Idée fixe
Fiction portentously predicts reality in Anthony Trollope's dystopian vision of state-sponsored euthanasia
Politics, Ideas and the Arts
Palestine’s Tragedy
The recent Israeli Apartheid Week shamefully neglected Zionism's complaisance to peaceful co-existence
The Master of Historical Fiction
Allan Massie salutes Sir Walter Scott, master of historical fiction and author of among others, Rob Roy and Waverley
Is the Party Really Over for Labour?
Andrew Rawnsley, the author of the investigative bestseller about the Blair-Brown years, looks forward to the General Election with Standpoint's columnist Nick Cohen and the Editor, Daniel Johnson
Is the Obama Presidency Failing?
The administration is in deep trouble on healthcare and national security “What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them,” President Barack Obama declared in his inaugural
All to Play For as Cameron Wobbles
For two years, a Conservative victory looked to be a done deal — then the polls narrowed. Are the voters having second thoughts?
If England Had Remained Catholic
Did the Reformation rescue us from theocracy? Or are we poorer without pilgrims, saints and feasts?
Genius — Or Just Damned Hard Work?
Is chess genius a matter of genes, or of graft? The greatest chess players are usually described as “geniuses”. It’s a convenient term — but does anyone know what it means? Where
Bad Case of Botulism
‘This is a cautionary tale about a deception so delicious yet so serious that it causes us to reconsider the impact of the public intellectual on our culture’
Concerning Frank Kermode
Britain's most distinguished literary critic, who turned 90 last year, has many achievements to be proud of. But does the indefatigable grand old man of EngLit ever regret his role in promoting
The Great Experimentalist
The new Henry Moore retrospective re-establishes him as a pivotal artist of his time
A Very Foreign Foreigner
Koestler: The Indispensable Intellectual by Michael Scammell