The Joy of Six 1605

"The public’s disgust with Trump is now inextricably bound up with disgust for that other cult – the smug-maxxing techno-narcissists who think we all want to live in the world they’re designing." Tina Brown looks at America after the midterms.

Sol Gamsu finds that Britain's schools are segregated by social class – in London in particular: "For post-16 education, London’s state schools and colleges are very unequal. In affluent western boroughs such as Richmond upon Thames or Kingston, working-class students are heavily concentrated in further education colleges, with a larger number of more middle-class state schools."

Lindsey Blumell says the media ultimately exposed Russell Brand, but his fame and celebrity added to victims' trauma: "The trial is an example of the role media can play in uplifting the career of powerful people like Brand. This is both through platforming celebrities in 'puff' articles and TV segments, as well as in their failure to act on reports of unprofessional and illegal behaviour."

"There is a note of tragedy in all of this, I think. In the days before sinking to the level of ugly and disreputable grouches such as Brendan O’Neill and Richard Littlejohn, Pearson was first a reliably clever TV reviewer for the Independent, then a bona fide literary sensation." Ian Winwood accounts for the hurtle to the right of my old classmate Allison Pearson.

"Made at Ealing Studios, Dead of Night ingeniously weaves together the separate visions of four directors. And it is the hand of Alberto Cavalcanti that gives his short tale of a ventriloquist going mad – or being driven to madness by supernatural means – its peculiar and lasting power." Self-Styled Siren on the Brazilian who also directed Went the Day Well?

Giles Wilcock on the mystery of the Black cricketer who played for the MCC in 1902.

From The Mere back to Ellesmere canal basin

I walked from Ellesmere canal basin to The Mere through the centre of the town, which made them seem further apart than they are. So I took the direct route on the way back, which took me up Church Hill.

When I reached a sign indicating there was a bowling green on top of an overgrown mound, I remembered Clun and Bishop's Castle, which both have greens among the remains of their old castles, and reasoned that the mound was probably once the motte of a castle. I was right - there's a brief entry on Ellesmere Castle on Wikipedia.

So this must be the oldest part of Ellesmere and, despite some interesting houses, it's a part most visitors don't get to see. I climbed Church Hill. went down the other side and, after I had crossed a main road, I was the parched cricket ground again and knew I was almost back at the canal basin.

The Joy of Six 1598

"The world's solar power is crossing a threshold. A decade ago, it barely registered on a global scale, providing just 1 per cent of the world's power. In 2026, it will almost certainly increase to 10 per cent of power, and overtake nuclear, a mainstay of electricity since the late 1970s." Jocelyn Timperley on the reasons for solar's success and where it may go from here.

David Gauke asks: "What were they thinking of? All those British right-of-centre politicians who had wholeheartedly backed the Ukrainians in their brave resistance to Russian aggression, who then declared their support for Donald Trump’s candidacy in the 2024 Presidential election – Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Robert Jenrick and others."

Bobby Dean, Lib Dem MP for Carshalton and Wallington, says Britain must not shut the door on Hongkongers persecuted for defending democracy.

"Britain’s cycle of flooding and drought simply can’t be treated as two separate crises. They are twin symptoms of the exact same underlying condition: that we have systematically broken our landscape’s ability to act as a sponge." Rebecca Wrigley argues that turning our countryside back into a natural sponge is the key to escaping the flood-drought whiplash.

"In October 1969, the artists Gilbert & George celebrated a year of performing their 'singing sculpture' work Underneath The Arches by inviting figures in the art world and East London residents to a special performance in the street." Greg Salter ponders art, homosociality and post-war reconstruction.

Alex Bowden thinks English cricket has become fixated on celebrating the final test matches of long-serving players.

The Joy of Six 1591

"Conservatives have called Burnham’s intervention 'dangerous and divisive', which could be interpreted as a denial that interference happened or just as a preference that it not be mentioned to protect delicate pro-Brexit sensibilities. Farage’s feelings were certainly hurt. He called the prime minister a liar and described the whole thing as a 'Russia hoax' – the formula Donald Trump applied to well-substantiated allegations that his 2016 presidential campaign got a helping hand from Moscow." Rafael Behr says Brexiters can't cope with the fact that Putin cheered them on.

Jack Dyson reveals how academy trusts try to justify the enormous salaries paid to some chief executives: "In July, the Department for Education named and shamed 56 trusts for high executive pay, ordering them to explain how the salaries were 'defensible' and represented 'good value for money'."

Rebekah Gear introduces her research on messy, risky outdoor play for children – and how adults stop them enjoying it. "Children expressed things such as 'I might fall', 'I don't want to get wet', and 'My teacher doesn’t let me'. These were not spontaneous fears; they were reflections of the messages the children had repeatedly heard from adults."

Wheat, apples and carrots are half as nutritious as they were in the 1960s, reports Rebecca Whittaker.

Malin Hay reviews a book on century of Hollywood flops: "The 1990s were the era of the swashbuckling action movie, but as well as The Mask of Zorro and The Mummy there were Cutthroat Island and The 13th Warrior (at a loss of around $133 million, possibly the biggest flop in movie history).

"Unlike many such cases which happen behind closed doors, Jeffrey Archer’s exclusion from the Marylebone Cricket Club at Lord's Cricket Ground was well documented." Seth Thévoz on Lord Archer and the MCC.

Ellesmere Yard: A living relic of the canal age

Ellesmere's canal basin is at the end of a short branch off the Llangollen Canal, which used to be called the Shropshire Union Canal, but was rebranded in the 1980s in the hope that would bring more visitors.

At the point where this branch joins the main line stands an attraction I didn't know much about: Ellesmere Yard. 

The Canal & River Trust describes it:

Established in 1806, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, Ellesmere Yard is steeped in history. Originally the headquarters of Ellesmere Canal Company, it played a critical role in the golden era of canal building, helping to maintain the Llangollen and Montgomery canals, and providing a base for engineering luminaries, Thomas Telford and William Jessop.

The site has been in operation ever since, retaining much of its original charm and infrastructure, from its blacksmith’s forge and pattern room to its dry dock and workshops. Indeed, some areas have barely changed in over half a century, as if frozen in time.

The Trust is restoring the yard buildings, not only for its own use but also as spaces for other artisan crafts. This is somewhere to visit properly next time I'm in Ellesmere.

Here the first couple of photos relate to the yard, and the rest of the arm that runs to Ellesmere basin. Note to the arid cricket ground – very August 2026.

The Joy of Six 1588

"Tony Blair once observed that the first step from opposition to government is an honest analysis of why you are in opposition. Kemi Badenoch and the people around her don't seem to have done that - or if they have, they’ve come up with the wrong answer." Andrew Cooper goes to the Conservative Party conference.

Samantha Asumadu reports that Times Higher Education has given no coverage to the allegations against James Orr, the  Cambridge academic and former Reform UK policy chief whose foundation receives Hungary-linked funding. By coincidence, THE signed a partnership with Viktor Orbán’s government.

Achim Hildebrandt et al. examine David Goodhart's claim that a split between Somewheres and Anywheres lies at the heart of many contemporary political conflicts. They find little evidence to support it.

"Creepy. That’s the word for the rising right-wing interest in family policy, exemplified by a recent administration proposal to pay $9,000 each year per child for women to stay at home with their children. The money would come from, and deplete, an existing federal programme that helps working parents pay for childcare." Mitchell Zimmerman says the Trump-Vance family policy reeks of white supremacy and misogyny.

"With their bold transpositions of anachronistic elements, both works can be seen as unconscious, pre-bellum statements against the soon to emerge behemoth of post modernity which would come to be an all-encompassing cultural filter." Corse Present considers Geoffrey Hill's Mercian Hymns and David Rudkin's Penda's Fen.

Geoff Lemon says cricket won't stop taking about the 2018 sandpaper scandal until the Australian authorities give a full account of what happened.

A portrait of the last days of independent Penge

A film made by the Penge Rotary Club in 1964. It provides a useful corrective to the view, widespread on Bluesky, that we all lived in shoeboxes and ate gravel until about 20 years ago, while showing us why the Sixties had to happen.

The former canal mentioned is the Croydon Canal; note too the children playing cricket without being organised by adults and an unexpected appearance by the Crystal Palace dinosaurs.

As to the palace itself, my father remember being woken as a small boy in Horsham, West Sussex, in 1936 to see the glow on the northern horizon that was it burning down.

Then steel yourself for an appearance by the feared Penge Formation Dancers, before the demise of Penge's council is mourned.

As ever in such films, it is the street scenes that are the most interesting.

Colin Milburn at Lord's in 1968: The first test innings I remember

The first test innings I can remember is Colin Milburn hitting the Australians all round Lord's in 1968.

And here it is, with John Arlott adding his comments.

The innings in question took place on the second morning of a rain-ruined match, and Milburn was the top scorer in England's first innings with 83.

England then skittled Australia in their first innings (David Brown 5-42) and made them follow on, but didn't have time to force a win. The full scorecard is on cricinfo.

Ken Farnes: The forgotten England fast bowler who died in WWII

I remember Trevor Bailey talking about Ken Farnes, but I don't think I've ever seen film of him before today.

Farnes stood 6 feet, five inches tall, which made him a giant in the 1930s. In that decade he took 690 wickets at 21.45 for Essex and Cambridge University. 

He also played 15 tests for England between 1934 and 1939, taking 60 wickets at 28.64.

Cricket Web has a good article about him, and describes his last days:

Farnes joined the RAF and trained as a pilot, largely in Canada, and returned to the UK in 1941 where he was killed on the evening of 20 October 1941 near Chipping Warden in Northamptonshire. 

He had been based there for a month, readying himself for the job of flying Wellington bombers. He had wanted to be a fighter pilot but his height prevented that. 

On the evening of his death he was taking his first unsupervised night flight as a training exercise. A landing went wrong and Farnes was killed instantly. 

And for trivia fans:

He was single at the time of his death and had never been married, although it seems he had found his life partner, a divorcee whose only daughter went on to marry the film critic Barry Norman and who retained into old age fond memories of the man she believed would have been her step father but for that tragic night.

The Joy of Six 1573

Who are the goons in balaclavas who turned up in Dover and Portsmouth? Hope Not Hate explains: "In 2016, he [Danny Tommo] pleaded guilty to attempted kidnapping and was sentenced to two years in prison after taking part in an armed attempt to abduct a man during a drugs-related dispute."

Rosemary Runswick argues that the Liberal Democrats should fight the Holborn and St Pancras by-election hard and answers her critics in the comments.

Cathy Young pays tribute to Gloria Steinem: "The vision Steinem shared in 1971 of a humanist and egalitarian future may have been simplistic in its idealism. But in 2026, it’s a far more humane vision, and better for it, than what her right-wing detractors have to offer."

"During the 1868 election his opponent suggested that McLagan was 'not a Scotchman' and a racist cartoon was circulated in the constituency depicting McLagan as a slavedriver with a blackened face, flogging a topless man in a kilt. The cartoon played on the status of McLagan’s father as an enslaver, local perceptions of McLagan's racial identity and statements McLagan made during the 1868 election in support of flogging in the military." Martin Spychal has researched the career of Peter McLagan, whom he calls "Scotland’s first Black MP".

"She was multifaceted in a way that few are: she was a popular, well-respected, beloved iconoclast, a true original, and she also radiated the self-referential camp of a celebrity impersonator. She operated both as a person and as an idea: Dolly seemed to consciously 'do' Dolly. A songwriter, musician, actress, philanthropist, advocate, mogul and more, she was always pivoting between different aspects of herself, and twirling those impressive embellished skirts and dresses all the while." Niela Orr celebrates the life and music of Dolly Parton.

The Secret Cricket Coach asks where the hell Rob Key is: "For years he was paid to tell us what was right and wrong with English cricket. Now he is responsible for much of it, but recently we haven’t heard much from him. England have had a difficult period, questions are being asked about behaviour, standards and leadership, and it is Joe Root who seems to be answering them. I find that quite strange."

Sky Sports faces down Pakistan authorities over Michael Atherton's interview with Imran Khan's sons

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The Pakistan Cricket Board threatened to tell its team not to take the field yesterday afternoon if Sky Sports screened a Michael Atherton interview with Imran Khan's two sons.

Sky delayed the broadcast while conversations with the board took place, but to its credit eventually broadcast the 18-minute insert.

In the interview, reports Cricinfo, Imran's sons Suleiman and Kasim Khan expressed concern about the health of their father, who has been in prison for three years, and said they feared for his life.

The Joy of Six 1564

"If there is one consistent theme running through Farage’s political career, it is his striking ability to make enemies out of friends. He seems to be running out of allies. That helps to explain why rumours about his own future, including speculation that health concerns could eventually force him to step back, carry so much weight." Nigel Farage won his by-election but, says Zoe Grunewald, that victory has failed to reinvigorate his party.

Xueyu Geng asks if Britain’s railways can cope with ever‑more extreme heat: "Railway assets have very long lives: a track, bridge or embankment built or substantially renewed today could still be in service in 50 or 100 years. That creates a fundamental mismatch between the current design life and a climate that keeps changing within that lifetime."

Emma Peplow looks back to Martin Bell's victory in Tatton in 1997.

"If you are spending a couple of hours a day scrolling through various apps on your phone, that’s a couple of hours that are not available for reading. It’s also possible that they affect our ability to concentrate for long periods on time on text. Essentially, reading was a more popular leisure pastime in the past, and that probably ensured a steady pipeline of students for the humanities. That pipeline is no longer there." Daisy Christodoulou on the decline of English Literature as a school subject.

"Just occasionally, when your teenage heroes turn out like this, doesn't it just make your heart want to sing along with them?" Pete Paphides salutes Paul Heaton.

Tanya Aldred looks at the problems our extreme summer has caused cricket groundstaff.

The Joy of Six 1560

"Every week I read of people seeking planning permission for children’s homes whose backgrounds are in real estate, building, motor dealerships, pubs, caravan parks and light engineering. The one thing they don’t have is experience in the care of children and young people." Illegal children’s homes are thriving because profit has broken the care system. argues Martin Barrow.

Russell Brandom says Mark Zuckerberg’s AI manifesto shows exactly why people don’t like AI: "Even as Zuckerberg tries to paint a picture of the wonderful future abundant superintelligence will bring, he keeps reminding us of all the ways it’s likely to go wrong."

Erin Clabough on the reasons for student anxiety: "Grades aren’t the only source of pressure that students experience. Social comparison plays a role, too, along with the pressure to only answer questions when they’re already sure, to never seem confused and to stay constantly productive. Based on my experience and research, kids pick up on the message that they should keep their curiosity at a 5 out of 10 scale, instead of a 10 out of 10, especially if it strays outside the curriculum."

"The web had not yet become a pure retrieval machine. It still had a culture of exploration, and many services were designed to help users browse topical categories rather than fire a query into a universal index. In that world, a webring or directory was not a compromise. It was often the main event." Alan Bradley remembers life before Google.

"The suits don’t own cricket. The suits just manage the top floor. The soul of the game lives right here on the grass, kept alive by the people who simply care too much to let it go. And as long as there’s a Saturday afternoon, a cold drink, and a game to watch at Barnes, my heart isn’t going anywhere else." Elizabeth Ammon loves club cricket.

Nathen Amin travels to Lisbon on the trail of Perkin Warbeck.

The Joy of Six 1559

"Violence has prevailed against the freedom of the press. I was denied the right to report on the disgraceful acts which later unfolded after I left for my own safety – and that is wrong. Violence against anyone should be condemned, that's a fact. But violence against a person simply trying to report is an obstruction of truth." Henry Durand tries to report on the mob violence in Thetford.

Carole Cadwalladr introduces a timeline of The Nerve's investigation of Nigel Farage’s biggest funder, Christopher Harborne, and argues that Farage is a symptom, not a cause, of forces reshaping politics across the world: "Farage has never known anything like it. There are now questions which even he can’t dodge. Questions even the BBC is finally asking. And his luck seems to be running out. A hasty plan to throw off a parliamentary investigation by quitting parliament before he could be sanctioned has spectacularly backfired in the biggest own goal of his career."

Rebecca Nicholson reviews the pitch-dark documentary series Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke, which is currently on BBC iPlayer: "As a vlogger, she and her husband, Kevin, made a living from YouTube, posting videos on the popular channel 8 Passengers, now defunct, about Mormon family life and parenting their six children in the picturesque city of Springville, Utah. But in 2023 Franke was arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse and sentenced to up to 30 years in prison."

"This is a pattern seen repeated throughout our society and system: a government quick to make 'hard choices' that involve easy solutions, but seemingly entirely unwilling or unable to take on the tougher opponents and ... seek harder more essential solutions." Paul Rowlston argues that Britain's proposed social media ban for under-16s tackles a symptom while leaving the real problem untouched.

"Caricatures of the Luddites as history’s losers are simply false," says Brian Lewis. "We have not stopped talking about them ever since."

Giles Wilcock looks back to 1919 – the last time cricket's county championship faced a serious threat: "When the war ended, the Bradford League remained attractive, and the Lancashire League began hunting for star names to compete. And because of the unique circumstances of the 1919 season – two-day games and relatively low county wages – they were often successful."

GUEST POST In praise of outgrounds: How cricket in small towns made a roaring comeback

The Hundred may be struggling for spectators, but cricket's One-Day Cup is thriving by using grounds that do not usually see professional cricket. Matthew Pennell explains why.

Neath, Mansfield, Gosforth, Farington, Arundel, York and Cheltenham. Towns and cities you wouldn’t normally link together, but what they have in common is they all hosted sell-out games of cricket in the first week of the One-Day Cup. 

These are a combination of brand new, rediscovered or longstanding outgrounds that are proving very popular with fans. This is despite relative indifference from the ECB and county squads being depleted by the existence of franchise cricket being played on test match grounds.

This year sell outs mean a crowd of between 4,000 and 6,000. Now, football fans might be dismissive of such numbers, as they're equivalent to fourth-tier attendances in the English league, but they represent a historic high for cricket and many outgrounds are in small towns where no other professional team sport is played. 

For perspective, in 2003 the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) got very excited at crowd numbers for the first season of T20 cricket (played on county or test match grounds at evenings and weekends). These averaged around 4,000 and were far higher than the tournament it replaced, the Benson & Hedges Cup, which had an average attendance of 1,100 in 2002. At the time ECB Marketing Manager, Stuart Robertson crowed in Wisden magazine, "We are delighted by the response we have had so far."

I doubt we'll see such a positive statement from the ECB about bumper One-Day Cup attendances. It’s somewhat awkward for them that numbers are up for the Cup in provincial grounds, but down for their precious franchise tournament.

In many ways outground cricket is the antithesis of the Hundred. Crowds are dedicated and knowledgeable, you're likely to bump into parents of players (hello David Fulton’s dad), ex-players (hello Martin McCague – you are as wide as you are tall), BBC local radio commentators (hello friendly BBC Radio Gloucestershire team). It’s a pleasure to rub shoulders with people who don’t have to ask what’s going on and have been to every home game this season, so have seen every player talked up into England reckoning.

Outgrounds are small enough, without the surge in popularity, to create a good atmosphere, Maidstone with 800 people spread evenly across the grass bank didn't feel sparse. As cricket in England is not played in enormodomes the competition isn't so much about numbers as experience.

Which is the prettiest ground? Certainly Abergavenny, Arundel and Tunbridge Wells would be in with a shout (please comment below if you think I’ve missed a good one). I remember the Guardian making a

point of covering every county game at Abergavenny, despite its remoteness, because the surroundings were so lovely.

Food is a big factor in the cricket experience, I recall cupcakes and cakes supplied to a hospitality marquee by club volunteers at Guildford at reasonable prices, coupled with relaxed rules and regs about bringing your own provisions. Across the piece, it's great value for money – you’re not getting ripped off by ticket prices, car parking charges or catering.

While administrators talk of T20 and the Hundred bringing new fans to grounds, it's also the case that franchises alienate many established fans and the bigger counties absolutely need to play in several venues to reach out to their entire catchment area. In an ideal world the 18 counties would play at more than 60 venues a season, visiting several locations not covered by football or rugby. For example, Yorkshire play in Leeds, Scarborough and York. They could easily sell out in another half dozen venues, and some members would say they’re ignoring South Yorkshire altogether.

Is this year a one-off or part of a trend? Certainly the early summer heatwave in Europe has encouraged staycations and our own summer weather has made people more confident about getting a full day's play. Hopefully in a few years time I'll revisit this and talk of counties wrestling with fitting more temporary seating in the grounds that are bursting today.

Matthew Pennell blogs at Return of the Liberal.

Under the Influence? A new report on alcohol at Westminster

When the newly elected Hannah Spencer – the Green victor in this year's Gorton and Denton by-election – voiced her shock at the role alcohol played at Westminster, other MPs and social media users queued up to patronise her and assure us that everything was fine there.

But perhaps they will pay more attention to a new report from the Institute of Alcohol Studies entitled Under the influence? Perspectives of alcohol in the parliamentary workplace among UK MPs and staff. 

You can read a media release on the institute's website and download the report from there too.

The release says:

Westminster is a unique workplace where alcohol is woven into the working environment. Staff members based in constituency offices were far less likely to report being offered alcohol at work meetings or events compared to staff based in Westminster and MPs, and participants also drew stark comparisons with the presence of alcohol in other workplaces.

The foreword is written by Beccy Cooper, who was a public health consultant before she won Worthing West for Labour in 2024. She says:

Two findings stood out to me. Almost one in ten respondents reported a negative experience because of someone else’s drinking at work, and 70 per cent either didn’t know, or weren’t sure, how to raise a concern about a colleague’s drinking. 

That combination – real, measurable harm, and no clear route to address it – is exactly the kind of gap we need to address. While social and networking elements are important in a healthy workplace, colleagues describing how the drinking culture plays a distinct role in career progression raises significant concerns about wellbeing, inclusion, and professionalism. 

The Guardian story on Under the Influence? emphasises its tales of excess and the claim by one MP that other members have had their stomachs pumped after consuming so much alcohol that they ended up in hospital.

I am reminded of another British institution that has seen better days: cricket.

This is from a blog post I wrote in 2017:

In the course of my day job I went to an event on the psychology and wellbeing of military personnel.

A session on mental health saw general agreement that the biggest issue facing the Forces in that field was alcohol misuse. ...

Cricket shares many features with military life – slightly awkward male camaraderie, periods of boredom followed by periods of nerve-shredding excitement, public school officers – and alcohol seems to play the same central role in it.

Alcohol is used as a reward and a consolation, to oil the wheels of socialisation and quite possibly to ease the nerves of the battle-scarred too.

One of the attractions of political activism for me, I will admit, was that after delivering, canvassing or committee meetings generally ended in the pub. In fact, there was a theory that political meetings all ended an hour before "Last orders", no matter when they began.

These days pubs are open later but no one can afford the beer prices, so I suppose everything has changed. By the sound of it, the only place where nothing has changed is Westminster.

You don't have to be a Puritan to think it has the wrong attitude to alcohol.

The Joy of Six 1555

Benjamin Goodair says Andy Burnham is right to want for‑profit firms out of social care: "The majority of social care in England is run for-profit. The consequences of this go far beyond unfair profiteering. It actually worsens many of the core problems with England’s social care systems – making it less available, of worse quality and widening inequalities."

Children from poorer families do worse at school. Nadia Siddiqui explains why and what can be done to narrow the gap in attainment.

Steff Aquarone makes the case for a minister for coastal communities: "Too many coastal towns face lower than average wages, poorer transport connections, seasonal economies, shortages of affordable housing and increasing pressure from coastal erosion and climate change. Despite their enormous contribution to our economy, our heritage and our identity, they are too often overlooked when national investment decisions are made."

"Growing up there in the early 60s, the countryside never seemed too far away. We kids were often out and about, playing in the woods, making dens and tree swings, watching cows graze in farmers' fields and scrumping in nearby orchards where Warwick University and Cannon Park shopping centre now stand. There were brooks to jump across (or fall into regularly in my case) and an old Roman ford near to the busy A45." Ruth Cherrington celebrates Coventry's Camley Estate.

Ben Duckett is puzzled that attendances for cricket's Hundred tournament are falling, despite the presence of more star names, reports The Sports Encounter. What he and the games administrators need to grasp is that British sports fans' attachment is to teams, not to individual players.

Claire Madge has been to see the Richard Dadd exhibition at the Royal Academy: "There is no moment of finding 'madness' in Dadd's work, whether it was completed before his breakdown or after. Even the eyes of his figures from scenes of Hamlet completed in 1840 and the strange fairies that ring a sleeping Titania from 1841 show an artist with an ability to capture the uncanny and one who could easily get lost in the detail even before his psychosis came to the fore."

The Joy of Six 1552

Alice McCool investigates the web of culture-war connections – from the US Christian right to Viktor Orbán's influence network – that lay behind the first British CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) conference.

It's all well and good saying we should regulate social media. But social media is already regulated. So why is it failing? And what could we do in response? Chaminda Jayanetti has some ideas.

Keyana Sapp explains why American cookware is getting worse: "Once you understand the brand licensing structure, you see it everywhere, and the pattern is always the same: one company owns the name, a different company makes the product, and the factory that earned the name is liquidated."

"Around the time those tower blocks were going up, as John Pendlebury recounts, local preservationists and councillors in York teamed up to imaginatively restore and repopulate the historic precinct inside the city walls – an early example of a heritage-driven strategy that Newcastle and Liverpool would seize on a few decades later." Susan Pedersen reviews The Modern British City 1945-2000, edited by Simon Gunn, Peter Mandler and Otto Saumarez Smith.

"The gulf between the 'haves' and 'have-nots' in county cricket is wider than ever before, and is set to grow further still in the wake of last year's Hundred equity sale, according to a new report into the domestic game's finances." Cricinfo has some worrying but not unexpected news.

Peter Bradshaw watches Andrei Tarkovsky's film Nostalghia (1983).

The Joy of Six 1543

"In many cases, lack of coordination and administrative errors in the Home Office cause failed removals. Complications around booking flights, arranging escorts and other practicalities have all been found to prevent deportations, as well as procedural issues such as lack of travel documents. But continued misrepresentation in the media and political rhetoric means the ECHR has continued to be a scapegoat." Sarah Singer argues that the government's new immigration and asylum bill won't work.

"'I’m Northern Irish', I would say with indignation, every time an English person referred to me as Irish. Growing up in Newtownards in the 1990s there was never any question of my Britishness. British passport, Union Jacks on every lamppost, and fully immersed in British pop culture." Yet Claire JC is now campaigning for a United Ireland – she explains why.

Nick Baird thinks the Liberal Democrats' proposed scheme for Defence Bonds is a bad idea.

"Picked up by the stump microphone as England’s batting unravelled at Trent Bridge, the Kiwis summed up what a lot of us are thinking: 'What are they doing?' It was aimed at the batters in front of them. But by the end of what was an extraordinary, shocking and chaotic day, it felt like the question that summed up English cricket from top to bottom." Elizabeth Ammon asks if anyone in English cricket knows what they are doing.

Timothy Ott on Charles Dickens's visit to Washington: "Dickens and an unnamed official, 'having twice or thrice rung a bell which nobody answered,' simply entered the White House and attempted to find the president on their own."

Nigel Andrew on the forgotten genius of Ivy Compton-Burnett: "The critic Norman Shrapnel wrote: 'Of the two candidates for greatness among comic novelists of our time, Evelyn Waugh and Ivy Compton-Burnett, it is her prospect that looks the more secure.'"

Jonathan Liew tots up the price English cricket has paid for Bazball

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Ben Stokes's final text innings was embarrassingly self-indulgent. As Jonathan Riew says in a great article in the Guardian today, it "managed to capture in a single moment everything people dislike about this team".

But he also looks far deeper into what ails English cricket. So he praises Stokes's "legendary" talent, endurance, ambition and competitiveness, and says those qualities could have inspired England to big series wins if they had been intelligently harnessed:

Instead, English cricket was more interested in commodifying Stokes’s talent than channelling it. Under the directorship of Andrew Strauss in the mid-2010s, and then again under McCullum from 2022 onwards, there was a clear culture shift away from team ethic towards individual expression. Play your shots. Fill your boots in franchise cricket. Be where the noise is. Party hard. 

A 2019 ECB strategy document stated that the job of the England team was to "create heroes", noting that young fans were often more inspired by individual athletes than the team they played for.

The results achieved under this new regime were impressive for a year or two, but have long been more disappointing than anything else. And, writes Riew, we have paid quite a price for those so-so returns:

Let’s consider some of the collateral damage English cricket has generated over the past two decades: the terrestrial television audience, state school cricket, the smaller counties, people who can no longer afford England tickets, an entire generation of players who were told they were a useless anachronism with no chance of making it for England. The Blast, detonated to make space for The Hundred, which has now been sold off, along with most of August.

And the future?

Once more, a new era is coming. Most probably it will be Brook, a man with no discernible leadership skills who bats like he left the oven on, but does generate excellent content. 

Perhaps we may even be treated to a display of performative humility, a fleeting attempt to reconnect with the public ahead of next year’s ticket deadline. As ever, we eagerly await the next chapter. Equally, there comes a point when you run out of things to burn down.

I can claim some prescience here, for I wrote this in Liberal Democrat News back in 2004:

People think the cricket authorities are stuffy, but really they are the most shamelessly commercial administrators of all. There are now logos on the players' clothing and painted on the field of play. For the right price you could probably get your company's slogan tattooed on the President of the MCC's buttocks.

But then I suspect that goes for the British upper classes as a whole.