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Britain doesn't just sell arms to dictatorships - it sells our silence, as well
Britain’s arms trade is undermining the humanitarian efforts of its Department of International Development. Armed with British planes and British bombs, the Arab world’s richest country has been...
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Should authors be paid to appear at literary festivals?
Philip Pullman’s resignation as a patron of Oxford Literary Festival over its lack of a fee for speakers has caused an outcry against festivals that don't pay for authors to appear. Next time you...
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Why are so many on the left embarrassed by patriotism?
If Labour is to succeed, it must recognise the possibility of patriotic socialism - and stop other parties monopolising Britishness. The sight of Jeremy Corbyn singing “The Red Flag” on the September...
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The fish and chips dilemma: can our national dish be both sustainable and...
When it comes to a traditional battered cod and chips, is there no such thing as a good catch? You can’t get more British than fish and chips. Winston Churchill exempted the dish from wartime...
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In Scotland's new era, nothing can dent the SNP
The defining divide is no longer between left and right but between unionist and nationalist. On 24 March, Non-Independence Day will fall in Scotland. It was this date that the Scottish National Party...
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Neale Coleman walks out of Team Corbyn - and Simon Fletcher could be next
Neale Coleman, a former aide to Ken Livingstone has quit the Labour leader's office - and Jeremy Corbyn's chief of staff could be next. Neale Coleman, Labour's head of policy and rebuttal, has quit...
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Tyrant's rants: imagining the final hours of Muammar Gaddafi
The central figure of The Dictator’s Last Night ends up as a cross between Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Sacha Baron Cohen’s Admiral General Aladeen. Post-colonial tyrants have loomed so large over the...
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Anxious in America: On writing the life of Joan Didion
Tracy Daugherty’s biography of Joan Didion is most interesting when it comes to highlighting the complex dynamics inherent in a long and singular writing career. Discussing the psychic fragility...
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Choose your gin and get fressing this winter
Gin has evolved from the home-made 18th-century rotgut that was the scourge of England’s poor to the tipple of colonial civilisation. Why do we Brits make resolutions to dry out in stark January, when...
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Blake Morrison and Bernardine Evaristo to judge the 2016 Goldsmiths Prize
The 2016 Goldsmiths Prize for “fiction at its most novel” announces its judging panel.The writer and critic Blake Morrison has been announced as the chair of the judges for the 2016 Goldsmiths Prize...
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David Cameron’s English lessons, waiting for Corbyn, and the Tories’...
Sluggish Labour and the pollsters' postmortem. I am suffering my way through Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet. The books have won rave reviews but I confess that their appeal has eluded me so far....
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Come and join the team at Spear's
This is a real opportunity for a hungry and driven individual to render the phenomenon of the UK’s private client industries journalistically, writing for the Spear’s 500 and Spear’s magazine. The UK...
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The Chinese dream drifts on undisturbed
China's economic statistics obscure a reality in which big-city dreams still come true. On 19 January, China posted economic growth figures for 2015 of 6.9 per cent, its lowest since 1990. The...
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Alsatian dog syndrome, long-distance working and the Tory “sink” estate scam
It is reassuring that we have a prime minister who returns from his Christmas break invigorated with new ideas. It is reassuring that we have a prime minister who returns from his Christmas break...
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History is a meeting place
No utopian: the poet Abdulkareem Kasid.In my handsFrom past and futureI’ll grab two stonesAnd run with them.Even in the lightestbreeze I’ll fly,Summon a wind, to comeAnd wipe out every traceAnd I’ll...
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The right to live in a beautiful place is more important than you think
But increasingly, natural beauty is reserved for the rich. This month, David Cameron has acted on a significant injustice. The country’s worst post-war tower blocks, built quickly in response to high...
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Why science is failing to alter the future
We have fooled ourselves into thinking that being able to see the future is the same as being able to change it. At times the opposite is true. We still blind ourselves with science. Take cancer...
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Charity in a time of austerity: great expectations in hard times
The charitable sector faces ever greater pressures in a time of fiscal restraint. The left has long had a prickly relationship with charitable activity, from Clement Attlee’s denunciation of charity...
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Commons Confidential: It should've been me
Osborne's make-up, Cameron's sugar and a Labour rivalry.Whispers around the Treasury that Jeremy Hunt’s star is fading fast in the eyes of George Osborne are unlikely to improve the mood of the Health...
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What’s led to Ros Altmann letting down thousands of women on their state...
Once a fearless pensions campaigner, the Minister has failed to clear up the government's mess over state pensions for an entire generation of women. For those of us seeking enlightenment on the vexed...
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