Cameron must show he’s not too posh to push
David Cameron may look ‘too posh to push’. In fact, friends say, he’s simply too worried about losing
Call me insane, but I’m voting Labour
I can’t stand the party’s mindset, leadership and many of its policies, but on one key issue I trust it more than the rest
The power of collective grievance
In Scotland as in Catalonia, it is a shared sense of victimhood that is the strongest source of patriotism
Warning: you may be about to vote for more than one government
The Fixed Term Parliaments Act has changed everything. No, wait, don’t go away…
Did the £20 million Norwegian’s pay row make BG cheaper for Shell?
Plus: Canvassing for election predictions on a delayed Ryanair flight
Mob rules
Would-be leaders of the left are harnessing a mood of angry populism. It’s better as a way of getting elected than as an approach to government
Hillary’s left turn
The Democratic party has moved left under Obama. It’s not a look that suits the former first lady
Easy virtue
Want to be virtuous? Saying the right things violently on Twitter is much easier than real kindness
Fat chance
As Kingsley Amis said, no pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home
Jews against Miliband
He’d be the first Jewish prime minister since Disraeli. So why is a swing-voting community overwhelmingly backing the Tories?
Too little, too late
On the centenary of the Armenian genocide, Justin Marozzi is appalled by how this great catastrophe has been almost entirely buried, through neglect or denial, until now
Trailing clouds of glory
In a review of Skyfaring, a memoir by Mark Vanhoenacker, Stephen Bayley overcomes his nervousness on the subject of flying and is entranced by a pilot’s poetic vision
By Air
Astonishing to think That not so long ago First the Brothers Wright Then Louis Blériot Initiated flight. And strapped into…
In a niche of their own
Curating embraces everything these days — including sandwiches — says Jack Castle, and the superstar curators of exhibitions have become far more important than the artists themselves
A mingling of blood and ink
M.J Carter’s The Infidel Stain, set in the dark alleys of Dickensian London, combines pornography and the Chartist movement in high Victorian melodrama
The nature of belonging
The perpetual dilemma of where to live is explored in Melissa Harrison’s vibrant novel of roots and belonging
Little brother’s helper
Gyalo Thondup, brother of the Dalai Lama, recalls in detail his many years directing Tibet’s foreign policy. But can we believe him?, asks Jonathan Mirsky
A neglected corner of Roman history
We know a lot about Roman baths, says Peter Stothard, but not so much about their lavatories. Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow in The Archeology of Sanitation in Roman Italy has the subject comprehensively covered
Sink or swim
In a review of Caryl Phillips’s The Lost Child, Alex Clark finds shades of Emily Brontë in this novel about the erasure of female experience
The same old song
George Steiner is a deeply erudite, elegant writer, with a profound knowledge of European culture. It’s a pity his latest essay, full of lovely disquisitions, lacks a single original argument
