Six of the Best 987

The system is broken and it’s corrupt: liberals need to make fixing the system and rooting out corruption a key part of our message to voters. If we don’t, then who will?" Max Wilkinson says the latest peerage announcements are yet more evidence that the system is broken.

David Torrance looks at the Government of Ireland Act 1920. He argues that it "paved the way for the formation of the United Kingdom as we know it today".

.Will Davies dissects the intellectual decline of the Spectator.

"The primary message that came through loud and clear from the respondents is that their children began to learn to read when removed from school because the pressure to read was reduced or removed." Peter Gray on how dyslexic children learn to read when removed from school.

"Ever since vaulting to fame, Rowling had sought the protection of some private realm. ... But her safest space had long been the one she found in writing. There, she knew all the secrets, ordained good and evil, and decided how everything would end." Molly Fischer offers a penetrating study of J.K. Rowling.

Tim Worthington remembers the days when the BBC would attempt to scare its young viewers to death: "In the early eighties, the Children’s Department had a go at producing their own Ghost Stories For Christmas, which in all honesty were only slightly less disturbing than their adult counterparts."