The Critic

The Critic is Britain’s new monthly magazine for politics, ideas, art, literature and much more. Co-edited by Michael Mosbacher and Christopher Montgomery, The Critic exists to push back against a self-regarding and dangerous consensus that finds critical voices troubling, triggering, insensitive and disrespectful. The point is not provocation or trolling. The point of honest criticism is to better approach truth, not deny its possibility.

Ossified thought and a lack of intellectual rigour are depressing features of all sides of today’s political and cultural debate. Our writers will subscribe to no editorial line nor serve the interests of any party, faction or cause. We ask them to write because we expect them to be honest, and lucidly so. Look to our contributors and fault us if they are not. 

Contributors to the magazine include Jonathan Meades, Douglas Murray, Nick Cohen, Joshua Rozenberg, Anne McElvoy, Norman Lebrecht, Daniel Johnson, Lisa Hilton, Hannah Betts and Artists in Residence Adam Dant and Miriam Elia.

In the July issue of The Critic, Fred Sculthorp reports from Birmingham — is Britain’s second city the symbol of national decline its disparagers depict or is it about to prove them spectacularly wrong? Also, Christopher Snowdon scrutinises the arguments made by defenders of the convicted ex-nurse Lucy Letby, Marie Kawthar Daouda looks for method in the madness of Paris protests, the low calibre of candidates for Chancellor of Cambridge University offers more grounds for British institutional despair, and Peter Caddick-Adams examines the daring of Ukraine’s special ops inside Russia.

Lisa Hilton visits the Venice Architecture Biennale, Michael Collins profiles Absolute Beginners author Colin MacInnes, Norman Lebrecht asks why lieder has largely disappeared from the classical repertoire, Pierre d’Alancaisez reviews Ed Atkins at Tate Britain, Henry Jeffreys raises a glass to Essex wine, and The Critic’s books special edition reviews the best fiction and non-fiction for summer.