Page 7 - Simon Heffer News Today

Plus: a shortage of Coronation street parties; VAT on private school fees; uncomfortable trains; and the many uses of Sheffield steel

Edmund Spenser's Elizabethan epic is a masterclass in currying royal favour – but even his shorter poems make the case for his greatness

Patrick Hadley composed music of darkness and profound beauty, leaving behind an underappreciated canon. Why is he not better known?

Plus: the menace of city e-scooters; potholes pitting our roads; Oxford's outdated traditions; and snooker sportsmanship

As the Coronation approaches, Royal Mail is issuing a new set of definitive stamps – featuring more than one break with history

Unless someone starts making the case for the Union, Scots may persist with a party that is slowly ruining Scotland

Liverpool Street Station's glorious architecture survived the Blitz and brutalism – now Network Rail seem intent on wrecking it

Public sector leaders will oppose any efforts at fiscal sanity.

The current Labour leader was to unite a divided party which lost heavily in the 2019 general election, to provide a convincing alternative to Boris Johnson. With economic policy diluted and the party's left silenced, that hasn't happened.

Lumet's jury-room drama is recognised as a masterpiece, but does it rely too much on the idea of white, middle-class, patriarchal guilt?