The Week

Leading article

The legacy of Nigel Lawson

Nigel Lawson was the most consequential chancellor in modern British history. He gave the world a case study in how to overturn a failed consensus. He was guided throughout his political career by the political principles articulated when he was editor of this magazine. His legacy is so rich that it offers a wide choice

Portrait of the week

Diary

What St Augustine could teach Donald Trump

Two attacks in local villages, leaving 17 dead in one and eight in another, says my teacher friend from Kaduna State in Nigeria in one of his latest letters. He writes regularly about the threats that he and his family and students face from Islamist militias. But what stays in my mind, apart from the

Ancient and modern

Would Aristotle approve of the Guardian’s reparations? 

The Guardian is worshipping at the shrine to its own piety with even more self-satisfaction than usual because it is paying millions in reparations to African-Americans based in Georgia and Jamaica, whose slave labour 200 years ago underpinned the wealth of the newspaper’s founders. But where is the justice in that? Aristotle argued that justice,

Barometer

How deadly is the Grand National?

Falling at fences Activists from an animal rights group were secretly filmed apparently plotting to disrupt the Grand National, protesting in part at the number of horses killed at the event. – Since 1839, 88 horses have died either during the race or were put down as a result of injuries. Four died in the

Letters

Letters: The positive case for daycare

Major mistake Sir: Douglas Murray (‘Our poor deluded MPs’, 1 April) contends that John Major is widely regarded as ‘one of the worst prime ministers in living memory’. If so, that seems unfair. Although a greyish figure, Major had to operate with a narrow parliamentary majority and a fractious party. It is often forgotten that