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Hassan Akram

Review: Making the Weather: Six Politicians Who Shaped Modern Britain by Vernon Bogdanor

Six essays are included here, one for each Carlylean “great man”, covering biographical and ideological context as well as political analysis.

Tom Egerton: “There’s no point judging a prime minister or a government fairly if you’re not going to look at what wicket they’re playing...

Tom Egerton has worked with Sir Anthony Seldon on The Conservative Effect 2010-24: 14 Wasted Years?, The Impossible Office? The History of the British...

Shashi Tharoor, UN diplomat, novelist, politician, and historian, speaks to Cherwell about his work and career

Dr Shashi Tharoor is an Indian politician, writer, and former diplomat. He has written twenty-six books spanning history, politics, biography, religion, literary criticism, fiction,...

Rory Stewart on populism, podcasting, and why he left the Bullingdon Club

Rory Stewart has been an academic, podcaster, writer, diplomat and politician. He read PPE at Balliol. While an undergraduate, he tutored Princes William and...

Review: Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Oxford Playhouse – “Nic Rackow is revelatory” 

This new production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, a glamorous, engrossing period drama, showing at the Oxford Playhouse, is elevated by its stars into one of the great shows of the year. 

Alan Johnson on his time as Home Secretary, raising tuition fees, and why he loves Harold Wilson

"This idea that higher education should be completely free is ludicrous."

Review: Joker: Folie à Deux

Joker: Folie a Deux is ultimately too disjointed and unnecessary to win Oscars or make headlines.

Lord Peter Mandelson on New Labour, his time at Oxford, and why he is running to be University Chancellor

"Oxford is a global university, and I believe it needs a global Chancellor"

James O’Brien on Brexit, Boris Johnson, and making radio go viral

"Nigel Farage thought he was coming in to have his tummy tickled. I helped him soil himself."

On Leadership by Tony Blair, Precipice by Robert Harris, and Oxford crime – Books of the Month

On Leadership by Tony Blair; Precipice by Robert Harris; Lessons in Crime: Academic Mysteries edited by Martin Edwards

North Korea and the Global Nuclear Order review – “An excellent account”

Dr Edward Howell, whose columns in the Spectator and the Telegraph are among the few intelligent and readable things left in those outlets, has...

A Revolution Betrayed by Peter Hitchens review – In Defence of Grammar Schools

Review – A Revolution Betrayed: How Egalitarians Wrecked the British Education System by Peter Hitchens. ISBN: 9781399400077  Most people accept that the British education system...

Veranilda by George Gissing review – The best historical novel never written

George Gissing remains the most underrated novelist in the English language. He wrote twenty-three novels, although the average bookshop today only contains four of...

Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart review – “The prime minister we never had”

This is a marvellous book, a memoir of Rory Stewart’s nine years in Parliament, and its greatest flaw is that it is not long...