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Don't be fooled. The money is there to avoid cuts to tax credits
The Conservatives have made a choice - to hand tax cuts to the rich - and balance the books on the back of the poorest. Is it right to say that closing the deficit requires that we tackle tax...
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Pro-Corbyn group Momentum vows to resist SWP "infiltration"
New organisation rebukes the Socialist Workers Party after it calls for its members to attend meetings. When new group Momentum was launched by Jeremy Corbyn supporters, Labour MPs were immediately...
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Distance makes the heart grow fonder
I held the rock in my hand during the crossing, an anchor to Earth that would remind me of its granular, varied textures and colours, even as I saw the entirety in abstract patterns from above. In...
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Throwing up the dead: the novelists mimicking Ian Fleming and Stieg Larsson
Anthony Horowitz and David Lagercrantz have produced two crime novels that stick to the tried and tested formulas. Most novels are, of course, derivative puke, and most novelists no better or worse...
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The SNP's conference is friendly, rousing – and boring. Just what the party...
There has been little drama at the Nationalists' autumn meeting in Aberdeen. Bad for journalists - great for the party. It's my first time at SNP conference - and I don't think I'm alone. Every time I...
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Nicola Sturgeon’s speech evoked Labour’s divisions in a renewed call for...
The SNP leader’s speech to her party’s conference was a highly political call for Scottish independence by emphasising the SNP’s unity, and Labour’s inability to define itself. Nicola Sturgeon...
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Theatrical knotweed: Margaret Drabble journeys around Shakespeare’s globe
It is hard to characterise Andrew Dickson’s Worlds Elsewhere– it is a discursive, rambling, global volume. This is an extraordinarily exhilarating book. It is like no other Shakespeare criticism you...
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In football, sons follow fathers, but have better hair and less hunger to win
It’s quite eerie observing Kasper Schmeichel in goal for Leicester, playing in exactly the same position and looking the spitting image of his father, Peter, the former Man United keeper. I was...
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Are George Osborne’s tax credit cuts really his version of Gordon Brown's 10p...
Gordon Brown’s saga was the right policy, disastrous politics, catastrophic timing. In contrast, George Osborne’s episode could be seen as the wrong policy, poor politics, but perfect timing....
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Most performers want their audiences to like them. I just want to be Stewart Lee
Lee is perhaps the most intelligent comedian ever to tread British boards. I’ve done a fair amount of solo performing throughout my career – in fact, I started out as a stand-up comedian, and from time...
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Walter Benjamin, the first pop philosopher
Ray Monk looks at the life of Walter Benjamin, and discovers how he found his calling. Walter Benjamin is often described as a philosopher, but you won’t find his works being taught or studied in the...
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Foreign Office cleaners facing the sack after asking for a pay rise
Cleaners at the Foreign Office are facing disciplinary action after writing a letter to the Foreign Secretary, Phillip Hammnd, asking for a payrise. The Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, is under...
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Pat Barker’s Noonday shows the full scale of the Blitz
A novel of sure-footed storytelling and some fine descriptive writing, Noonday reveals the impact of war through a kaleidoscope. The Blitz is both catalyst and metaphor in Pat Barker’s new novel,...
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Not just sourdough: the feminist artisan bakery run by women who are...
The Good Loaf is a haven for women who have been in prison, on probation or in long-term unemployment – it even has a resident domestic abuse support worker. Nestled between BBC Northampton and a...
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The In-Out referendum will be closer than you think
In 1975, Harold Wilson faced a supportive media and a Europe on the up. David Cameron's challenge is far greater. As we survey the aftermath of Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader, an outcome...
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PewDiePie: the rise of YouTube’s biggest star
10 billion views, 40 million subscribers and 15 minutes of video per day – how an unknown 25-year-old Swede conquered the internet. I can still remember the first time I sat down and typed...
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How can the Green Party succeed in the age of Jeremy Corbyn?
The party’s anti-austerity, anti-establishment message has been superseded by the new Labour leader. Last month, the Green Party met for its annual conference. The mood was, by turns, upbeat and...
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It's well-past time for the government to take action on bad landlords
The private rented sector needs more and better regulation - soon. Britain has some of the poorest protection for private tenants of any western economy. While British tenants have to settle for...
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Indie music’s women problem and retrospective sexism
I enjoyed the BBC's documentary tracing the story of indie music. But where are all the women? I really enjoyed the first and second episodes of Music For Misfits, a recent BBC documentary tracing the...
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Should we treat mental illness the same as physical illness?
I have grown uneasy with the pressure to validate mental illness by analogy with the physical. The start of 1995 would have been the worst time in my life, if only I could have mustered up the will to...
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