The Critic Magazine (UK)

The Critic is a fresh monthly magazine in the UK that covers a wide range of topics, including politics, ideas, art, literature, and more. Co-edited by Michael Mosbacher and Christopher Montgomery, The Critic aims to challenge a dominant narrative that often dismisses critical perspectives as overly sensitive or offensive. The goal isn't to provoke or stir up trouble; instead, it focuses on honest criticism as a way to seek a deeper understanding of the truth, rather than ignoring it.

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And that will be England gone

2 days ago | thecritic.co.uk | Patrick Kidd

This article is taken from the May 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10. Father Christmas didn’t come to Tranquil Vale last year. For more than a decade, the children’s shoe shop in Blackheath had a life-size model of Santa sitting in the window.
A writer we should all read

3 days ago | thecritic.co.uk | John Self

This article is taken from the May 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10. Ben Markovits is something of an enigma — to me, at least. The British-American novelist has been productive if not downright prolific, publishing 11 novels since his debut 21 years ago, and in 2013 was selected as one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists.
Why does this record exist?

4 days ago | thecritic.co.uk | Norman Lebrecht

Wilhelm Furtwängler: 2nd symphony (Chandos) ★★☆☆☆What’s this record doing on my deck? I have listened to Furtwängler’s own recordings of his overlong second symphony and have heard it performed live by Daniel Barenboim with the Berlin Philharmonic without walking out. The works spends three-quarters of an hour going nowhere. Furtwängler composed it in Switzerland after fleeing Berlin in January 1945, abandoning his musicians to a desperate fate.
The irrational theatre

6 days ago | thecritic.co.uk | Daniel Sugarman

The state of the National Theatre is tragic indeed It is always sad to see a pillar of the Establishment feebly attempting to embrace the radical zeitgeist. It is, after all, extremely difficult to pass oneself off as an iconoclast when one is averse to breaking anything. The Royal National Theatre might do well to keep that in mind, if its latest season — its first under new director Indhu Rubasingham — is anything to go by.
Why can nobody paint the Royals?

6 days ago | thecritic.co.uk | Alys Denby

Kingsley Amis used to have sex dreams about the late Queen (“Oh no, Kingsley, we mustn’t!). We are yet to learn whether, in the three years since his coronation, King Charles III has invaded the fantasies of Britain’s novelists. Looking at a painting of him that adorns the cover of the latest edition of Tatler, I doubt it. In an uncharacteristically drooping suit with hair like a cyberman’s helmet, His Majesty is not exactly shown to his best advantage in this picture.
Starmer’s nightmare

1 week ago | thecritic.co.uk | Robert Hutton

The prime minister is being haunted by a smug Nigel Farage It was the Prime Minister’s Questions after the elections before. Nigel Farage looked smug, seated alongside his new MP, after a stunning victory that takes Reform to five seats in the House of Commons, up from five at the general election. Keir Starmer looked embattled. He can’t have thought the job would be easy. He’s no David Cameron or Boris Johnson, swanning into Downing Street with an assurance of belonging there.
Yes, celebrities — like all of us — get old | Ben Sixsmith | The Critic Magazine

1 week ago | thecritic.co.uk | Ben Sixsmith

Unprincipled journalists are demonising the ageing process At 34, I find myself in the early stages of a boxing match with middle age. I can duck and weave — exercising, and cutting down on alcohol, and googling mysterious terms like “finasteride” and “minoxidil”. But still it lands its blows. Bam! Receding hairline. Bam! All-day hangovers. Bam! A deeper interest in poems about death. I’ll keep on fighting. But women must have it worse.
Against zombie prohibitionism

1 week ago | thecritic.co.uk | Christopher Snowdon

Public health fanatics are coming for your alcohol, lack of evidence be damned The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) was set up by the World Heath Organisation (WHO) in 1965 to research the causes of cancer. Every institution has been hollowed out by activists in the sixty years since and it comes as little surprise that it is now getting involved in policy.
VE’ll meet again

1 week ago | thecritic.co.uk | Robert Hutton

The government’s exciting plans for patriotic displays of Britishness The whole nation is going VE-Day crazy, as we celebrate the fifth anniversary of that time we sat in our front gardens wondering whether the neighbours’ scones would give us Covid. It is also the 30th anniversary of John Major trying to make spam fritters happen, and, of course, the 80th anniversary of Steve McQueen jumping his motorbike over the wire and into Berlin.
Election 2019 | The Critic Magazine

1 week ago | thecritic.co.uk | Asa Bennett |Pierre d’Alancaisez |Oliver Wiseman |Lewis Baston

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