Six of the Best 980

"There is a perception that we are too managerial, trying not to stray too far from the middle of the road, transformed into precisely the milquetoast, anodyne, irrelevant party that we spent years trying to persuade people that we weren’t." Gracchus questions Liberal Democrat strategy.

"If any prime minister in the past had shown such a determined ignorance of the dynamics of global capitalism, the massed ranks of British capital would have stepped in to force a change of direction. Yet today, while the CBI and the Financial Times call for the softest possible Brexit, the Tory party is no longer listening." David Edgerton on what the Conservative pursuit of Brexit tells us about the British economy.

Melanie Ramdarshan Bold supports Marcus Rashford's book club: "But the number of children reading every day for pleasure is at its lowest since the National Literacy Trust started monitoring it in 2005. In 2019, only 26 per cent of young people (under 18) read every day. Although engagement with books has risen during lockdown, some children have faced greater barriers due to library closures, amongst other things."

Liz Cookman reports on the Armenian exodus from Nagorno-Karabakh.

Contrary to what The Queens Gambit told you, the former women's world chess champion Nona Gaprindashvili often faced male opponents. She talks to Fatima Hudoon about her career.

"It’s not surprising that the dilapidated grandeur of this cemetery - with its ivy-entwined gothic monuments - would generate legends of hauntings and sinister creatures, and draw those with an interest in the occult and macabre." David Castleton asks if vampires stalked Highgate cemetery in the 1970s.