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Keir Starmer should set a timetable for his departure from Number 10 and give his successor the opportunity to prepare for becoming prime minister, argue Hannah White and Alex Thomas.

"Digital spaces should be safe for people of all ages. But I don’t believe bans are the answer. Technology companies need to be held to account and required to block harmful content and build safety into their designs." Lisa M. Given on what Britain can learn from Australia's attempt to ban under-16s from social media.

Ben Mayfield has seen a new film on the countryside access debate in England and Wales: "Our Land is a title with two meanings – private land ownership for the landowners v the campaign for shared rights in land. The film explores different attitudes to ownership as well as the physical borders between landowners and, in the words of access campaigner and contributor Guy Shrubsole, 'the peasants'."

John Drury names six mistaken ideas in crowd psychology that refuse to die: de-individuation, groupthink, mass panic, contagion, the hooligan, mob mentality.

"Almost by chance, they ran across the uncanny, disorienting and inexhaustibly strange works that would help define the culture of the century, and fought against stiff odds to make them common coinage in every Anglophone domain." Boyd Tonkin pays tribute to Edwin and Willa Muir, whose translations made the work of Franz Kafka available to the English-speaking world.

David Hewitt looks back to Oxfam Walk '69 and Wembley Stadium's first concert: "Four-fifths of those who started the walk managed to complete it, and their total mileage was said to be equivalent to three trips to the Moon and back. The first of them arrived at Wembley at 3pm, where they were met by yet more celebrities. Jeremy Thorpe, the leader of the Liberal party, told them they were 'the nation’s conscience' and 'one of the finest armies that has taken the field for many years'."

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"We need to have the courage and vision to support the Jewish community without destroying a fundamental and necessary right. It is Jews who will ultimately be harmed too, as members of the UK population, if the right to protest is further eroded." Jo Glanville argues that banning pro-Palestine protest in the UK is no solution to antisemitism.

Glen O'Hara on the government's stealthy culling of Britain's universities: "This way, they get to make the whole sector smaller with little political pain on their part. They can dump responsibility on bad managers, risk-taking, too much borrowing. The dark side of Higher Education’s pain and toxicity will dribble out on the local and regional news, all the better for voters not to join the dots. The rundown will look piecemeal, disorganised, random."

Helen Currie, Irene Gregory-Eaves and Steven Cooke are our guides to research on how to build cities for wildlife, not just people.

"The film interviews landowners such as Francis Fulford, who has long been the media’s favourite outspoken reactionary toff, a sort of posh version of Viz’s Farmer Palmer, snarling “Get off my land”. There are other, more thoughtful landowners, including Hugh Inge-Innes-Lillingston, who cheerfully admits how silly his name is, and is open to developing new ideas about managed access." Peter Bradshaw has been to see Our Land (2026).

"Just one thing remained to be done before the 1923 FA Cup Final could take place on 28 April. The structure of the stadium had to be tested, to make sure that it was safe for spectators to use. All 1,200 workmen on the site had to march round the stadium as a group, visiting all parts of the terraces and stands. Following instructions and in unison, they had to stamp their feet, lean against the safety rails, and sit down then up on the seats, to recreate the effect of the crowds at an actual event." Philip Grant looks back to the construction of Wembley Stadium.

Matthew Lyons reviews Peter Ackroyd's biography of W.H. Auden.

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"Events are moving so quickly that it’s worth stopping to assess where we are. The U.S. government is currently building massive detention facilities, already detaining tens of thousands of people there and elsewhere, with incompetent and deeply racist secret police sweeping undocumented all kinds of people – immigrants, those with their paperwork in order, and US citizens alike – off the street." Andrea Pitzer says the correct response to Dachau was not better training for the guards.

Tanya Park argues that banning social media for children misses the point: "If we’re serious about protecting children online, we need to regulate the companies, not ban the children. That means enforcing existing law, strengthening platform obligations, eliminating addictive design, and empowering young people with the knowledge and tools to navigate digital spaces safely."

James Meek visited Greenland last year as Trump was starting to make noises about annexing it.

"The Peggy who emerges from these formative years is part Girl Guide, part witch: a Gothic dreamer with a work ethic; Madame Sosostris meets the persona Atwood calls ‘Ms Fixit’. She marries a fellow Victorianist because it makes practical sense but yearns for something else. She makes her own clothes but also fancy-dress costumes and puppets." Sophie Oliver reviews Margaret Atwood's Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts."

Lolly Willowes is a work of modernism not in the sense of formal innovation but in its statement that after the first world war the old order was no longer tenable. The novel is a rejection of Victorian pieties as subversive as Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians." Henry Wessells on Sylvia Townsend Warner's novel.

Johnny Campbell goes for a New Year walk in Edale and thinks of those who fought to give us access to this landscape.

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"'They are treated with the most appalling hostility at the border with officials laughing at them, and shouting,' says Rivka Shaw, policy officer at Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit. Once in a hostel, 'the adults can tell they are children and they are treated differently – adults take their food or fight with the.'" Martha Gill describes the treatment of teenage asylum-seekers.

Christopher Ketcham argues that the powers the British and American governments are using to suppress demonstrations have their origin in the War on Terror: "The question now is whether the Trump administration will continue to expand the use of terrorism material support statutes to go after protest of all kinds – whether for Palestine, for racial justice, or for climate and the environment."

"Business is all about risks and some people will inevitably fail. But the problem is that too many aspiring business owners are floundering unnecessarily. The task for government, business groups and others is to ensure that everyone, regardless of their background, has the chance to realise their entrepreneurial potential." Ben Dellot explains why entrepreneurship is still the preserve of the privileged.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead reports on the Open Spaces Society's call on Emma Reynolds, the new environment secretary, to prioritise legislation for wider and fairer access to nature.

"Andy and Piper are real in a way characters in even upmarket horror films often aren’t: they have history, catchphrases, a spiky-yet-devoted relationship, and neither asks for special treatment because of their circumstances." Kim Newman was impressed by this summer's horror release Bring Her Back.

Jason Watts on the remarkable Anderton Boat Lift and his family's connections with it.

Photograph by Mike Peel.

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Amanda Litman argues that it's time for the ageing leadership of the US Democrats to stand down: "While their wisdom and experience have value, and while some can certainly still hold their own, the septuagenarian and octogenarian class of Democratic leaders - predominantly older white men—are by and large ill-equipped for this crisis we have found ourselves in."

How do radical ideas go mainstream? Alice Evans studies the women's magazines of the 1970s to help her understand the rise of feminism.

How well did Queen Elizabeth II get along with her prime ministers? Rebecca Cope has the answers: "It would be easy to think that as a Labour Party leader from a northern middle-class background, Harold Wilson would not have gotten on well with the Queen, but quite the opposite was true. A regular at Balmoral, he was frequently asked on picnics with the wider family, and reportedly enjoyed the informality of the occasion, mucking in to help clear up after the Duke of Edinburgh’s famous barbeques."

Ellie Robson on the philosopher Mary Midgley: "In the 1950s, the philosopher Mary Midgley did something that, according to philosophical orthodoxy, she wasn’t supposed to do. In a BBC radio script for the Third Programme (the precursor of BBC Radio 3), she dared to point out that almost all the canonical figures in philosophy’s history had been unmarried men."

Writing in Country Life of all places, Lewis Winks demolishes the case against allowing wild camping on Dartmoor.

Michael Wood goes to the movies and thinks about Brady Corbet’s films: "How brutal or damaging does your childhood have to be to make you a great dictator or a memorable pop star? Are the connecting words ‘because of’ or ‘in spite of’? Or is there no causality here at all, just a sort of baffling coexistence? Are the films in love with an ugly idea of chance? This possibility seems especially relevant to The Brutalist."

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Helen Coffey argues that The Traitors, where intelligence is a hindrance that should be hidden at all costs, is a metaphor for society's increasing suspicion towards, and rejection of, intellect, especially when it comes to those in charge.

"It’s really nice when we get people through the yard – the positives far outweigh the negatives ... Farms are very isolated places. It used to be tens of people working on this farm and now it’s just me and my husband." Patrick Barkham meets some of the growing number of farmers who are joining forces with right-to-roam campaigners to boost public access to the countryside.

Harriett Baldwin, a former chair of the treasury select committee, argues that the power afforded to 11 Downing Street can have unintended and negative consequences for democracy.

"For some, school meals evoke memories of austerity and control, as in Daniel’s recollections of being forced to eat everything on his plate. For others, they represent moments of community and care, as Julia’s experience of encouraging her children to embrace school dinners illustrates." Heather Ellis and Isabelle Carter introduce their oral history project on school meals.

"What 1969-70 means is loads of background (and foreground) material beginning with Steve Winwood’s involvement in Blind Faith and ending with King Crimson’s third album, Lizard. Among those featuring heavily are Spooky Tooth, Free and Mott the Hoople, three classic early Island rock bands whose largely student and mostly male following tended to sport ex-army greatcoats, along with plimsolls, loon pants and cheesecloth shirts." Richard Williams reviews the second volume of Neil Storey’s The Island Book of Records.

Casmilus watches the 1971 film Unman, Wittering and Zigo, which stars David Hemmings and is set in a minor public school: "Like all films set in such locations, it gives an insight into the early character formation of the men who play a large role in running Britain for the next 50 years."

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John Harris says the government needs to start giving people hope and quickly: "Among all the numbers, there is a huge story here about the everyday reality of people’s lives. What I would call ambient austerity – litter everywhere, overgrown grass verges, potholed roads, rusty slides and swings – is now deeply ingrained. It sits at the heart of the cynicism towards politics and politicians that is intensified by social media. It has also been a sizeable part of most of the political ruptures of the past 14 years, not least Brexit – and, at the election, the way that Reform UK seized on so many resentments in traditional Labour heartlands that it often finished second."

Continued austerity is a danger to national security, warns Tom Woolmore.

John Stewart on the history of the feeding of schoolchildren by the state: "Local activists revealed that recipients might be subject to deliberately humiliating treatment or be given sub-standard food.  Frank Field ... was thus moved to write reports with titles such as The Stigma of Free School Meals (1974) and Free School Meals: The Humiliation Continues (1977)."

Paul Salveson remembers Britain's biggest mass trespass in support of the right to roam, which was held at Winter Hill in 1996.

"As a star of numerous revues and sketch shows, she played just about every conceivable kind of female character, and made each one of them sound distinctive, amusing and, in their own peculiar way, believable. Her sheer range, and comic craft, were truly remarkable." Graham McCann celebrates the career of Betty Marsden.

For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the LORD." But what is a cockatrice? Seana Graham finds out.

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Liz Gerard says that newspapers coverage of Sunak's retreat from the beaches of Normandy has been desperately inadequate: "The Mirror aside, every one of them missed or misinterpreted the biggest gaffe of the election campaign so far. And at the same time rendered meaningless all the reams of newsprint dedicated to saying how much we respect and owe to those D-Day heroes."

"I have lost count of the number of examples from previous cases where a house parent has received complaints of abuse by another house parent, but done nothing to take the complaint further. The point is that the offence of failing to report by someone in a position of care of children should be on the basis of 'reasonable suspicion that an offence has been committed', rather than 'observed recognised indicators of child sexual abuse'." Peter Garsden is not impressed by the government's response to the recommendations on the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

"It is moments of sudden change, for example, the case of Cirencester Park, that provide us with the opportunity to look beyond the status quo towards alternative models of access and ownership of the natural world." Henry Snowball looks at the wider questions raised by the Bathurst Estate's act of shutting public access behind a ticket booth.

Alex Massie debunks the mythology that has built up around George Orwell's stay on Jura, the Hebridean island where he wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four.

"With the exception of Potter’s 1986 masterpiece The Singing Detective - which is now generally available on BBC iPlayer - the writer’s output is scattered to the winds of out-of-print and costly DVD editions or lo-fi stints on YouTube." Fergal Kinney on what remains of Dennis Potter.

Hadley Mears discovers the fascinating and varied life of Maria Rasputin, the daughter of Russia's greatest love machine.

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"In their very different ways, these stories centre on the same key ideas: a rejection of any idea of natural places and spaces being off limits, and the joyous democracy of gathering together to experience something more nourishing than concrete and tarmac." John Harris senses the spread of a new, radical British politics rooted in nature.

Brian Klaas argues that we need objectivity, not 'balance', from the media: "If someone says the sky is green and another person says it’s blue, you shouldn’t have a blue/green panel on the Sunday shows. But when it comes to election denialism, the media is accused of 'left-wing bias' if it doesn’t give equal platforms to authoritarian election deniers who live in a fantasy world and parrot Trumpian lies. That’s ridiculous."

In one of his last interviews, the philosopher Daniel Dennett talked to Nigel Warburton about some of the books that had influenced him most.

Eleanor Janega finds that we are more prudish than medieval people were.

Georgy Jamieson celebrates the career of a much loved performer: "Leslie Phillips was much more than his screen image. He was a household name thanks to the Carry On and Doctor films, but also a producer, director and in later years a fine character actor doing some very heavy-weight and interesting work."

"There’s no more Pinteresque character in Pinter than Harold Pinter on the cricket pitch. His dreams have not come true - his hero: Len Hutton; his highest score: 39 - but he dreams them nonetheless, while honing a curt line in dialogue for his fellow close fielders." Richard Beard on the playwright and cricket.

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Victoire Ingabire Umahoza, leader of the opposition in Rwanda, explains why UK government's rhetoric is misleading and Rwanda is far from safe: "Human rights organisations have regularly reported that ordinary Rwandan citizens do not enjoy inalienable human rights. Those who dare to or are perceived to express opinions that challenge the Rwandan government’s narrative suffer reprisal."

William Wallace is our guide to the factions into which the Conservative Party is rapidly dissolving.

"The new ruralism is nebulous but tangible. Mildly countercultural, it has been buoyed by the New Nature Writing but is more than a literary phenomenon. It has slowly gathered adherents since the millennium, fuelling a flight from the city to the country, bringing an activist spirit to rural towns and villages. These developments were intensified by t he importance to health and happiness of access to green space during the Covid-19 lockdowns." Matthew Kelly reflects on Jeremy Burchardt’s Lifescapes: The Experience of Landscape in Britain, 1870-1960.

William Fear looks at the attitude to truth that George Orwell and Albert Camus shared.

"Victoria did manage to have her own secret lavatory built within a hidden door off the Sovereign’s Robing Room in the Lords, rumoured to be the first flushing toilet in London." Chloe Challender reveals the meagre provision of  women's lavatories at Westminster during the 19th century.

"The brief cockney revival at the turn of the 1960s was an interesting moment in British pop," says Alwyn Turner.

Now Labour retreats on a right to roam for England

With every month that passes, the prospect of a Keir Starmer government grows a little less enticing. The latest radical policy to be jettisoned is a right to roam in England along the lines of the one that has operated in Scotland for 20 years. This is reported - sorry, 'revealed' - by the Guardian today.

The paper quotes the former Labour shadow nature minister Alex Sobel speaking in the Commons earlier this year:

"Labour’s approach, like in Scotland, will be that Labour’s right to roam will offer access to high-quality green and blue space in the rest of Britain. We will replace the default of exclusion with a default of access.

"Research shows that people with a stronger connection to nature were more likely to behave positively towards the environment. It’s quite simple: the more people engage with nature, the more likely they are to protect it."

Now all that has gone in the face of opposition from the NFU and the Countryside Alliance.

It's telling how the latter, set up to defend the life of the countryside as a distinct form of culture in the diversity-loving Blair years, switched to a full-blown "Get off my land" manifesto the moment the Tories took power.

This story matters, and not just because greater public access to the country is an important issue - read The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes for more on this.

It matters because of what it tells us about what a Keir Starmer government would look like.

The really radical things that Tony Blair did were done in his early years as prime minister. The minimum wage. Assemblies in Edinburgh and Cardiff. Reform of the House of Lords.

If Starmer begins this timidly, what will he be like after four or five years at No. 10?

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Peter Oborne reminds us that British Muslims were the first to suffer from bank account closures, but nobody protested.

The Pipeline looks at the decision by Shropshire Council to grant planning consent to a local housing development in the near setting of the nationally important Old Oswestry hillfort.  It fears that by raising the bar on what constitutes “harm” to the setting of a heritage site, the decision puts every such site in England at risk from insensitive developers.

"Why should Dartmoor remain the only place in England where wild camping is (lawfully) possible? If we accept that being able to rest in modest comfort is an essential feature of open-air recreation, then that implies that this right should apply to all our national parks (whose statutory purpose is partly to provide exactly that) – at bare minimum." Jon Moses says we need a national right to roam.

The late Dorothy Rowe chooses five books on lying and dispenses much wisdom in the process: "If you understand that all you ever see or know is the constructions of your brain and that everything is a guess, then you can’t escape uncertainty. You could be wrong and that is frightening."

Simon Perks has finished c

"It wasn’t just about the liquid itself, but the experience. The feeling of being in the presence of someone who really cared about the heritage, the orchards, the fruit and the story the drink told. It was utterly magical." Gabe Cook celebrates role in the revival of traditional cider and perry.