Six of the Best 696

Andrew Hickey argues that the election came three years too early for the Liberal Democrats' strategy and that Tim Farron should stay on as leader afterwards.

"From the pollsters’ point of view this is an experimental election. We all got it wrong in 2015 and we are all trying different methods to get it right this year." Anthony Wells offers one explanation for the volatility of opinion polls.

David Boyle asks if Britain's next prime minister will come from outside mainstream politics.

Lincoln Blades says America needs to address the presence of white male extremists and to examine their radicalisation.

"1990 imagines a Britain which went bust in 1983, stopped paying back its debts and watched as the money-lenders turned its back on us. The result was an authoritarian government and civil service which tore up Magna Carta in order to cope with the massive crisis ahead." Michael Seely on a Seventies BBC drama that is starting to have contemporary resonance.

"The week following Pentecost is a lost holiday. From the Middle Ages until the early 20th century the period around Whitsun was the principal summer holiday of the year - especially Whit-Monday, i.e. today." A Clerk of Oxford on a forgotten piece of our history.