Six of the Best 697

Fintan O'Toole dissects the fantasy that is Brexit: "Theresa May is a classic phony Brexiter. She didn’t support it in last year’s referendum and there is no reason to think that, in private, she has ever changed her mind. But she saw that the path to power led toward the cliff edge, from which Britain will take its leap into an unknown future entirely outside the European Union. Her strategy was one of appeasement—of the nationalist zealots in her own party, of the voters who had backed the hard-right UK Independence Party (UKIP), and of the hysterically jingoistic Tory press, especially The Daily Mail."

The Liberal Democrats finished far behind Kate Hoey and Labour in Vauxhall. Our candidate George Turner offers his reflections on the campaign there.

"Since the Great Recession, Polanyi has become something else: a totem for social democracy, much like Marx for communism or Hayek for neoliberalism." Daniel Luban on the elusive Karl Polanyi.

"The Berlin Wall had stood for decades as the most tangible symbol of the intransigence of Cold War politics. Then, quite suddenly it was gone, but not through any of the battle scenarios the generals had war-gamed. On the day, it happened because some border guards refused to use lethal force." Rod Duncan on political change and fantastical fiction.

Tabish Khan has been to see Grayson Petty's new exhibition.

"On this morning of great doubt and uncertainty, I think we should consider things of far greater interest like the lookers' huts on Romney Marsh in Kent," says Peter Ashley,