The Joy of Six 1254

"Easy though it is to mock the quality of the Tory leadership hopefuls, enabling and encouraging the worst impulses of the far-right carries dangers for our country and our democracy, as we have seen just this week. We need a serious government, but we also need a serious opposition. Right now the Tories cannot and will not fulfil the latter role." Alistair Carmichael says the Tory leadership contest is revealing that the party’s lurch to far-right is terrifyingly real.

Lauren Crosby Medlicott on what life's like inside a UK women's prison and the need to find other ways of dealing with female offenders.

"To be happy and healthy, children need a decent amount of everyday, sociable play and physical activity. To grow into independent, capable, resilient young adults, they need a chance to experience real life, explore and take risks. To develop a sense of belonging and responsibility for others, they need to be seen and heard in their communities." Alice Ferguson presents a manifesto for restoring children’s freedom and outdoor play.

Corinne Segal takes us to four cities - New York, Baltimore, Auckland, Istanbul - that are bringing buried rivers back into the light of day.

"Detoxification" is a popular concept in wellness but, says Adrienne Matei, it's just another lie.

Rohan Amanda Maitzen understands what it is that makes T.H. White's The Once and Future King great: "The novel’s most ridiculous, delicious flights of fancy (the thwarted romance of the Questing Beast, for instance) are narrated in the same down-to-earth way as the most extreme moments of betrayal or grief or psychic torment ... and so we experience them both as part of the same world of people who may transform into animals, trap unicorns, and perform miracles, but are somehow, bizarrely, wonderfully, just like us."