Commentators
Susannah Frankel: So who says a starved woman is beautiful?
Published: 10 January 2007
Claudia Winkleman: Take It From Me
Published: 10 January 2007
The Third Leader: Spiceworld
Published: 10 January 2007
There are those, who have been known to question, even mock, some of the research results we bring you daily. Why, even in this space, recently, we appeared unimpressed with the finding that giving mice the equivalent for a human of 100 bottles of wine a day allows them to be as nippy on exercise equipment as thin mice.
Louis Michel: Somalia should have an international peace force
Published: 09 January 2007
Kate Allen: Britain must act to stop this outrage
Published: 09 January 2007
Why has the Government abandoned them? The Government's answer: they're not British - we don't feel any obligation toward them. Let other countries speak up for them.
Dylan Jones: I can keep a secret
Published: 09 January 2007
In the run-up to Christmas, I lost count of the number of events I went to that were subject to the Chatham House Rule. An after-dinner speech here, a political talk there, and a luxury-brand conference in between. Often, there's little that's worth repeating anyway, and the rule is usually only invoked by the sort of second-tier politicians and finance directors who see no currency in either a) being sued for slander, or b) exposing their business practices to all and sundry (or, at least, to those of us in the badly dry-cleaned monkey suits, huddled round the cheap wine and the BSE-friendly food).
The Third Leader: Green-field thinking
Published: 09 January 2007
Usually, when there is a threat to the setting of one of the nation's masterpieces, the course is clear: lobbying, protest, outrage, railing against yet more insensitive philistinism and unfeeling lust for progress. Such has been the case with any number of places caught on canvas or camera or by word. So much as cock a theodolite in Constable, Gainsborough, Brontë or Potter (B) country, for example, and the sound of distant heavy rumbles, clicking keyboards and unrolling petitions will be heard almost instantly.
Steve Connor: The mystery that has endured since Big Bang
Published: 08 January 2007
For anyone who has been mesmerised by the sheer number of stars that make up a clear night sky, it seems incredible that what we can see, even with a telescope, is but a small fraction of what is actually out there. In fact, more than 80 per cent of the material of the universe is invisible to even the best instruments.
John Lichfield: Our Man In Paris
Published: 08 January 2007
Rebecca Tyrrel: Days Like Those
Published: 08 January 2007
Charles Nevin: Toast, peas and other symbols of brilliance
Published: 08 January 2007
Sometimes, as one struggles for the motivation to continue a hard, lonely and unfashionable mission, there comes the occasional sustaining discovery of support which inspires the glimmer of a hope that the tide might be turning, that the brow is about to be crested, and that triumph is about to arrive in that rapid fashion depicted in the old movies by a succession of spinning newspaper headlines.
Patrick Cockburn: Some advice for George Bush: a 'surge' in US troops in Iraq will not bring about peace
Published: 08 January 2007
Geoffrey Lean: Oil. Fast-vanishing drug the world can't live without
Published: 07 January 2007
Wesley Clark: Bush's 'surge' will backfire
Published: 07 January 2007
A C Grayling: Squeamishness will not help Ashley X. Her parents are right to put their trust in science
Published: 07 January 2007
Sarah Sands: Give our boys a break: an army marches on its beds and beer
Published: 07 January 2007
Marcus Berkmann: They won. But must they look so bloody pleased?
Published: 07 January 2007
Rupert Cornwell: Out of America
Published: 07 January 2007
Jemima Lewis: The moral line in medicine shifts once again
Published: 06 January 2007
Richard Ingrams' Week: Who to support in a conflict between Muslims and gays?
Published: 06 January 2007
Catholics are traditionally described in the press as "devout". I can't remember ever reading anything about a devout Protestant. Nor can I explain why this should be so.
Patrick Cockburn: Perceptive analysis contrasts with rhetoric
Published: 05 January 2007
Ali A Allawi, until recently an Iraqi minister, is one of Iraq's most respected Shia politicians of the post-Saddam era. His study of the crisis in Iraq is by far the most perceptive analysis of the extent of the disaster in his country, and how it might best be resolved. It is in sharp contrast to the ill-thought-out maunderings of experts and officials devising fresh policies in the White House and Downing Street.
Agnes Fletcher: 'A medical solution to a social problem'
Published: 05 January 2007
The Third Leader: Big is beautiful
Published: 05 January 2007
Despite the usual grim toll of events, and the usual gloom retailers and doom wholesalers, 2007 is not shaping up entirely badly. Yesterday we had the delight of a teenage hero, the young sailor Mike Perham; today we have the equally unexpected turn-up of good news from Russia: 17-stone ballerinas.
Dennis Macshane: Here's to the union with Europe and Scotland
Published: 04 January 2007