In the magazine this month

May 2013

The woman I knew for 40 years was persistent but never provocative. She will be ranked among the very greatest figures in English history
The key to Margaret Thatcher is simplicity. By comparison with the Big Ten of English history, alongside whom she must surely be ranked, she was a straightforward person. Whereas King Alfred, Edward I, Henry V, Elizabeth, Cromwell, Chatham, William Pitt, Gladstone, Lloyd George and Churchill were all, in varying degrees, complex and many-sided people capable of surprising, confounding and shocking close admirers, Thatcher was simple, consistent and reliable.
CHARLIE LADERMAN
Stephen Hawking could learn from Antonio Munoz Molina who recognises that only the pursuit of truth can advance peace and understanding
KENNETH MINOGUE
UKIP have challenged the internationalist assumptions of the political elite. Will they succeed?
BRENDAN SIMMS
The Iron Lady's record with authoritarians is mixed but her profound confidence in the democratic rights of all peoples shines through
 
JOHN BOLTON
Obama’s multilateralism and a growing trend for Republicans to turn their backs on the world pose a grave security threat
PATRICK HEREN AND JOHN CONSTABLE
Foolhardy government assumptions about fuel prices are making a transition to clean technology needlessly expensive
MARY EBERSTADT
The postwar baby boom fuelled a religious revival, but the welfare state is no substitute for the family—or God
 
ED WEST
In Pakistan the Ahmadiyya community live in fear of attack. In England they are a model of integration and loyalty to the host country
LAURA FREEMAN
We may mock the Young Conservatives of the Fifties but they were unswervingly loyal and a formidable electoral force
JAMES MUMFORD
I tried to help Andrea, a disorientated stranger at a hectic London station, to the irritation of the state’s representatives