The Joy of Six 1094

"Its lasting value is in its revelation that the institutions of the Conservative Party and the British government are so decrepit that they can be hacked by someone like Liz Truss, as if they were merely Oxford student societies writ large." Lewis Baston reads Harry Cole and James Heale's biography of Liz Truss.

"A memory of Churchill only as an icon of anti-appeasement is a caricature, even if it was a caricature the man himself was complicit in creating. It reduces a man of many parts, and of many bargains, into a lovable bulldog." We need to save Churchill from his present-day admirers, argues Patrick Porter.

Nigel Warburton on why we need libraries: "Community libraries ... are, among other things, a democratic resource providing free access to information for all, including guided access to the internet for those who might otherwise be excluded."

Geoff Barton says we should listen to young people's views on education.

Richard Lester’s 1974 film Juggernaut trembled on the edge of being a political allegory for Britain in that decade, finds Simon Matthews: "There was something deeply ironic about Richard Lester – one of the key ringmasters of Swinging London – portraying the state of the nation in the 1970s. Doubly so, given the cast includes David Hemmings, he of Blow-Up and much else, expended here halfway through the film. How times change."

John Thomas takes us through this year's work on the remarkable Roman villa found beneath the fields of Rutland.