Columnists M - Z
Steve Richards: Forcing the PM to resign early isn't going to solve any of Labour's problems
Published: 06 February 2007
Thomas Sutcliffe: Religion need not decide your politics
Published: 06 February 2007
I take it that I'm not eligible to sign up for Independent Jewish Voices - a new grouping of British intellectuals, academics and artists who have just declared a kind of UDI against the country's Jewish establishment - largely, it seems, in order to speak freely about events in the Middle East. Their website is far too inclusive to allow for anything like a disqualification on grounds of race - but I imagine they assume most well-meaning supporters will take the hint and disqualify themselves if they're not Jewish.
Andreas Whittam Smith: London as seen by the French and the Americans
Published: 05 February 2007
John Rentoul: He is proud and angry, and will not leave quietly
Published: 04 February 2007
Joan Smith: Muslim leaders must rescue the young
Published: 04 February 2007
Editor-At-Large: Calling Burberry protesters: please, it's time to belt up
Published: 04 February 2007
I fully support everyone's right to work - and the right to protest vociferously and energetically if their employer decides to make them redundant. But I'm getting the tiniest bit exasperated with those placard-waving Burberry workers who have filled pages of newsprint since the company announced its plans to shut a factory in Treorchy, South Wales, with the loss of 300 jobs. That is an economic tragedy, but I'm beginning to think that whoever is masterminding the campaign of hate against Burberry wants nothing less than to damage the company globally - and the end result will have serious consequences for even more British workers.
Alan Watkins: Unless Yates of the Yard is the Grand Old Duke of York, then Mr Blair will have to go
Published: 04 February 2007
Rowan Pelling: Keep the doc off your C-cups, boys
Published: 04 February 2007
Brian Viner: Farrell's unexpected sidestep would have knocked even Statto off balance
Published: 03 February 2007
It is always a pleasure to bump into the well-known betting pundit Angus "Statto" Loughran, as I have a couple of times recently, first at Ludlow races and a few weeks later in a snaking queue at Gatwick Airport. Since Angus spends about seven-eighths of his time either at sporting events, or on his way to or from them, this was more of a mild coincidence than a genuine surprise. When I phoned him two days ago he was at the Nad Al Sheba race track in Dubai, but looking forward to being home in good time for the Calcutta Cup.
Deborah Orr: If exceptions can be made for the very rich, do the same for the very poor
Published: 03 February 2007
Matthew Norman: A feeble man who has betrayed his office
Published: 02 February 2007
Thomas Sutcliffe: Cool plus cool just leaves me cold
Published: 02 February 2007
It must have seemed like the perfect marriage. On the one hand, you had Apple's latest ad campaign, which personifies the long, sniping war between Mac and PC with two characters - one uptight and nerdy, the other handsome and relaxed. On the other hand, you have a British sitcom - Mitchell and Webb's Peep Show - which depends on the odd-couple partnership of an anally retentive worker bee and a laid back, hop-head grasshopper. So, the thinking must have run, why run a big casting call for a British version of the ads when you can just piggyback on an established franchise. The demographics look just right and these guys have good comic timing anyway. It's a double win surely?
Christina Patterson: Trust me, I'm an alternative therapist
Published: 02 February 2007
"Write a list" wrote Stephen Russell, aka the "Barefoot Doctor", in one of his last columns in The Observer, "of all the ways you've fallen short. Then, wrapping your arms lovingly around yourself... say warmly, 'Well done you!' for every point listed."
Steve Richards: Manchester gets its supercasino, but who really knows how it won?
Published: 01 February 2007
Janet Street-Porter: Some English lessons on French polish
Published: 01 February 2007
On the day that the French presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy paid a flying visit to London, I took the Eurostar to Paris. My day didn't include lunch with a political leader at the Elysée Palace, or a trip to a job centre. I didn't speak at a rally or pose for photographers - but we both travelled on Eurostar at exactly the same time, in different directions.
Steve Richards: Darkness descends to engulf Blair
Published: 31 January 2007
The darkness that marks Tony Blair's final months gets darker still. The cash for honours investigation began as a serious diversion. It ends by threatening to overwhelm all other matters, reducing serious policy issues to minor matters as Downing Street languishes in a fearful gloom.
Deborah Orr: How can juries understand rape unless the full horror is explained to them?
Published: 31 January 2007
Mark Steel: Jailing people has become an Olympic event
Published: 31 January 2007
Hamish McRae: Brace yourself for a new revolution
Published: 31 January 2007
Brian Viner: Country Life
Published: 31 January 2007
AS MY late father would have said, it served me jolly well right. I was on a short assignment in Italy with three other journalists I hadn't met before, and at the bar one evening we got to asking each other where we lived. The others were based in various parts of London, and were mightily interested to learn that I live way out west, meaning not Ealing or even Ruislip, but Herefordshire.
Steve Richards: John Reid is getting something right
Published: 30 January 2007
John Walsh: Tales of the City
Published: 30 January 2007
Thomas Sutcliffe: We are gambling with people's lives
Published: 30 January 2007
The unexpected success of Mel Gibson's film Apocalypto has been explained away by surprised Hollywood executives in quite a few ways - as proof of the durable virtues of the old-fashioned cliff-hanger or as evidence of an unexpected taste for the exotic. But so far as I know nobody's made much of one of its less obvious pleasures, which is that of civilisational smugness.
Andreas Whittam Smith: Ségolène, Hillary, and their big conversations
Published: 29 January 2007
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