The Joy of Six 1306

"Some strategists are agonising about us reaching a peak, because we’re only first or second in 99 seats - I’d say that’s a nice problem to have, considering where we were in 2015." Matthew Pennell looks at how the Liberal Democrat fared in 2024.

Maria Kuchapska says Russia is reviving Soviet-era punitive psychiatry in occupied Ukraine: "In the Russian-occupied Luhansk region, Pavlo Lysianskyi, the director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Security, stated that 31 minors had been sent to forced psychiatric detention this year alone. Echoing the 1971-5 Five Year Plan, new psychiatric penal institutions are being erected in the occupied areas of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions."

Why were so many of last summer's rioters in their 40s and 50s? Sara H. Wilford studies the overlooked phenomenon of middle-aged radicalisation.

In 1968, Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting were the world’s most famous teens. In 2023, they sued Paramount for abuse. Lila Shapiro on the ethics of filming young actors.

Colin Speakman makes the case for reopening the railway from Skipton to Colne: "A youngster living in Colne or Nelson wanting to go to Leeds or Bradford University, or for a job in Skipton at Skipton Building Society, has exactly the same need for a fast, frequent train service as a kid in Ealing or Woking."

Rosemary Hill reviews a field guide to stone circles: "Prehistory moves constantly in dialogue with archaeology, which, until about 2000, was primarily concerned with excavations undertaken by bearded men with monosyllabic forenames who courted publicity."