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Culture
History, music, cooking, travel, books, theatre, film - but also with an eye on the 'culture wars', nationalism and identity.

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Helluva Year! Boris Johnson's 2020 Review
The Prime Minister has an 'Australian Style' litany of successes to celebrate in his first full year, as told to Otto English

The Idea of Europe: Peter and Markie’s Loon-Clad 70s Euro-Rampage
Hi-jacked while hitchhiking, knife fights with Germans, camping on French rubbish tips... now Britain’s divorce from the EU is finalised, Peter Jukes reflects on his teenage dreams of an ever-deeper union

Beyond the Lure of Empire: The Door of No Return
Bonnie Greer, a former British Museum trustee, observes the role of African Empires in her own roots and looks beyond possession and subjugation for true post-imperial thinking

Learning to Love: Liberating Speech from Hate Speech
Angelique Richardson explores how social media has fuelled its own Orwellian ‘two-minute hate’ and ways to combat the racial and social fragmentation it produces

‘Strongmen’: How a Crisis in Masculinity Paved the Way for Fascism
Heidi Siegmund Cuda speaks to the historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat about the new global rise in authoritarianism and why the recent defeat of Donald Trump in the US Presidential Election was so significant

Emerging From the Christmas Mire
The Government may not seem like it cares much for its people, but the common humanity which has emerged in this challenging year can still be celebrated this Christmas, says Reverend Joe Haward

‘You See What People Can Do to Other People, People they Lived Side-By-Side With’: Ending the Silence on Partition and Empire
As discussions of Empire and Britain’s imperial history have come to the forefront in 2020, Hardeep Matharu speaks to BBC journalist and author Kavita Puri to explore what she learnt from those who lived through the end of the colonial project in India about divisions tearing societies apart for her book ‘Partition Voices’

The Year of Living Distantly: The Comfort of Strangers
Peter Jukes explores the melancholy emptiness of city centres during the COVID-19 lockdowns and wonders whether the invisible cities of social media will ever become civilised or inhabitable
EXCLUSIVE Last In Line: The Forgotten Learning Disabled Soldiers of World War One
Saba Salman explores how a century of prejudice still finds echoes today in the treatment of people with learning disabilities during the Coronavirus pandemic
Uprising to Rising Up: The Education of Alex Wheatle
Bryan Knight speaks to Alex Wheatle, whose life was recently brought to television screens by Steve McQueen in the BBC’s Small Axe series
The Hounding of Billie Holiday
Chris Sullivan reviews the documentary ‘Billie’, detailing how one of the greatest singers of all time was hunted by officers at the Federal Bureau of Narcotics
The Upside Down: The Year of No Yule – How the Puritans Created Christmas Without Meaning To
John Mitchinson explains how increasing intolerance around festivities in the 17th Century helped promote a reactionary backlash
The Powerful Lure of the Soft Fascism Within
Hardeep Matharu with a personal account from the psychological frontline of the culture wars exploring the inner appeal of hate, division and xenophobia