The Critic Magazine

31 March 2022

In the April issue of The Critic, the magazine of ideas for open-minded readers, Owen Matthews reports from Armenia, the new home for émigrés from Putin’s Russia, and Allen Buchler recalls his two decades of fast times amid opportunity, corruption and revolution in post-Soviet Kyiv. Analysing the implications of the war in Ukraine, the former Foreign Secretary, David Owen, questions whether President Macron’s plans for a European army now makes sense and Anatol Lieven spots danger if sanctions against Russia become permanent. Away from that battlefront, the psychologist, Kirsty Miller, is aghast to discover the activist-written material about gender, race and social justice that Scottish school children are now taught as irrefutable fact, and a BBC whistle-blower reveals that the broadcaster’s terminated relationship with Stonewall has not led to a change in approach. With Lord’s ditching the Varsity and Eton v Harrow cricket matches, Patrick Kidd explains how modern Britain marginalised student sport while American college sport remains as popular as ever. Alexander Larman explores what it takes to become a cult writer, Sarah Ditum finds pleasure and pain in the life and rhymes of Kanye West, and Robert Thicknesse takes solace in Easter music. All this and The Critic’s monthly trip around the literary, artistic and cultural world.