There are few universal rules for what makes good writing, but one has long persisted: kill your darlings. Cut the flourishes that don’t meaningfully add to the greater work, no matter how much you love them, and you’ll be left with a more coherent piece of art. But concision cuts both ways: short works are often cheaper to make and more commercially viable, offering something easily digestible to a wider number of people. In the music industry, short, radio-friendly (and now TikTok-friendly) two-and-a-half-minute songs often dominate the charts. As Beyoncé famously lamented in her 2013 docume ..read more

A 16-year-old boy from Dartmoor is talking about what it means to be a man. He is aware of a “golden figure that all men should be like”.  He has a “high-paying job”, a “good body”, is “tall”. In About the Boys, Catherine Carr talks to teenagers about “being a man”. There are adults interviewed here – a Welsh former gang member turned social worker,  an academic studying male role models, a cricket coach – but this series is best when it lets the boys speak, uninterrupted, without judgement. What does “becoming a man” mean to them? Does it inspire excitement, or dread? Success and achieve ..read more

MPs have voted to back Rishi Sunak’s progressive smoking ban. Can it work? The Tobacco & Vapes Bill includes new legislation to increase the smoking age by one year, every year, banning the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 1st January 2009. MPs have voted the bill through its second reading and it is now in the committee stage. The tobacco firm Philip Morris International have pledged to move away from selling cigarettes, and instead focus on heated tobacco products. In this episode, Becky Slack is joined by Dr Moira Gilchrist of Philip Morris International, to discuss the company’s ..read more

On Friday 3 May, Rishi Sunak will enter the danger zone. The local election results will be in and they will be, in all probability, ghastly. For those Tory MPs who want to remove him, this is their moment. They might not get a second chance. Sunak’s team evidently recognise this. It is no coincidence that the last few days have seen a flurry of activity. One criticism often made about the Prime Minister is that he is too passive, that he fails to set the agenda. In recent days, however, we have had the parliamentary vote on the smoking ban, new policies on welfare reform, the passing of the R ..read more

When Olaf Scholz criticised the European Union during a visit to China earlier this month it seemed like a gaffe. The German chancellor warned the EU not to impose tariffs on Chinese electric cars. A few days later, at a summit in Brussels, he doubled down by criticising the Union for its lack of success in concluding free-trade agreements. He is clearly not happy with Brussels. Chinese state media was unsurprisingly full of praise of Scholz’s courage to break with the Western establishment. Can he possibly succeed in shifting EU positions? I don’t think so, but this will be the next big battl ..read more

In recent years, the mere mention of Britain’s railways has prompted grim laughter. For too many commuters, the simple act of travelling to work has become an arduous odyssey characterised by repeated delays, cancellations and overcrowding. The woman who has vowed to end this farce is Louise Haigh, Labour’s shadow transport secretary. “We know the current model has completely failed,” Haigh said when we met in her parliamentary office in Portcullis House, Westminster. “What we’ve seen from our research with voters, particularly Tory voters or ex-Tory voters, is that they now see it as a symbol ..read more

In recent years, the mere mention of Britain’s railways has prompted grim laughter. For too many commuters, the simple act of travelling to work has become an arduous odyssey characterised by repeated delays, cancellations and overcrowding. The woman who has vowed to end this farce is Louise Haigh, Labour’s shadow transport secretary. “We know the current model has completely failed,” Haigh said when we met in her parliamentary office in Portcullis House, Westminster. “What we’ve seen from our research with voters, particularly Tory voters or ex-Tory voters, is that they now see it as a symbol ..read more

Recent research from Power to Change, conducted with More in Common, found people are more positive about their local area than the country itself. This is positive, at least from the perspective of people and their locales – it suggests familiarity breeds positivity rather than negativity, which remains associated with less well-known parts. And yet many communities are likely to have lost their local pub, local post office, or local shop in recent years. Roads are poorly maintained. Community centres, libraries and leisure centres have closed. A neglected park is a visible sign of council bu ..read more

Jah Wobble was born in London in 1958. In the late 1970s he played bass in Public Image Ltd. He now runs his own label, 30 Hertz Records, and continues to make music across numerous genres. What’s your earliest memory? My uncle Terry – my dad’s brother and a Catholic priest – splashing around holy water and intoning prayers in Latin to scare away the evil spirits residing in our new house. Before we moved in, the part of the house that we lived in had been used for spiritualist meetings. Even after the “cleansing”, paranormal things continued. Who are your heroes? Jimmy Greaves was my chi ..read more

In early 1818, the painter Caspar David Friedrich, then 43 years old, married Christiane Caroline Bommer, a Dresden dyer’s daughter nearly 20 years his junior. A few months later the newlyweds honeymooned on Prussia’s Baltic coast near Friedrich’s birth town of Greifswald and, during an excursion to the island of Rügen, were joined by his brother Christian. For the artist this was a time of great joy and he commemorated it in a picture called simply Chalk Cliffs on Rügen. It is a love painting. The trio, perilously perched, sit, kneel and stand on a grassy notch: Caroline and Friedrich look ov ..read more