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Hello and welcome to The Spectator. I'm Fraser Nelson.

For our audio reads this week, we've got Douglas Murray reading his cover story in defence of liberalism.

Then we've got Matthew Paris, who takes a rather different view and celebrates the toppling of statues, an exhilarating form of art, he says.

And finally, Kate Andrews, our economics correspondent, on what she

thinks people on her side of the political divide don't quite understand about what's happening

in her native America. First, Douglas Murray. It has become fashionable in recent years to talk of the

death of liberalism, but as crowds high on the

octane of generational self-righteousness rampage through major cities, the evidence mounts.

The growing intolerance of freedom of thought, the inability to talk across divides,

the way that most of the British establishment, police included, feels the need to talk across divides, the way that most of the British establishment,

police included, feels the need to pledge fealty to the cause, as though all terrified

of ending up on the wrong side, points to a crisis of more than confidence. It is evidence

of an underlying morbidity. Each day, the cultural revolution is picking up a pace

with the iconoclasts who attacked the cenotaph and the statue of Winston Churchill,

looking for new focuses for their rage. The University of Liverpool has announced that its

Gladstone halls of residence

will be renamed after protesters pointed out that the former Prime Minister's father had

...