The Joy of Six 1217

"Everything John Barnett said about Boeing’s problems was true. Everything. If the company had been willing to listen to him, 346 airline passengers would still be alive. And maybe Barnett would be too." Joe Nocera on the death of whistleblower.

Tim Eaton and Christopher Phillips look at British foreign policy with David Cameron as foreign secretary. "Cameron’s energy ... does not appear to be part of a broader foreign policy strategy. The UK’s response towards Gaza and MENA [ the Middle East and North Africa] in general remains reactive and Britain is not at the forefront of discussion on what comes next."

Roz Kaveney, a veteran trans activist, talks to Hackney History about the history of the struggle: "I noticed a lot of bleakness creeping into trans social media and thought it my job as a community elder to remind young people that things had been, if not worse, at least as bad in different ways... The important thing about life in an embattled community is to have each others backs."

"There are loud voices, currently holding the microphone, who seem determined to run classical music into the ground. Even Arifa Akbar, The Guardian’s chief theatre critic, recently announced that traditional modes of listening to such music (respectfully and quietly) are elitist. This is only going to get worse. Those of us who really care about classical music, whether listeners, performers, educators, critics or arts administrators, need to be prepared to stand up and speak out." Alexandra Wilson says classical music is under threat from accusations of elitism.

"Train travellers approaching Peterborough from the south can still, for now, see what might once have been the future of train travel. It might have been yet another fruit of what many see as the engineering genius of the UK. What went wrong?" J.J. Jackson finds out.

Andy Walmsley takes us back 50 years to the launch of Radio Caroline.