The Critic Magazine

25 January 2024

The February issue of The Critic features a special section on how Western nations should respond to the Ukrainian offensive’s failure. Curt Mills assesses whether time is running out for American funding to Kyiv, Daniel Johnson argues NATO should double rather than quit its support, whilst Patrick Mercer responds that the conflict has shown both Western military tactics and its armaments supply chain as inadequate for modern warfare. Elsewhere in the magazine, Yuan Yi Zhu argues that England’s old law lords were preferable to the Supreme Court, and Andrea Valentino charts the declining religious and cultural hold of the Episcopalian Church in America. Charles Saumarez-Smith breaks the news that funding has been cut off for renewing and revising the Pevsner guides to the buildings of England, Scotland and Ireland, and Rufus Bird explores whether auction house practices are distorting the art market. Patrick Galbraith argues supermarkets are wrong to believe farmed venison is more sustainable than culling deer in the wild, Stephen Pollard is unimpressed by the “premierisation” of horse racing, and Nicholas Clairmont laments that The Simpsons has become preachy rather than funny. All this and The Critic’s unrivalled range of book reviews and insight into the arts, culture, and society of Britain and the wider world today.