Leader: The new intolerance
Throughout Europe, the radical right is surging.
By
The clash of empires
Beginning of the end for Chavismo
Latin America's populist tide appears to be receeding.
By
The Syrian War and the return of great power politics
If the line between peace and war is being blurred, so is that between fact and fiction.
By
From melodramas and monster movies: The Forbidden Room is a macabre lucky dip of a film
The movie operates on a Russian doll principle, with stories found nestling inside one another.
By
Commons Confidential: Knobbling Boris
Plus: has Nigel Farage fallen out with Ukip's paymaster?
By
The night I was five Tube stops from terror, Blair’s special pleading, and the age of floods
The Tube station ticket hall in Leytonstone where a middle-aged man carrying a guitar was attacked with a knife.
By
How the legacy of the Cold War still affects Iraq today
The US needs a new policy on Iraq – the current strategy has had devastating effects.
By
Yentob has left the building – but Broadcasting House will survive without him
It is vital that the BBC comes through the departure of its creative director, Alan Yentob, in good shape.
By
Among sporting brothers, one is always the boss as the Nevilles show
Gary Neville will be bossing around his younger brother, Phil, at Valencia, now that he has become manager.
By
Why Marine Le Pen’s surge is no surprise
Marine Le Pen's FN party is close to regional power.
By
Even Tory MPs are troubled by their party’s power grab
Since their victory, the Conservatives have introduced a battery of measures to weaken the opposition and reduce accountability.
By
No place like home: a meditation on the meaning of hotels
Hotel by Joanna Walsh is deft and imaginative, tripping between references to Katherine Mansfield, Mae West, the Marx Brothers…
By
The amorous intensity of Iris Murdoch’s letters
Living on Paper: Letters from Iris Murdoch (1934-1995) shows the author's sexual mutability and witty warmth.
By
Grace under fire: Marilynne Robinson’s essays sing with the thrill of intellectual humility
In The Givenness of Things, Marilynne Robinson deploys the heroic, sonorous prose of the founding fathers in the cause…
By
Caught in the parent trap: women and the skewed work-family balance
The Having It All trope won’t go away. It’s the Gordian knot of gender relations, and doesn’t it bore you…
By
The remedy for Elaine’s chest pains lay in a serious conversation with her son
Unless she changed tack, she was in danger of producing a young man incapable of taking responsibility for himself.
By
The sad demise of Newsnight: how to save a sinking ship
The show’s expertise seems to be leaching away. Too often, its journalists end up telling me something I already…
By
The Returning Officer: Suffragettes VII
“We beseech thee, O Lord, on behalf of Emmeline Pankhurst, Helen Crawfurd and all the brave women suffering for…
By
Taming of the shrews: The Misogyny Book Club on BBC Radio 4
The whole staggering scene whittled down into a feeble little dribble of sexism. And absolutely no oppositional voice.
By
Caryl Churchill’s Here We Go: Eight actors in search of an ending
As has come to be expected from late Churchill, Here We Go has a beautiful, quasi-musical structure.
By
I visited Jimmy Savile at home in Leeds. He wore pointed pixie shoes and said, “Nobody, I don’t need nobody”
He spoke in patter, in a kind of spoken wallpaper. He exuded false modesty.
By
Three little maids remade: Jonathan Miller’s Mikado at the ENO
This Mikado succeeds where every other version I’ve seen has failed, because it constantly reminds us that Gilbert and…
By
A week of work, wine and cheese in California awaits – and my old friend tropophobia rears his head
I am well aware that I am being pathetic.
By
Free the grapes: take terroir with a pinch of salt
Not that the concept of terroir refers purely to soil. It is sunshine, rainfall, maybe even air quality: the ineffable…
By
“White”: a new poem by Craig Raine
“A cabbage white / bluster at the edge of sight.”
By
Invisible scars: what it’s like to survive a war
Too many outsiders to the world of war leap to make generalisations over those afflicted by PTSD.
By
British politics and the lost art of rhetoric
Hilary Benn and others were acclaimed for their speeches in the Syria debate in the Commons. But if this…
By
Our brothers’ keepers: Harry Leslie Smith visits the “Jungle” in Calais
As a young British soldier in 1945, Harry Leslie Smith witnessed Europe’s last great refugee crisis. Now, aged 92,…
By