The unease of the distant East

Defying the geographical promise of its title, The India House turns out to be set in Shropshire. Here, in sequest- ered, Eden-era retreat, two generations of a decayed rentier family — embittered grandma Mrs Covington and frosty daughter Evelyn — are doing their utmost to prevent any noxious post-war fall-out from contaminating the third. They are abetted in this mission by fey Mr Henry, a failed Georgian poet deprived of his school- mastering job after ‘The Incident’, whose educative brief it is to provide Mrs Covington’s grand-daughter Julia with a curriculum from which all traces of the 20th century have been removed.

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Patrick O’Flynn

Can Reform survive the rift between Farage and Lowe?

Above this mirthless near-zenana hangs the penetrating scent of lost empire. Another of Mr Henry’s duties is to recite each lunch-time a little précis, culled from the morning’s Times, of the latest outrages committed on that abandoned carcass.