Commentators
Robert Gifford: Cycling safety must be moved into the fast lane
Published: 20 January 2007
In 2005, 148 cyclists were killed and 16,413 were injured in Great Britain. It was the second year running in which deaths rose.
Jemima Lewis: Leave your ego behind in the office
Published: 20 January 2007
Richard Ingrams' Week: Time for an inquiry into all the inquiry lawyers
Published: 20 January 2007
It was almost exactly 25 years ago, in January 1972, that the Bloody Sunday shootings took place in Derry, and I wonder whatever happened to that inquiry into the shootings which was being conducted by Lord Savile. No report has appeared to date, and for all I know the inquiry is still in session with Savile and the lawyers getting older by the day - rather like the never-ending case of Jarndyce vs Jarndyce in Dickens' Bleak House.
Chris Smith: The BBC deserves better than this
Published: 19 January 2007
The Third Leader: Happy shoppers
Published: 19 January 2007
On your behalf, The Third Leader's tireless relay teams of researchers spent much of yesterday conducting an exhaustive analysis of the nation's household spending revealed by the latest report of the Office of National Statistics.
Catherine Townsend: Sleeping Around
Published: 18 January 2007
Paul recently confessed that one of his biggest fantasies has always been to make an amateur porn film. So I bought him a digital video camera for Christmas. A few hours after opening the box, he was ready to roll. I was a bit sceptical, because other than the obvious trust issues raised by filming myself in such a compromising position, I was worried about suffering from performance anxiety.
Cooper Brown: He's Out There
Published: 18 January 2007
The Third Leader: Wish you were here
Published: 18 January 2007
The search is on for a tourism chief for the Falkland Islands. On the face of it, this might seem a challenging, even unrewarding position: the islands tend to be fixed in the public imagination, for good reason, as dour, forbidding, and a long way from anywhere except ice and Argentina.
Martin Rees: We need to act now to save the environment
Published: 17 January 2007
The threat of all-out nuclear war hung over us for 40 years. But this catastrophic threat could be merely in temporary abeyance. We are confronted by proliferation of nuclear weapons, in North Korea and Iran for instance. Terrorists might acquire a nuclear weapon.
Patrick Diamond: So where are the new ideas?
Published: 17 January 2007
Rupert Cornwell: Spillages and scandals: an 'annus horribilis' BP would like to forget
Published: 17 January 2007
For BP and its North American operations, 2006 has truly been the annus horribilis - a series of setbacks, accidental and self-inflicted, which have defeated every attempt by the company to restore its reputation after the calamity at the Texas City oil refinery.
Claudia Winkleman: Take It From Me
Published: 17 January 2007
The Third Leader: Celebrity saviours
Published: 17 January 2007
A lot of people knock our celebrity culture, but, on a wet day in January, I, for one, am grateful for the sheer excitement and simple fun famous people bring to a world otherwise overwhelmed by seriousness.
John Lichfield: Strong EU needed in fight against xenophobes
Published: 16 January 2007
A couple of years ago Jean-Marie Le Pen proudly introduced a gaggle of other European ultra-right party leaders to a National Front conference in Strasbourg.
Miguel Angel Moratinos and Jean Asselborn: This enlarged Europe needs a new constitution
Published: 16 January 2007
Dylan Jones: There's only one colour for Christmas tree lights
Published: 16 January 2007
For me, there were many novel things about the recent holiday period. Exhibit A was the Christmas party I went to on 27 November ("We couldn't get any other date, so it was either now or the second week in January," offered the host). Exhibit B would be the retro-future battery-powered salt and pepper grinders a friend was given by an insane relative ("Make every dinner party sound like Einstürzende Neubauten!" you rather hoped the publicity blurb would scream).
The Third Leader: An act of union
Published: 16 January 2007
It is more than a little galling, if you will forgive the word, to discover that the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Northern Ireland and France ought to be 50 years old by now, if only because the food would have been so much better, we could have shrugged at being called cheese-eating surrender monkeys, and Thierry Henry would have been available for selection in Germany last summer.
Tom Greene: Stop demonising us for wanting good schools
Published: 15 January 2007
Shami Chakrabarti: Yet another step along a dangerous road
Published: 15 January 2007
Once upon a time, I thought that this Government was complacent about our personal privacy. Then I thought they were careless with it. Now, from those in power, I see nothing but contempt for that little bit of personal space and security that is so essential to our dignity, that makes us all human.
Rebecca Tyrrel: Days Like Those
Published: 15 January 2007
Lucy Caldwell: The story so far
Published: 15 January 2007
I wrote a story, once, about a twentysomething girl who, returning to Belfast for a holiday, gets caught up in a mass of cancelled flights and meets the love of her life, who turns out to be her older sister's childhood sweetheart. I couldn't believe the irony when, trying to get home for Christmas, I found myself stuck in the chaos of fog and grounded flights at Heathrow. But the only thing I travelled home with was a rotten cold to which, one by one, all of my family succumbed.
Charles Nevin: Doctors should try a bit of entertainment
Published: 15 January 2007
An important element of the columnist's work is the ability to take the temperature, make a diagnosis, and suggest the cure. And, since some of you might well be reading this in the surgery, I was wondering if you had noticed that the medical profession is suffering from a bout of what we journalists call "bad publicity".
Rebecca Tyrrel: Stuck in a traffic jam and I've got the carbon emission blues
Published: 14 January 2007
Joanna Briscoe: Confessions of a total bitch...
Published: 14 January 2007
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