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.

The March issue of The Critic magazine is full of essential reading. As war rumbles on in Europe and the United States tries to work out the purpose behind Chinese balloons gliding over its territory, Lucas Webber explains why Russia has absorbed its blows in Ukraine and is well positioned to advance, whilst Mark Almond argues that the West’s Cold War with the Soviet Union offers the wrong historical lesson for how to handle Xi Jinping’s China.

Elsewhere, Isaac Sligh goes in search of rumoured “Crusaders” in the Caucasus Mountains and finds a village of the dead, Julie Bindel foresees dire consequences if South Africa legalises all aspects of the sex trade, Lisa Hilton has a memorably disastrous meal in a hilltop restaurant, and Ellen Pasternack discovers it is now almost impossible to book a driving test in Britain.

Boris Starling explains how to be a successful ghostwriter for famous sports stars; Henry Jeffreys meets one of England’s most sought-after winemakers; Hannah Betts says now is the time to wear a beret, and Sebastian Milbank comes to the defence of hipsters.