The Grand High Witch trials: On censorship, Roald Dahl and the current moment

As more books in America are banned by the authoritarian right, Roald Dahl works enter the crosshairs of censorship from the seeming left.

Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, is on a rampage. His enemy…ideas.

While the Republicans, much like their conservative cousins in Australia, claim to be warriors for free speech, their actions are showing them to be the exact opposite. Eighteen US states have passed bans on words and thoughts that scare them, but none more enthusiastically than DeSantis – the smarter Trump we were all worried about – whose vendetta against “critical race theory” has seen school libraries gutted. I would, frankly, hate to be an educator in America. Teaching has become a criminal offence. A willingness to learn is seen as a character flaw...