The Joy of Six 1447

Keir Starmer's digital ID project is a techno-authoritarian’s wet dream, argues Carole Cadwalladr: "This is a policy that wasn’t in the Labour Party’s manifesto, that no party faithful campaigned for and that no voters were told about on the doorstep. Instead, after some brief ground softening by pet journalists in friendly newspapers, it appeared out of almost nowhere in late September."

David Nowell Smith shows that accusations of "left-wing bias" against the BBC have a long history and arose from newspapers' fear of competition: "The first coordinated newspaper campaign against the ‘Reds’ at the BBC was initiated by the Daily Mail in January 1937, less than two weeks after a new BBC Charter had given the Corporation further editorial independence."

Carolyn Jackson and Mieke Van Houtte say the high-stakes tests common in English schools could be having a serious effect on children’s wellbeing.

"Academics warned that recovery from the October 2023 cyberattack, apparently by an international ransomware gang, has been 'agonisingly slow'. Even the imminent restoration of functions such as the library’s online catalogue will be of only limited help to researchers still unable to access key resources: Frances Jones finds a lack of concern at the plight of the British Library.

"We handed a loaded weapon to four-year-olds." Alex Kantrowitz on the regrets of the man who built the retweet.

Dick Weindling and Marianne Colloms tell the remarkable story of the two men who robbed eight London banks in a morning: "Robert wrote a lengthy confession and said he did it for: 'the devilment of the matter – the excitement, the ingenuity, the almost impossible success to crown it all, urged me to attempt the fraud'."