Politics
Lessons from Utopia
Thomas More’s 1516 classic is a textbook for our troubled times, says William Cook
State of the Union
Last year, the United Kingdom came within 384,000 votes of destruction. A referendum designed to crush the Scottish nationalists instead…
Faith is left, right. . . and central
An interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby
The Corbyn crack-up
What life is like inside the Labour party right now
Theatre and transgression in Europe’s last dictatorship
Juan Holzmann goes underground in Minsk with the Belarus Free Theatre
Two serious ladies
‘You understand, Lenú, what happens to people: we have too much stuff inside and it swells us, breaks us.’ The…
A hero of our time
I have met Dr Kissinger, properly, only three times. First, in Cairo, in 1980, when, as a junior diplomat escorting…
Long life
I remember Sidney Blumenthal from my time in Washington in the late 1980s when I was there as the first…
Jeremy Corbyn’s world
Jeremy Corbyn says he is very excited about his campaign to become Labour leader because lots of young people are…
From Major to minor
‘Lobbying,’ writes William Waldegrave in this extraordinary memoir, ‘takes many forms.’ But he has surely reported a variant hitherto unrecorded…
Calling all British tourists – Ukraine needs you!
Kiev ‘What the hell’s going to happen to your poor country?’ I ask the man in the flea market not…
More Marx than Dante
Martin Gayford finds a few nice paintings amid the dead trees, old clothes and agitprop of the Venice Biennale
State of play
How has political theatre fared during the coalition? Not very well, writes Lloyd Evans
Death by politics
Dead Sheep is a curious dramatic half-breed that examines Geoffrey Howe’s troubled relationship with Margaret Thatcher. Structurally it’s a Mexican…
Daring to be a Daniel
As I swink in the field of Thatcher studies, this book brings refreshment. It is a welcome and rare. Far…
The actor-commentariat
I’ve never been terribly keen on actors. I prefer hairdressers and accountants. And teachers and builders and lawyers. I may…
Re-election
In a late schedule change, Channel 4’s Coalition was shifted from Thursday to Saturday to make room for Jeremy Paxman…
Long life
I sometimes try to imagine what it would be like being a political leader. I find this difficult because I…
Songs of praise for the BBC
In a ‘Dear Bill’ letter in Private Eye, an imaginary Denis Thatcher wrote off the BBC as a nest of…
There will be blood
LBC likes to tell us it’s ‘Leading Britain’s Conversation’, though in the case of weekday pre-lunch presenter James O’Brien you’ll…
Ukip’s new recruits
Just three months into Ukip’s shock victory as the party of government and already Nigel Farage’s mob are starting to…
Spitting Image
Hold the front page! Spitting Image is back! Well, sort of. A new six-part series, from (some of) the team…
Balkans ballyhoo
A masterpiece at the National. A masterpiece of persuasion and bewitchment. Croatian word-athlete Tena Stivicic has miraculously convinced director Howard…
What Miliband needs is a grilled tomato
My children have a phrase called ‘fomo’ — which stands for ‘fear of missing out’. It is a constant, mildly…
Why are Labour’s Scots so reluctant to take the high road?
There should, by rights, have been a stampede of candidates to replace Johann Lamont as the leader of the Scottish…
