The Joy of Six 1132

Robert Hutton has been to the National Conservatism Conference: "The country is in a terrible mess, and Rees-Mogg is just trying to find the guys who did this. He denounced the Budget and the failure to scrap EU regulations. He even denounced Voter ID, a policy he shepherded through Parliament, as a failed attempt to rig the vote. It wasn’t clear whether he had always been against it because of the rigging, or simply was now because it hadn’t worked."

"Between 1946 and 1950 ... around 35,000 Ukrainians came to the United Kingdom as part of the European Volunteer Workers scheme. This intended to address labour shortages by providing jobs to displaced people." Historic England provides a history of Ukranians in England.

"A great film and a rare example of one that improves on its written source, it also takes its place in the distinguished line of UK dystopias stretching from The War of the Worlds to Day of the Triffids to The Drowned World." Simon Matthews watches Alfonso Cuarón’s 2006 film Children of Men.

Isaac Butler says it's long past time to retire the anti-historical search for who 'really' wrote Shakespeare's plays: "Trutherism abuses the liberal public sphere by using the values of liberal discourse - rational hearing of evidence, open-mindedness, fair-minded skepticism about one’s own certainties, etc. - against it. Once the opposition tires of this treatment and refuses to engage in debate any longer, the truther can then declare victory, and paint the opposition as religious fanatics who are closed-minded and scared of facing the truth."

Lisa R. Marshall takes to the wild green hills of Worcestershire with Jonathan Meades and A.E. Housman.

There's been controversy about Sussex giving the Australian captain Steve Smith a short-term contract before this summer's Ashes series. Ben Gardner asks if the decision is hurting Sussex as well as England.