A “nearly-history” of the Eighties, Britain’s decade of boom, bust and Tory triumph
On Andy Beckett's Promised You a Miracle: UK 80-82, a long view of an often misunderstood decade.
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Syria: the world order crumbles
The Syrian tragedy and the crumbling of world order
Industrial-scale murder, state collapse and huge displacement on Europe’s borders have destroyed old certainties.
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Ascent of the Submarine: George Osborne talks to Jason Cowley
George Osborne’s mission to capture and reshape the centre ground.
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Leader: Mr Cameron and the refugees
By refusing to join the EU resettlement programme, the Prime Minister has also undermined attempts to achieve a balanced, continent-wide…
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Why fire remains a burning issue
“The only fire department on a university is the one that sends emergency vehicles when an alarm sounds.”
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“Extra track and a tacky badge” – doing compilations doesn’t get any easier
That song I abandoned back in 1987 because it didn’t sound very good? It still doesn’t sound very good.
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The Returning Officer: Tories III
“. . . genuine golden Tories, one; water-on-land Tories, one; hugging Tories, one. . . "
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Pain is so close to pleasure: Max Mosley on BBC Radio 2
Mosley was coming over as the most clubbable man in the universe. Not a peep from Jeremy Vine.
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Life after death: Bill Clegg’s Did You Ever Have a Family
Bill Clegg’s first novel – longlisted for the Man Booker Prize – is a reminder that anything could happen…
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With a new laptop and a recovering parent, things are looking up. So why did Google have to go and ruin it all?
One imagines that the abilities of 47,000-plus employees sitting around on beanbags and drinking really good coffee could have…
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Joyce Carol Oates’s 60-year romance
“I have never thought that my life could be nearly as interesting as what my imagination could make of another’s…
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“I hated myself”: David Hare’s self-flagellating memoir
The director comes across as both hypersensitive and unnervingly frank in The Blue Touch Paper.
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Imitation game: sex, violence and religion in a big-screen biopic of Pasolini
The film shows how Pasolini located spiritual salvation in unremarkable lives.
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Supporting a one-syllable national team isn’t easy: “Way-uls! Way-uls!”
You do need at least two syllables, preferably three, which is why English supporters shout ING-GER-LAND when they are…
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Ghosts on the canvas: the life stories of paintings
Everything Is Happening by Michael Jacobs and The Rape of Europa by Charles FitzRoy.
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Embarrassing bodies: why the BBC’s Lady Chatterley made me squirm
The adaptation was – quite a rare feat, this – at once clichéd and anachronistic.
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The struggle of refugees to reach Austria’s border echoes brutal scenes from Hungary’s history
Scenes at Keleti station in Budapest conjure up echoes of past brutality towards Hungarian Jews, and the uprising against…
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Salman Rushdie’s latest is a “rummage around scepticism and superstition”
Salman Rushdie’s Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights and A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk.
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Commons Confidential: Corbyn’s past putsch
Commons Confidential is back - and it's just in time for the Labour leadership result. . .
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Margaret Drabble: what kind of a feminist is Elena Ferrante?
The Story of the Lost Child is the final instalment in a literary phenomenon. But what does its elusive author really believe?
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I don’t know where I’d be without my favourite celebrity: Stacey Solomon
She is witty, self-deprecating and obviously smart in an offbeat way, so as to neutralise those inclined to dismiss…
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How fermentation became the new word for food pseuds
Let it rot, and keep your little microbes happy.
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Gender-neutral language is coming – here’s why it matters
Title yourself “Mx” on your gas bill, because small acts of linguistic rebellion can change the world.
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Will Labour’s hawks allow Cameron to overcome the Tory doves on Syria?
Upwards of 30 Labour MPs would be prepared to defy the anti-war Jeremy Corbyn and support military action.
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Call-Me-Deity Cameron, terror by royal appointment, incompetent Isis and the shrinking arts
Before we trust Cameron on drone strikes, we should try to establish some facts. These are hard to come…
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