About this issue: Overview
On our cover is Paul O’Grady who writes a brilliant letter to his younger self this week, where he discusses his life from partying in Liverpool’s only two gay clubs to midwifing for alpacas as a pensioner.
As the summer of discontent rolls on into the autumn we assess the large-scale strikes by rail workers, posties and public sector key workers that grabbed the headlines as well as smaller strikes where union members have been successful in winning impressive pay rises.
In India, where 46 million women and girls were missing in 2020, more female babies are being born than males for the first time. Annie Banerji reports from the conservative northern state of Haryana, where she hears how successful female role models and police raids on sex-selective abortion clinics might be to thank.
Hugely popular in its other heartlands, why does English cricket have an elitism problem? Neil Tague speaks with the author of a new book exploring cricket and class.
Elsewhere we assess the future of e-scooters on our roads, Saskia Murphy reflects on the end of an era and hopes the next one is fairer, Kamila Shamsie talks about her new book and the lead actor in a revival of Jim Cartwright’s Road tells us why it’s a relevant to day as it was during Thatcherism. There’s our usual entertainment reviews and crossword and Sudoku too.