Commentators
Michael McCarthy: And now for David Cameron's next trick ...
Published: 20 April 2006
The Third Leader: Tea time
Published: 20 April 2006
Ah, yes, the murmur of polite conversation, the gentle clink of bone china on bone china, the discreet dab of the napkin, the merest hint of a crunch of scone, mercifully mostly drowned by the strings of the palm court ensemble giving "Indian Love Call" its all: just another afternoon here in the Third Leader Department.
Rupert Cornwell: It is when, not if, America will be eclipsed
Published: 19 April 2006
Outwardly all will be measured, polite, and probably inconclusive. But for US policymakers, the summit between George Bush and Hu Jintao is an unsettling glimpse into a not very distant future - when America's unchallenged post-Cold War supremacy is over.
Jeremy Laurance: Can things get any worse for the NHS?
Published: 19 April 2006
Joanna Briscoe: At the Sharp End
Published: 19 April 2006
The Third Leader: Pay gap
Published: 19 April 2006
A certain amount of discussion, we note, about salaries. Terry Wogan, it is said, is being paid £800,000 a year by the BBC, while Chris Moyles, the Radio One disc jockey, is, apparently, on £630,000. Meanwhile, some GPs are reported to be on £250,000.
Michael Brown: Margaret Hodge is right about the BNP
Published: 18 April 2006
Caroline Lucas: Wild birds are not to blame for spreading avian flu
Published: 18 April 2006
Richard Garner: Expand specialist schools and forget academies
Published: 18 April 2006
The Third Leader: Life class
Published: 18 April 2006
An apt subject for the day after the Easter break: happiness. Pupils at Wellington College are, we learn, to be taught it. Congratulations to Anthony Seldon, Wellington's head, for his initiative, but, perhaps because it is the day after the Easter break, optimism is elusive.
Andrew Tyler: An Act that has failed to protect animals
Published: 17 April 2006
Charles Nevin: Boredom, they say, is the coming thing
Published: 17 April 2006
A skilled detector of trends, I am particularly happy today to bring you one admirably suited to a bank holiday: boredom. Yes, indeed, wherever you turn, there is an academic announcing that children benefit from boredom, whether as a means of recovering energy or as ideal preparation for the languors and longueurs of Life, such as finding something exciting for your children to do on a bank holiday, and then trying to do it. Boredom, I tell you, is the coming thing.
Rebecca Tyrrel: Days Like Those
Published: 17 April 2006
Richard Schoch: Do you sincerely want to be happy? Then stop all this pleasure-seeking
Published: 16 April 2006
Dan Plesch: Let's ignore Dr Strangelove. Iran's threat means working even harder for peace
Published: 16 April 2006
Geoffrey Lean: Mr Cameron heads for Arctic wastes, and a cold wind blows for the PM
Published: 16 April 2006
A S Byatt: 'She dressed tragedy as high comedy'
Published: 16 April 2006
Muriel Spark's books were structured like nobody else's. She was one of that generation, just before my own, of powerful female writers - Doris Lessing, Iris Murdoch and Penelope Fitzgerald. After them came feminism, and novels by women became much more limited to women's "issues". One of my favourites is 'The Driver's Seat'. It is about a woman who decides she's going to get herself killed. At the beginning she is buying garish clothes to attract a murderer; at the end she has found him and is dead. The character devises and executes the plot, and it says something very odd about who is "responsible" for evil. The murderer is a kind of victim.
Professor David Clark: 'We are a bit therapy averse in this country'
Published: 16 April 2006
"Mental illness is Britain's great social inequality and the cost to society of not treating it is enormous. The past 30 years have produced a revolution in remedies for common mental illness, which is highly treatable, but very little of NHS resources are directed to delivering them.
Paul Arnott: A townie in a country idyll. But why should I feel guilty?
Published: 16 April 2006
Rupert Cornwell: Out of America
Published: 16 April 2006
Jemima Lewis: It's our fault for robbing children of innocence
Published: 15 April 2006
Richard Ingrams' Week: Terrorism then and now
Published: 15 April 2006
Two days after it became a criminal offence to "glorify terrorism", across the sea the Irish will be busy this weekend doing that very thing. The occasion is the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising of 1916 when a group of men and women who would today be described as terrorists mounted a surprise attack on the British administration in Dublin.
Christina Patterson: The real meaning of Easter: it's about me, me, me
Published: 14 April 2006
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