The Joy of Six 1089

"This country has transformed children in care into commodities in a misery market. Then they discard them when they’re too old – usually at 16 to semi-independent accommodation, or as a 2019 report conducted by the all-party parliamentary group for runaway and missing children and adults put it, into a 'frightening, twilight world of unregulated semi-independent homes'." Daniel Lavelle says it shouldn’t be down to John Lewis’s Christmas commercial to stand up for children in care.

More and more ministers are handed top jobs for their loyalty rather than their competence. Alexandra Hall Hall considers what we can do about this democratic deficit.

Kamran Abassi says the General Medical Council, which is responsible for regulating doctors in the United Kingdom, must reform itself or die.

Opera is not elitist, argues Alexandra Wilson: "Calling opera elitist doesn’t make it more accessible to anybody. It’s a terrible sales pitch: how many people would be tempted to explore an art form they had been constantly told was elitist? Describing classical music in these terms plays straight into the hands of anyone looking for an excuse to cut school music lessons, reduce the amount of opera on TV or, yes, remove subsidies from arts organisations that bring joy to people’s lives and do a lot of social good."

Tim Walker remembers interviewing the British actor Harry Andrews. Until I read this piece I had no idea that Andrews was gay.

Chris Dalla Riva finds that key changes are employed much less frequently in number one hits from after 1990 and identifies the cause.