The Critic Podcast

And is there a point to counter-factual history?

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This week, Graham Stewart speaks to Katharine Birbalsingh, headmistress of Michaela Community School in Brent, on education and schooling during Coronavirus. Michaela Community School (https://mcsbrent.co.uk/) is a trail-blazing school achieving very high results from its pupils. Also in this podcast, Graham asks Jeremy Black, Emeritus Professor of History at Exeter University, whether there is a point to counter-factual history.

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Music: "Modern Jazz Samba" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

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And what is oligarch money doing to the art world?

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In this week's Critic podcast, Professor Jeremy Black, author of Imperial Legacies: the British Empire around the world, argues that campaigns across universities to "decolonise the curriculum" are often less about broadening the range of interpretations of the past and more about promoting a radical alternative political agenda.

Graham Stewart also talks to the critic, Nicholas T. Parsons, author of Civilisation and its Malcontents on how oligarch money is turning the art world into a circus of absurdity. And the Critic's artist in residence, Miriam Elia, talks with Graham about the satisfaction of caricaturing the postures of the chattering classes.

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Image: Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images

Music: "Modern Jazz Samba" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

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And how much longer can Britain's WWII commemorations endure into the future?

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How much longer should the lockdown go on and is it now causing more problems than it is solving? To discuss the suppositions that got us into the lockdown and whether the government's 5 tests are valid measures to meet before relaxing it, the Critic's political editor Graham Stewart talks to the lockdown sceptic and entrepreneur, Luke Johnson, who was formally chairman of Channel 4 and who is now chairman of Risk Capital Partners and of Bread Ltd, and to Alistair Haimes, who runs a private asset managements business based in Bristol and who has written for The Critic online about what the data tells us.

And, one event that the lockdown is set to scale down is this Friday's 75th anniversary of VE Day. How much longer can Britain's commemorations of its sacrifices in two world wars endure into the future, and what did pre-20th century Britons united nationally to celebrate? Professor Jeremy Black charts our evolving history of national commemorations.

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Image: Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images

Music: "Modern Jazz Samba" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

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...and is Scottish Labour still relevant for Starmer's Labour party?

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In this week's Critic podcast, our political editor, Graham Stewart asks Professor Jeremy Black why Britain's armed forces are better trusted to deliver procurement than other state bodies (like the Department of Health and Public Health England) and whether Britons have always held the armed forces in such high esteem? Graham also talks to John McTernan, former special adviser to Tony Blair, on the contribution Scots have made to the Labour Party and whether that debt still exists now that Scottish Labour only has one MP?

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Image: Justin Setterfield/Getty Images

Music: "Modern Jazz Samba" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

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As working from home becomes the new norm, Natascha Engel (former Labour MP for North East Derbyshire and Deputy Speaker for the House of Commons) discusses with Graham Stewart about the shift to online parliament, and why we should be wary about making this a permanent change. Also, Professor Jeremy Black considers how online learning has effected universities, and what this means for their futures.

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Image: IR_Stone/Getty Images

Music: "Modern Jazz Samba" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

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In this week's podcast, Graham Stewart discusses with Kapil Komireddi and Toby Young about the origins of the Coronavirus crisis, whether we should be in a lockdown at all, and whether saving vulnerable lives is an economic price worth paying.

Kapil Komireddi is the author of internationally acclaimed ‘Malevolent Republic: A short History of the New India’, and Toby Young is the commentator and founder of Free Speech Union, and LockdownSceptics.org (https://lockdownsceptics.org/) a place for those who question official approaches and information about the coronavirus crisis.

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Image: A pedestrian passes the boarded up 'Ye Olde London' pub in the City district of London, U.K., on Thursday, April 9, 2020. U.K (Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Music: "Modern Jazz Samba" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

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This week, Graham Stewart speaks to Emiritus Professor of History at Exeter University, Jeremy Black, about historical reactions to national crises, and David Scullion discusses how Europe’s response to the Coronavirus differs to that of Taiwan with Dr Radomir Tylecote. Dr Tylecote is a fellow at the IEA having studied State interventions in the Chinese Economy for his PhD which included fieldwork at Tsinghua University Beijing, having lived in China for two years.

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"Modern Jazz Samba" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

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Image: A poster produced by the British government in World War II, with the text 'Keep Calm And Carry On' on a background of the flag of British Guiana, circa 1939. (Photo by SSPL/National Archives/Getty Images)

This week, Graham Stewart spoke to James Orr, lecturer in the philosophy of religion at Cambridge University, about the effects of Coronavirus on the church and where faith fits into our pandemic-stricken society.

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"Modern Jazz Samba" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

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This week Graham Stewart spoke to our US editor Oliver Wiseman who reports back from a Prepper camp in West Virginia, and the Director of the European Research Group Christopher Howarth explains how MPs are carrying on in a half-empty parliament.

Oliver's dispatch from Fortitude Ranch can be found in the upcoming issue of The Critic Magazine

https://thecritic.co.uk/were-all-preppers-now/

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"Modern Jazz Samba" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This week author DJ Taylor reveals the many women pursued by the novelist George Orwell and TV Critic Adam LeBor discusses the Channel 4 satire 'The Windsors'.

https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/march-2020/brief-encounters-and-romps-in-the-park/

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"Modern Jazz Samba" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Photo by Getty