The Joy of Six 1289

"Biden should have been managed off the stage in time for the party to have proper primaries, introducing a new generation of Democratic party politicians to the American public. Instead, the president clung on to the point where only Kamala Harris could realistically be the nominee. She was left having to campaign as a “change candidate”, trying to define herself as a new face while also defending her government’s record." Alistair Carmichael says the Democrats made one of the worst political mistakes in modern history.

Robert Saunders discusses the supposed role of the monarchy in times of political crisis: "In a democracy, the monarchy can only survive if it stands outside political contention. Yet that makes it a broken reed when it is the constitution itself that is in crisis. The logic of this situation is not that the monarch should be more politically active, but that we cannot rely on a ceremonial monarchy to protect the constitution from attack."

"If I say something is 'typical Boris Johnson', you have a mental picture. But what is 'typical Keir Starmer'? Worse, what is 'typical Jonathan Reynolds”' (He’s the Business Secretary, but you knew that.)" Robert Hutton on why itanto will take the satirists and sketchwriters time to get to grips with Labour.

Ella Creamer and Lucy Knight report on the glut of children's books written by celebrities and ask if the trend pushes aside genuine writers and makes it harder to find great children’s fiction.

Elizabeth Tingle introduces to Anthony Jenkinson, who was born in Market Harborough: "the records of his travels and his surviving letters comprise the first English descriptions of the lands and peoples of Muscovy and Tartary. With recent historical interest in travel, life writing, and perceptions of ‘other,’ the story of Jenkinson adds a Leicestershire and Rutland dimension to the processes of globalisation and empire that made the modern world."

"Now they’re almost gone, some of us have started to feel nostalgic for those wastelands. They were dangerous, mysterious and wide open. Those that remain, pending development, are invariably locked down tight, with heavy security and surveillance." Ray Newman cpnsiders love and death in the rubblescape.