The Joy of Six 1096

Sarah Wise uncovers a forgotten passage of British history: "Between 1869 and 1925 an estimated 80,000 British boys and girls were sent to Canada as agricultural labourers and domestic servants by Macpherson, Thomas Barnardo and Maria Rye – the latter one of a small number of other philanthropists active in Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin. Only one third of them were orphans, meaning that the majority had been removed from parents and/or siblings."

Alexander Smith from NBC News shows us how Britain is now seen by the wider world: "Britain once compared itself to giants like France and Germany; today many of its metrics more closely resemble Eastern Europe’s weaker economies."

"In the British media, the correspondents and columnists who make their livings from the characters of the royal family are furious because Harry and Meghan presume to write their own story and to profit from it. The only ‘truth’ the British press can countenance is one delivered beneath their bylines and that’s why Harry & Meghan will be so stringently fact-checked while other cosier fictions continue to go unquestioned." Mic Wright on the royals and the media. 

"If you want policies that actually work, you have to change the political conversation from 'tough candidates punishing bad people' to 'strong communities keeping everyone safe'." The root cause of violent crime is not what we think it is, argues Phillip Atiba Goff.

Colin Hyde has been mapping Leicester with electric paint.

"Men and women should beware if a poet starts sending them love letters. They can be sure that the poet is using them to hone their technique rather than valuing them as individuals. The displays of emotion in their letters will be self-regarding contrivances; most of the promises will prove false." Richard Davenport-Hines reviews two books on the romantic life of T.S. Eliot.