Columnists M - Z
Steve Richards: After Charles Kennedy has gone, his party will still have to find a reason to exist
Published: 16 December 2005
Thomas Sutcliffe: This remake needs to change its target
Published: 16 December 2005
There was a surreal discussion on the radio the other day, prompted by the news that Sir David Frost has bought the film rights to The Dam Busters and has plans for a remake. For a small boy like myself, this was thrilling news - because although we were not exactly sophisticated consumers of special effects when I was a boy, even back then we were able to see that the climactic explosions over the Mohne and the Eder dams had been achieved by the low-tech means of scratching an explosion-shaped hole in the film emulsion.
Mark Steel: Has an anti-war campaign ever been so mainstream?
Published: 15 December 2005
Janet Street-Porter: How planners blight our towns
Published: 15 December 2005
Hamish McRae: Free trade is not just about goods. It is also about money, services - and people
Published: 14 December 2005
Deborah Ross: Our Woman in Crouch End
Published: 14 December 2005
Deborah Orr: A damning verdict on our society
Published: 14 December 2005
Brian Viner: Country Life
Published: 14 December 2005
If you were to draw a near-equilateral triangle with Hereford, Ludlow and Worcester at each point - and I'm sure you can think of hardly anything better to do with your time - then we live almost splat-bang in the middle. The significance of this is that they all have racecourses. Indeed, Ludlow has the added distinction of being one of only four courses in England that shares no letters with the word "race", the others being Goodwood, Huntingdon and Plumpton.
John Walsh: Tales of the City
Published: 13 December 2005
John Rentoul: Our green lobby prefers selfish gestures and cheap posturing over political engagement
Published: 13 December 2005
Andreas Whittam Smith: Our peaceful acts of protest should not be a crime
Published: 12 December 2005
John Rentoul: Dave? Terrific. (But he doesn't have a chance)
Published: 11 December 2005
Rowan Pelling: Don't go on about religion. Just decide, do you believe in fairies or not?
Published: 11 December 2005
Editor-At-Large: Back in the closet, George. We only want your songs
Published: 11 December 2005
I can't think why a 42-year-old man has to tell us all about his sex life. Really, are we that interested? I've always had a soft spot for George Michael - he's such a control freak it's fascinating. This is the man who swore his private life would remain private, and now he's given three major interviews to the national press in the space of a week, in order to promote a new film about his life.
Joan Smith: Pulling out my toenails doesn't persuade me to tell the truth
Published: 11 December 2005
Alan Watkins: Mr Cameron's defect is that he's too jolly pleased with himself
Published: 11 December 2005
Deborah Orr: Want to see rude, nasty people? Watch the British upper classes in action
Published: 10 December 2005
My goodness, the similarities between Blair and Cameron really are uncanny. Blair, for example, has spent many years in power talking about radical change but preferring to shelve such eventualities by commissioning lengthy reports on What Need to Be Done instead. Now Cameron's at it. Instead of letting his adoring public in on the little secret that is "What I Plan to Do to You", he has already commissioned six new sets of policy studies, the first among them undertaken by the Social Justice Policy group.
Steve Richards: David Cameron should not be deceived by all the applause. There is trouble ahead
Published: 09 December 2005
Thomas Sutcliffe: Don't let amenity go down the pan
Published: 09 December 2005
I found myself thinking about the word "amenity" the other day - and mildly regretting its recent fall from grace. I may be alone in this but its employment as a lavatorial euphemism ("Would you care to use the amenities?") seems to me to have left it with a faint whiff of disinfectant block and corporation functionalism.
Janet Street-Porter: We won't be happy until Gazza is dead
Published: 08 December 2005
Mark Steel: Heroes and monsters of history
Published: 08 December 2005
Deborah Ross: Our woman in Crouch End
Published: 07 December 2005
Deborah Orr: Jailed in the name of equal opportunities
Published: 07 December 2005
Brenda Hale, the first of Britain's female law lords, did Frank Longford proud on Monday. Speaking at the memorial prize-giving dedicated to his name, she lectured on "the Sinners and the Sinned Against: Women in the Criminal Justice System". In doing so she focused on one of the most visible problems in our highly problematic justice system: the mounting number of women in prison, the mounting degree of suffering of women in prison, and the comparative underlying stability of the statistics about women and crime, that make this leap in numbers quite certainly due to nothing other than more punitive attitudes.
Steve Richards: David Cameron is ready for opposition, but is he able to prepare his party for power?
Published: 07 December 2005
The Conservative Party has voted for a venture into the unknowable led by the unknown. David Cameron's recent ubiquity obscures how little the new leader has revealed about his future intentions. With a Blairite flourish, he says he wants his party to change. The scale of his victory suggests that his party is willing to change. What is far from clear is what form the change will take.
