The Critical Commentator

 Sir Keith Starmer is not the first Labour leader to hanker after a closer relationship between Britain and Germany. Jim Callaghan snuggled up to the chancellor Helmut Schmidt in the 1970s, and ever since there  has been a sense among the social democratic left in the UK that there is much to be learned from Germany's biggest economy. The Germans, it has been said repeatedly down the decades, have a superior model of capitalism: based on good design and skilled workmanship; stable, long-term funding arrangements between businesses and the banks; a more consensual system of industrial relations; a network of medium sized companies,  many of them family owned; a top notch system of vocational and technical training that ensures a steady supply of skilled, productive workers. Street Scene in Frankfurt, Germany George Jones (1786-1869) Photo Credit:Nottingham City Museums & Galleries [CC BY-NC] There is a reason Germans work fewer hours and enjoy higher living standards than the Br

  ... The Assembly was a Q & A session in which he took questions from a group of  young neurodiverse people. Sheen didn't have a clue what would be asked, and no subject was off limits. It made for life-affirming telly. The 55-year-old Welsh actor was so natural, warm and encouraging as he answered a series of nosy, surprising and inspired questions... "The Assembly's had more response than anything else I've ever done," Sheen tells me. "Almost every day someone will come up to me  and mention it, particularly people who have children with autism... I had a fantastic time." He replays some of his favourite moments: the young man who took an age to start talking and then delivered the most beautifully phrased questions about the influence of Dylan Thomas on Sheen's life... Arenig, North Wales James Dickson Innes (1887-1914) Photo Credit:Tate  [CC  BY-NC-ND]  Six years ago he swapped life in Los Angeles for Port Talbot, the steel town where he gre

 ...  We think we can have the low tax levels of the Anglosphere with high northern European levels of public services, and we can't. In Britain, the tax take - tax as a percentage of GDP - at 33.5 per cent is closer to the Anglosphere than to northern Europe. In the US, it is 26.6 per cent, in Australia 28.5 and in Canada 33.2. In Germany, meanwhile, the tax take is 39.5 per cent, in Scandinavia it is 43.7 per cent on average and in France it is 45.1 per cent. Britons, however, have high expectations of what the state will provide for them. - in some areas,  higher than those of the Europeans. Even the French are required to contribute to the costs of their healthcare, but no politician in this country dares suggest Britons should fork out a penny to see a doctor because they know they would be out on their ear at the next election. Health and Wealth Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) Photo Credit: Yale Centre for British Art [Public Domain] The reach of British public services is

Many children could be misdiagnosed with dyslexia as almost half of experts believe myths about the learning difficulty, research suggests. A study led by Durham University has found that many of those diagnosing children believe that letters jump around or words appear in different order for those with dyslexia. These indicators have been discredited, the research says. Academics say there is significant variability in the methods used by professionals for identifying dyslexia. They conducted an investigation of 275 UK professionals involved  in assessing students for dyslexia - including educational psychologists and specialists. This probed their assessment methods and what they believed to be signs of dyslexia, which mainly causes problems with reading, writing and spelling. It found that almost half of dyslexia professionals who were surveyed believed at least one unproven indicator for dyslexia...  The study ... warned that the misconceptions could influence assessors' judgem

  A recent viral meme involves asking OpenAI's ChatGPT to scrutinise - or "roast" - our Instagram feeds. According to NBC, over 310,000 people have participated in the meme, which is shared through an Instagram Stories template... It's pretty fun. Not too mean, but it doesn't go easy on you either. The desire to be "roasted" online isn't totally new. We all want an unvarnished, un-sugar-coated opinion of who we really are, and the internet is one of the better places to search for answers. Whether it's asking Reddit to roast us or taking personality quizzes, we're always looking for hidden aspects of our character.   With AI, it's like we finally have the opportunity to ask: "Do I look fat in this?" and receive what seems like an honest answer. A Fat Man Pointing to a Woman with Her Hands Clasped Pieter Huys (c. 1520-1581 (after) Photo Credit: Wellcome Collection [Public Domain] Personality quizzes, in particular, have long been

  The television presenter Kirstie Allsopp tweeted this week that she was proud of her 15-year-old son for having just spent three weeks travelling in Europe with a 16-year-old friend. It ignited a fierce debate, with Kirstie alternately denounced for letting her child travel independently too young or praised for giving him choice and experience. I'm with Allsopp. The danger for this generation doesn't come from encountering life but from being shielded from and reluctant to engage with it. We're so preoccupied with children's physical safety that we've discouraged them from taking risks. At the same time we've gifted them an online universe which is so addictive that many of them would rather mediate most of their interactions with other people through it... We are trapping the young and cutting them off from what was normal for millennia; the overriding need to relate to the human beings around them and to learn  how to move confidently through the physical w