

Anyway, I can thoroughly recommend Ravilious & Co to any lover of 20th century British art.

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Adam Ludlow analyses Labour's pensioner problem.

"In the 1930s many British aristos found themselves unable to keep their right arm vertical. Like their fellow nobs in France, Prussia and Spain, they clung to fascism as an antidote to democracy and in the hope of keeping their loot." Glen Newey puts that photo of a young Princess Elizabeth giving a Nazi salute into historical context.

Jenny Uglow goes round the Eric Ravilious exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery and finds the artist modern, English and strange.

Mrs Slocombe in space? Surely nothing could go wrong. Well, to judge by Come Back Mrs Noah’s repeat appearances on ‘worst sitcom’ lists, plenty did. This late-seventies comedy was one dud note in the otherwise much-admired comedy careers of writer producers David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd." Louisa Mellor surveys 11 science fiction situation comedies you may well have forgotten.

East of Elveden visits Crowland and John Clare's Helpston.

The remains of terracing in back gardens; grassy banks that reveal the extent of an earlier, much larger stadium; a forgotten East End stadium that could accommodate 120,000... Derelict London takes us around some of the city's long lost sports grounds.

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"The United Kingdom has tumbled down global press freedom rankings in the wake of the Leveson Inquiry and the government’s reaction to the Edward Snowden leaks," reports the Independent. Not a great achievement for a government of which the Liberal Democrats are a part.

A Scottish Liberal asks if we should with draw from the pro-Union Better Together campaign: "Whatever the next few months have in store for the Lib Dems, there can be no escaping that our future in Scotland will be directly affected by the stifling relationship with Better Together."

"At Pendle Borough Council’s meeting of Election Agents yesterday the Labour Party refused to agree to a statement issued by the Borough Returning Officer, Stephen Barnes, aimed at preventing impropriety in the handling of postal votes applications and ballot papers." Harry Phibbs has the story on Conservative Home.

"Even as a youngster I was dimly aware that Wimpy lacked the swagger of its American competitors." Ashley Clark on Vice writes about the slow death of a British institution.

Pete Trewin considers recent television programmes about Ian Nairn and by Jonathan Meades.

Laura Freeman celebrates Eric Ravilious for Standpoint.

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"The crucial thing for the Liberal Democrats is whether differentiating themselves from the Conservatives, the visceral anti-Toryism of progressive voters, and Ukip, can save the suburban and south-western seats they hold against the Tories." Lewis Baston discusses how the Liberal Democrats will do at the next election over at Progress Online.

Lynne Featherstone wants us to join her campaign to end female genital mutilation in a generation.

"The Hudson was so polluted that wooden boats from the Caribbean would sail up the river so that the water’s poisons would kill the bore worms that were damaging their hulls." Joseph Berger writes about Pete Seeger's role in saving the Hudson River in the New York Times.

"Bagehot is not entirely forgotten ... but exactly who or what he was is now a little fuzzy in our minds. A few stray bons mots about the monarchy, some connection with the Economist (which keeps his memory green in the pseudonym of a regular columnist) – that is as much as most of us can dredge up." Ferdinand Mount reviews a biography of Walter Bagehot for the London Review of Books.

The Plains of Almeria - under the title "The strange case of Gael Kakuta" - asks if Chelsea's policy of loaning their starlets to lesser clubs is backfiring: "Josh McEachran is a prime example of a player who has impressed in the Chelsea first team but struggled to make an impact on loan."

English Lakes Blog on a homage to the lost Eric Ravilious mural at the Midland Hotel, Morecambe.

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"This represents arguably the most xenophobic set of proposals put forward by a UK government since the Commonwealth Immigration Act 1968." Yesterday was not a good day to be a Liberal Democrat, says Andrew Page.

"A striking aspect of the Welsh Government’s legislative programme since the devolution of primary law-making powers has been the number of so-called framework bills presented to the Assembly. These skeletal laws contain little in the way of detail in terms of how a policy will be delivered in the Bill itself. Instead, they rely on a second layer of law, subordinate legislation or regulation, to flesh out the practical elements of the law when it comes into force." Lib Dem AM Eluned Parrott, writing on Click on Wales, argues that Labour's increasing use of framework legislation is subverting democratic accountability.

Steven Fielding examines the "enemy within" theme to be found in the cinema and television of the Thatcher era.

"When I first became World Chess Champion in 1985, the Soviet Union was still standing and Soviet chessplayers had been unchallenged since the disappearance of Bobby Fischer. Few could imagine then that we would see a match between an Indian and a Norwegian in less than 30 years." Garry Kasparov looks at Magnus Carlsen, the new word champion, for Time.

Municipal Dreams looks at Birmingham's council housing in the inter-war years.

The Public Domain Review introduces us to the British artist Eric Ravilious.

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"MPs, please, please, please take what your civil servants tell you with a huge pinch of salt: they’re even more likely than you not to understand the internet, and even more likely than you to be swayed inappropriately by the copyright and security lobbies!" Paul Bernal's Blog explains why governments' digital policy is so bad.

And SRoC: Slightly Right of Centre writes about what may be the latest instance of this: moves towards filtering of the internet.

"You can have as challenging a curriculum as you like, but if you have a vicious struggle for league table supremacy and not enough resources in the .  any teacher ambitious for their school and their students (who need A*s to get to the university of their choice) will find some way of maximising their chances (it's the intellectual equivalent of tax avoidance....)" The Times blogger Mary Beard fears Michael Gove's plan to put universities back in charge of A levels misses the point.

Peter Linebaugh talks about Luddism, the fencing off of the commons, popular resistance to dispossession, and the radical message and enduring influence of the Magna Carta in an audio on Against the Grain.

On Huffington Post Katherine Macfarlane writes about the experience of being a child of divorce.

Sophie Bosworth writes about the work of the photographer James Ravilious, son of the artist Eric Ravilious.

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Welcome to The Libertine, "the blogging platform for young Lib Dems".

"All his life, Havel lived by the belief that if you wanted something to happen, you had to do something to make it happen, and damn the consequences, including arrest and prison, and possibly even death. Speaking about the early days of the post-Stalin thaw, he once said: “The more we did, the more we were able to do, and the more we were able to do, the more we did.” It is a fine summary of his attitude, and, in a sense, his legacy." Paul Wilson writes about the legacy of Václav Havel in the New York Review of Books.

Jock Coats argues, against George Monbiot, that libertarianism is naturally green.

The solution to hospital bed crises is not necessarily more beds, argues Slugger O'Toole, looking at the experience in Northern Ireland.

Nicholas Whyte looks at Scotch on the Rocks, a strangely prescient thriller written in the 1960s by Douglas Hurd and Andrew Osmond.

"Few places I've visited have such a powerful and unique identity as Dungeness and I could see instantly why Ravilious had felt at home. The lighthouses and miniature railway and power stations and eccentric little houses were part of it, but what appealed to me most was the evidence of passing time." James Russell follows in the footsteps on Eric Ravilious and Derek Jarman.

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You can find pictures and videos of the occupation of Brooklyn Bridge on Mashable: "The movement began in July after anti-consumerist group Adbusters called for an occupation of Wall Street on Sept. 17. It quickly gained support from groups like Anonymous. Around 1,000 showed up for the first protest. Over the next two weeks, the protests gained steam and drew the attention of the mainstream media."

Slugger O'Toole reports on Ulster Unionist MLA Sam Gardiner, who appears to have been consulting a marked register before deciding whether to help his constituents.

Did The Scottish Government and Aberdeenshire Council give Donald Trump assurances about the siting of wind farms? Rob Edwards investigates.

Which album, compiled by Jack Nicholson, features Neil Young, Frank Zappa and Bela Lugosi? Andrew Hickey has the answer.

The Sussex landscapes that inspited the artists Eric Ravilious, Paul Nash and John Piper are explored by James Russell.

Go Litel Blog, Go... has a poem by Anna Akhmatova that fits the weather we have been enjoying for the past week:

The freak Autumn built a high vault in the sky,
the clouds were ordered not to darken the vault.
The people marvelled: September is passing
and where are the chill, damp days?

What is more, he illustrates it with a picture of a hot-air balloon passing over Little Bowden.

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"As the cuts hit, unemployment rises, and inflation goes up, the expected 30% increase in rail fares over the next three years will see increasing numbers of people priced off the railways, with those at the bottom of the income scale being affected the greatest." Turnip Rail points out that 19th-century governments were careful to protect poorer passengers.

Gaping Void is giving up Facebook and Twitter to concentrate on blogging.

Writing on British Politics and Policy at LSE, Sally Broughton-Micova argues that the government’s plans for local TV puts too much of an onus on stations to provide content for the national networks. Local TV should concentrate on local issues.

"Few senior staff, preoccupied with their research grants, now teach first-year students. Tutorial numbers are unmanageably doubled and trebled from a generation ago. The essays are halved in length and number. Meanwhile, overpaid administrators, pumping out the newspeak propaganda of "centres of teaching and learning", have the effrontery to claim that undergraduate education is getting better all the time - yeah. By my reckoning, in contrast, universities do less nowadays than they once did to help translate young minds from suburbia to the stars." Richard Bosworth, writing for Times Higher Education, looks back over a long career in academia.

James Russell looks at the Cerne Abbas Giant, with help from Paul Nash and Eric Ravilious.

Finally, you will need your hanky as A Life in the Day... contemplates saying goodbye to a dog called Thomas.

Guardian Review: Eric Ravilious and Uncle's Homeward

As this blog is largely concerned with moaning about the views of Guardian columnists, I thought I would give the newspaper some praise for a change.

The Review section that came with today's paper had two things I found immensely pleasing. The first was an article on one of my favourite artists, Eric Ravilious:

Much of his subject-matter is pastoral and unassuming, and he was a virtuoso at capturing everyday scenes and little details from English provincial life. Among the sequences of his paintings were those featuring, in his words, "lighthouses, rowing-boats, beds, beaches, greenhouses". Even when he became an official war artist, he tended to domesticate any novelty or threat – fighter planes line up harmlessly beyond a garden hedge, and barrage balloons bob cheerfully in the sky.

The occasion for the article is an exhibition, Ravilious in Essex, which is on at the Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden, until 14 August.

For an introduction to the artist see the site Eric Ravilious, which is maintained by his grandson Ben - a good Liberal who lives in Leicester. You may also be interested in the book Ravilious in Pictures: A Country Life by James Russell.

Also in the Guardian Review today is a list of the 10 best castles in literature, as chosen by John Mullan. May of those you would expect to see are there: Gomenghast, Blandings, Wemmick's castle in Great Expectations.

But I was delighted to see this included too:

With its multicoloured towers and numberless skyscrapers, Homeward is the most wondrous castle in fiction. It is the home of an immensely wealthy, dressing-gown-clad elephant called Uncle in JP Martin's children's books. It contains fountains, water chutes, walls of sweets and ponds of treacle.

I wrote about Homeward myself after visiting the London Docklands recently. There is more about the Revd Martin and the Uncle books in an old post of mine.