In the aftermath of today’s crisis, there may well be a disposition to re-examine the place of independent schools in British society. Any such re-examination should take into account what has happened in the past. The historical background is surveyed in the following article published on 22 May in an issue of the ISC’s Bulletin, which is circulated to its 1,300 member schools.

The Rev. David Johnson (1953-2020) was a flamboyant High Church Anglican priest, misogynist and wit (often mocking his own Bishops) who took to the bottle. In the mid-1970s, before ordination, he was a star performer in debates at the Cambridge Union.

In the April issue of a new magazine The Critic, Simon Heffer, a well-known journalist who also writes history books, published an extraordinary, almost hysterical, attack on Disraeli, attempting, among other things, to reawaken the tired old condemnation of him as a complete charlatan.

The Lords Committees which scrutinise European policies in detail have been reconstituted this month.

It is not uncommon for Churchill to be accused of opposing the welfare state created after the Second World War. The charge resurfaced in The Times on May 7.

In an article in The Spectator of 9 May, Simon Heffer, a prolific journalist who also writes history books, picked out a number of political biographies, published in the 20th century, that have stood the test of time. As a writer on historical subjects, Heffer has a grievous fault: prejudice.

The tumultuous VE celebrations which took place in cities, towns and villages across the nation have been recalled widely in the media to mark their 75th  anniversary. But what happened at Westminster? Alistair Lexden explains.

The child born to Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds on 29 April prompted this letter from Alistair Lexden which was published in The Daily Telegraph on 2 May.

“Change? Why do we need change? Aren’t things bad enough as they are?”

In her superb biography of Queen Victoria, published in 1964, Elizabeth Longford wrote: “It might well be claimed that Queen Victoria’s greatest gift to her people was a refusal to accept pain in childbirth as woman’s divinely appointed destiny.”