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“Fascinating”: A new poem by Jeremy Robson
"They were my dad’s I tell him, recalling / how my father loved to savour a cigar after / a meal." Our young grandson Sam says he’s long been fascinated by the silver box on the coffee table in our...
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Jeremy Corbyn gets radical on the economy as he tries to change the subject
Avoiding any mention of Syria or Trident, the Labour leader's speech to the Fabians focused on his domestic agenda. Since Jeremy Corbyn's election many in Labour have been surprised by the lack of...
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The danger of nostalgia: looking back at 1956
Violence and prejudice is rife in two studies of the pivotal year of 1956. He is the summit of sex – the pinnacle of Masculine, Feminine and Neuter. Everything that He, She and It can ever want . . ....
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Labour's thinking on Europe has to be about more than just "staying In"
Labour cannot leave the question of reforming the EU to the right. “We must build a kind of United States of Europe. In this way only will hundreds of millions of toilers be able to regain the simple...
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How a 217.1 kilometre run became a national bonding ritual in Japan
The Hakone Ekiden, which ran on 2 and 3 January, has a lot to tell us about the strengths and weaknesses of Japanese culture. Under Mount Fuji’s gaze, the runner from Meiji University collapses into...
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A French memoir of the Holocaust shows the courage of choosing to survive
Marceline Loridan-Ivens's But You Did Not Come Back is a addressed to her father and tells the story of her time in the camps - and the years after. Marceline Loridan-Ivens’s father had bought a...
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David Cameron's approach: cut a public service, then demand to know why...
Now, instead of being prevented from learning English by your family, you can instead be stopped by George Osborne. David Cameron has another speech today, which is both good and original. The bad...
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Press restricted from interviewing Muslim women at PM's event to give Muslim...
Journalists are being blocked from asking the Muslim women questions at David Cameron's speech about empowering Muslim women. David Cameron is visiting a "secret venue" to promote a new government...
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The DWP thinks that work will make me well - but it doesn't work like that
Iain Duncan Smith wants sick and disabled people like me to work ourselves better. It’s an unusual approach to modern medicine, but if you can get homeopathy on the NHS, why not P60s too? The...
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Why the world needs more “coming out” marshmallows
It’s ok, Kate Middleton’s brother is here for all your pointless confectionary needs. You know that thing where you want to come out to your family or colleagues but you can’t find the right...
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Even if Universal Credit is eventually implemented, most will now lose out
Frank Field's new report shows how the benefits of a programme hailed as revolutionary will be almost non-existent. Perhaps no government reform has been billed as more transformative than Universal...
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SRSLY #27: Room with a View
On the pop culture podcast this week, we discuss the film adapation of Emma Donaghue’s novel Room, Marvel’s Jessica Jones and children’s TV series Sheep in the Big City. This is SRSLY, the pop culture...
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After that debate, Donald Trump will wish he’d been banned from entering the UK
“He is a wazzock”: MPs debated whether or not Donald Trump should be banned from the UK. Donald Trump will not be banned from entering the UK. But he might wish he had been. Because if he comes, he’s...
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The Conservatives' scrapping of the maintenance grant are an opportunity tax,...
This is an assault on aspiration, an assault on opportunity, and an assault on those who want to get on in life. When I was offered a place at Oxford I knew that I would be able to support myself...
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What it’s like to be a single woman at 60
When I was a girl, my mother referred to a spinster who lived nearby as The Awful Warning – a kind of non-human. When I grew up, I got to see for myself what that life was like. In 2001, when my...
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From Bunyan to the phone hacking scandal: the history of Vanity Fair
At Vanity Fair: From Bunyan to Thackeray by Kirsty Milne takes us from The Pilgrim's Progress to Condé Nast’s glamorous title. Many years ago, in the town of Vanity, Satan founded a fair and filled it...
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Steel crisis: why are UK steel workers losing their jobs, and what is China’s...
Britain’s steelworks are cutting jobs and folding under pressure from a flood of cheap Chinese imports and high energy costs. What’s going on? As steel plants across the UK are closing, it looks like...
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What the government can do for Tata Steel
The loss of jobs will hit Wales hard - but the government can do more. Yesterday’s announcement that over 1000 jobs are to be cut from steel mills in Wales and England is devastating for the...
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I’ve always fantasised about robbing the bank and now my local branch has...
I dislike going to the bank intensely; only, perhaps, not for the reason you might suppose. To the bank. One of the side effects that death has on the living is that an enormous amount of money has to...
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All systems checked
The annual chess tournament is coming to Gibraltar with events starting on the 25th. It’s also something of a technology coup, explains Guy Clapperton. On 24th January a number of chess players will...
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