Dark forces in the Holy Land
A new wave of violence in Israel and the West Bank shows that without a return to peace talks…
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Israel: the Third Intifada?
Who’s who in the Europe debate
Who’s in and who’s out for the Europe referendum?
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Leader: the House of Lords requires urgent reform
The peers’ welcome intervention in tax credits cannot disguise that the Lords is an anachronism.
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The Lords turns on the Tories, Her Majesty’s delicacy and spinning the spin doctor
My view that Corbyn lacks the judgement to be an effective Labour leader is strengthened by his appointment of…
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How George Osborne fell to earth
It was the Chancellor’s refusal to acknowledge that there would be losers from tax credit cuts, let alone to compensate them,…
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The tragedy of James Bond
007 is still supposed to be a hero but if you knew him in real life, you would be…
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Too cool for fuel: inside the nuclear fusion reactor Wendelstein 7-X stellarator
The new machine is designed to release energy in the same manner as the atoms in the sun.
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Commons confidential: Jeremy Corbyn rebukes his aides for lack of professionalism
Meanwhile: Sajid Javid’s star is on the wane, and Alan Duncan’s wardrobe is in flux.
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Atypical girls: the women of rock in their own words
The question, “What’s it like being a girl in a band?” has dogged female rock musicians for decades. I…
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Edna O’Brien: In the company of tyrants
The Irish writer Edna O’Brien, soon to celebrate her 85th birthday, reflects on four years spent in the company…
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Harvesting the wisdom of the crowd
The “superforecasters” who show remarkable proficiency in answering big geopolitical questions – despite their lack of knowledge.
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Why it’s time for the Right to reform modern capitalism
Capitalism has a track record of allieviating poverty. But if the government wants to highlight its successes, it needs…
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Life as a rock’n’roll biographer, a return ticket to Ryde and watching Paxman get it wrong
When I started in journalism in the 1960s, only the top tabloid stars of old Fleet Street rated a photograph…
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Dubai and New York – both are vertiginous cities. So why is only one of them full of surprises?
In Dubai there is no need for skyscrapers at all – but they give the city the perception of…
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This artist gave out all his login details and passwords to the public. Here’s why
Conceptual artist Mark Farid believes our online privacy is the only right we have left – and that’s why governments…
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An escalator deep under Kyiv has the power to change the rider’s existence
There should be some way of apprehending the wondrousness of even our most banal transports. The alternative is everyday…
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The Virago/New Statesman Women’s Prize for Politics & Economics
Prize-winning author and journalist Gillian Tett to lead the search for a new generation of women non-fiction writers.
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Playing the endgame: is Daniel Craig making his final moves as James Bond in Spectre?
There’s something to be said for this minimal, brooding Bond – but all the emblems of the end are…
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The Returning Officer: Suffragettes
“I’m a bold suffragette who can’t keep quiet.”
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Chris Patten on Margaret Thatcher: strength and self-delusion
The second volume of Charles Moore’s biography paints Thatcher as the most partisan and domineering British prime minister since…
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Smug marrieds: has Sharon Horgan’s and Rob Delaney’s Catastrophe lost its edge?
To make a pearl, you need grit and I am wondering where that little bit of necessary sand is…
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The butterfly mind of Elvis Costello
Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink is a memoir written with enough distance for Costello to reflect honestly on his extraordinary…
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Rumble in the jungle: how Heart of Darkness brought Orson Welles to the airwaves
James McAvoy brings a hardness that could shatter walnuts to Orson Welles’s Heart of Darkness on BBC Radio 4.
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A liquid tribute to the joys of getting older
Wine is our compensation: the soft landing as we tumble on to the wrong side of 30.
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Black shirts, shorts and socks – do the All Blacks wear black jockstraps, too?
Often when there’s a scrum, someone’s shorts get pulled down, so you can see not only their builder’s bum…
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“High-dork mumbo-jumbo”: David Mitchell’s Slade House
For all its terrifying, exciting moments, Slade House is at best a compulsively readable lark, too in thrall to its own…
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The gangsters of Rome: the brutal side of the ancient city
The Roman emperors created a world that seems modern but contains unspeakable horrors, as new books by Mary Beard…
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Don’t be fooled by Jeremy Hunt – new junior doctor hours would threaten the NHS
I worked 72 hours a week in the bad old days, and it was not compatible with patient safety or…
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Confessions of an art nun: how Patti Smith gave her all
M Train is an extroadinary book about creation and the sheer loneliness of making art.
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The Cabaret of Plants shows us the value of looking down
Richard Mabey leaps around the world as easily as Ariel, and reminds us that it’s vital to see plants as…
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A matter of life and death: the cultural history of blood
A dramatic new exhibition at the Jewish Museum reveals the troublesome part that blood has played in the history of…
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In twenty years, our fear of Middle Eastern immigration will look absurd
We may fear refugees, but it doesn’t take long for them to become “us”. After all, how many Huguenots do you…
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What the row over banning Germaine Greer is really about
Student feminists want to stop the veteran feminist from speaking at universities – because of her beliefs about transgender people. But why…
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