Anatomy of a crisis: the facts on Europe’s refugees
What are the true figures on the crisis – and how many asylum seekers are countries taking?
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Pope of the masses
Refugees and Britain’s failure of compassion, my vote for Labour leader and dancing with dentures
This week's First Thoughts from the New Statesman's former editor.
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After so badly misjudging the leadership contest, how will the Blairites handle Corbyn?
The left-winger's opponents are divided between conciliation and aggression.
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Leader: The wretched of the earth
Britain must accept more asylum-seekers, and create a sustainable plan for their integration into wider society.
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Goodbye to Terry Pratchett, the only writer who ever truly conquered my inner cynic
Finishing The Shepherd’s Crown was a double sadness: not just goodbye to Terry Pratchett, but goodbye to a younger, less…
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Stephen Hawking’s black hole poser
A black hole is the ultimate physics laboratory.
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On the shores of the Aegean, where pirates are attacking boatloads of refugees
Last month three Greek men posing as coastguards were arrested for preying on migrants. With so many people on…
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Marc Maron: a conversation with the anxiety co-pilot
Now that the interview-based podcast WTF has had millions of downloads and featured guests from Iggy Pop and Barack Obama, what does…
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Managers will tell you “there’s no ‘I’ in team” – but any great team needs its lone drifters
In both sport and business, players with independent temperaments are often dragged into the middle ground, undermining their value.
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Hillary’s e-mails and the way we do politics
On a personal account, emails can be deleted permanently, but most government services will store even deleted emails in…
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The art of cruelty: why the Conservative attack on disabled people harms us all
No sick person responds to their diagnosis by thinking, “I can scam taxpayers for £73 a week!”
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As Iran begins to open up to the West, its neighbours wonder if a once-great empire will rise again
If the British and others are right, then much of what has looked immovable in the Middle East is…
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“Never be afraid of stridency”: Richard Dawkins’ interview with Christopher Hitchens
Is America heading for theocracy? How worrying is the rise of the Tea Party? Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins…
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Pope of the masses: is Francis really the people’s champion?
The former Archbishop of Canterbury reflects on the politics of Pope Francis.
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The Returning Officer: Tories II
The return of the Tories.
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Is Danny Baker a “bona fide genius”? Not in his new show
The clichéd decade: Cradle to Grave and Danny and the Human Zoo reviewed.
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Against the odds, radio comedy has flourished in the internet age
So why isn’t the BBC making more of a fuss about it?
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Skellig Michael is hardly an island – but it’s the one I love most
On a rock in the Atlantic, I felt the magic of place.
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How psychedelia transformed pop culture
There are things known, and there are things unknown - and they’re all in Rob Chapman’s cultural history of…
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The best GP surgeries are facing the biggest cuts – and the NHS knows it
Up and down the country, GP surgeries have been yelping in pain.
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How do you make a film under house arrest?
Closed Curtain, by Jafar Panahi, was created despite its director’s house arrest in Iran.
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Blurred by booze: A Severed Head on Radio 4
Iris Murdoch can bring you into a whole new world. How can radio capture her?
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Beautiful minds: the sometimes brutal history of treating autism
Steve Silberman’s Neurotribes, winner of the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction, champions “neurodiversity”.
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“Bar Story”: a new poem by James Conor Patterson
That night he takes the freight ferry from Heysham to Warrenpoint and stands by the railing of the upper…
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A train groaned in the distance. Feeling uneasy, I checked the toilet for deadly “king browns”
I don’t mind the frisson of fear – without it, I might relapse into Kingoonya altogether.
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In 1997, I refused to get out of bed to see Blair. Some things just aren’t worth it
“Weren’t you meant to see Blair this morning?” “Um, yeah. I didn’t really feel like it.”
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0-0, yawn yawn – and Everton were just as poor as Spurs
Watching the game was grim. Hearing it, too, would only have made it worse.
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The bachelor, like the prisoner, starts to fear the very change in life he wants most of all
Thoughts on the Bachelor Condition: #2 in an occasional series. (Or number 300-odd, if we assume this whole column…
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