The Joy of Six 1291

"With the 'Tractor Tax' protests filling the news for several days, yesterday delivered an email from Lib Dem HQ informing me that our MPs are demanding that the tax be axed. I was both surprised and disappointed to see our MPs siding with some very wealthy vested interests on this issue." Nick Baird says Lib Dem MPs are wrong to campaign against the government's changes to inheritance tax.

Alexandra Hall Hall on the changes the Democrats must make: "They voted for [Trump} ... not because they approve of his character, but because he successfully managed to come across as more in-touch with them and their concerns than any of the Democrat policy wonks crafting Kamala Harris' campaign messages and strategy, or the celebrities who endorsed her."

"The Armenian genocide of 1915-1917 ... is still denied by its perpetrators; indeed, politicians praise the men responsible and even make scornful jibes about the victims. The issue for Armenians is not so much about 'closure' as a fear that the same undercurrents of hatred are still brewing and will inspire further violence, a fear in part realised last year when Azerbaijan, Turkey’s ally, carried out what human rights groups called the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of over 100,000 Armenians." Britain's energy policy is making us allies of the Armenians' enemies, argues Ed West.

Ruairí Cullen explains new British Academy interactive maps that reveal cold spots in social sciences, humanities and arts in UK higher education, especially affecting disadvantaged students.

Lawrence Buell goes in search of the Great American Novel and returns with some recommendations.

"There doesn’t seem to be an obvious reason to create the crescent-shaped street. Perhaps it was a creative whim or perhaps it was an attempt to maximise space; whatever Stuckey was thinking, he created a crescent which can supposedly boast the smallest radius in Europe." Look Up London takes us to Keystone Crescent near King's Cross station.