The Week
Billy Bragg's diary: The right does not own freedom
A great night to be in Pittsburgh. The local baseball team, the Pirates, were attempting to reach their first play-offs…
Livy on Ed Miliband
What should we make of Ed’s support for his father Ralph against the Daily Mail? Livy’s life of Torquatus suggests…
Barometer: How many ghost towns are there in Britain?
Lost property The second-to-last surviving resident of St Kilda — a small archipelago 40 miles off the Outer Hebrides which…
Letters: Nurses reply to Mary Dejevsky, and Iggy Pop’s sherry habit
Nursing standards Sir: I share Mary Dejevsky’s concern regarding the impact of tired, overworked nurses on the quality of patient…
Miliband's la-la lurch to the left has revived the right
Every opposition leader sometimes needs to act as a saboteur. Ed Miliband showed his wrecking skills this week, picking a…
The week: 'Land of opportunity'; Obama phones Iran; glow-in-the-dark robber
Home Shares in Royal Mail are to be sold by the middle of this month, before postmen can go on…
David Hare's diary: Actresses are smarter than journalists
So mysterious, the Conservative party. In every poll, our five most admired institutions are the NHS, the BBC, the Royal…
Aristotle on winning the centre ground
Party conferences always provide the most agreeable spectacle of politicians desperately trying to appeal to both the diehards among the…
Barometer: How many loaves must the PM make before his breadmaker starts saving money?
Does workfare work? George Osborne announced a ‘work for benefits’ scheme. ‘Workfare’ schemes have been attacked by the left. Do…
The death of Aids
In a week in which the world is once again invited to consider the prospect of climatic Armageddon, it would…
Damian McBride: Why I clutched at my trousers in front of Jeremy Paxman
They say nothing beats the feeling of seeing your book in print. But for me, the proudest moment was presenting…
Portrait of the week
Home The General Medical Council said it was dropping cases against four doctors who worked at Stafford Hospital at the…
No wonder Damian McBride has attracted the contempt even of Alistair Campbell
Damian McBride’s revelations about back-stabbing in Gordon’s imperial court raise a serious question: what was in it for him? The…
Letters: On quitting Facebook, and putting down Nigel
Why we joined Sir: I was astonished by the assertion made by Wyn Grant (Letters, 21 September) that ‘the postwar…
Finally, the IPCC has toned down its climate change alarm. Can rational discussion now begin?
Next week, those who made dire predictions of ruinous climate change face their own inconvenient truth. The summary of the…
Portrait of the week
Home The government sold 6 per cent of Lloyds Banking Group to big investors for £3.2 billion. It still owns…
Max Hastings’ diary: I love the British Army (but not the Blackadder version of it)
The looming centenary of the outbreak of the first world war offers an opportunity to break away from the Blackadder/Oh!…
Barometer
Vitamins and the veil A judge at Blackfriars Crown Court allowed a niqab-wearing defendant to identify herself only to a…
Plebs rule!
Momentarily banish thoughts of policemen on duty at the House of Commons, and picture a Roman pleb. You will probably…
Letters: Alan Sked on party politics, and how to win a pony show
Party politics Sir: I don’t think it is true that I would be unhappy in any party, as Ross Clark…
How to save the BBC? Privatise it
Three years ago, our columnist and former editor Charles Moore was summoned to Hastings Magistrates’ Court to pay £807 for…
Simon Schama's diary: The British divide? Proms vs 'Am I bovvered'
‘Wider still and wider, may thy bounds be set,’ the ecstatic throng sang at the Last Night of the Proms.…
Portrait of the week
Home George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that the British economy was ‘turning a corner’, with ‘tentative signs…
Barometer
Trust us The National Trust opened the Big Brother House at Elstree Studios at the weekend. Some other less grand…
Herodotus in Sochi
As a result of Russian laws against propagating homosexuality, there are calls to boycott the 2013 Winter Olympics in Sochi…
