Articles:
- ‘Legalised’ killing puts the world in danger - America’s remote-controlled execution without trial of one of its own citizens sets a terrifying precedent - 10th October 2011
- Dad’s Army: the perfect model for the Tories - The public would vote for politicians with fortitude, character, courtesy and a willingness to laugh at themselves - 4th October 2011
- Stand up to Putin and stop the Cold Rush - The Arctic must be put under global law to avert the catastrophe threatened by the scramble for its fuels - 27th September 2011
- It’s no state secret that this law is often abused - The Official Secrets Act does little to protect national security and a lot to keep the public in the dark - 20th September 2011
- Why Cameron needs Smiley more than ever - Russia may urge Britain to forget Litvinenko and the past but it is now revelling in new Cold War-style espionage - 13th September 2011
- Truth? Give me cheats and fibbers any day - A foolproof lie detector sounds like a marvellous breakthrough. But a world of pure honesty would be unbearable - 5th September 2011
- Careful with that joke. It might be loaded - Humour can topple tyrants – but it can also be used as a tool of oppression, as P. G.Wodehouse found to his cost - 30th August 2011
- Hitler, master of the futile fight to the end - Gaddafi boasted about his heroic resistance, but he has not been able to inspire the blind loyalty that the Führer did - 23rd August 2011
- The Scots have far too much of a good thing - Today the drink is killing them. The re-released Whisky Galore! harks back to a simpler, more hospitable age - 2nd August 2011
- A mass murderer is no match for a paperclip - The resolute way that Norway stood up to the Nazis shows the futility of Anders Behring Breivik’s terrorism - 26th July 2011
- Now I’ve stopped collecting I feel complete - I am finally finished with this strange and gentle form of British male madness. But why did I start in the first place? - 19th July 2011
- Mao’s great leap of madness exposed - Mao’s Great Famine by Frank Dikötter is a harrowing and brilliant book, meticulously researched, gripping and supremely important - 12th July 2011
- Poland must not renege on its wartime debts - This refusal to restore goods and property looted by the Nazis is a continuing stain on the national character - 5th July 2011
- Is that a hero or a coward behind the mask? - Online anonymity is precious for Middle East protesters — but that freedom is abused by hackers and bullies - 28th June 2011
- Syria’s revolt won’t be buried like Hama was - In 1982 Hafez Assad razed a city to crush a rebellion. In the age of YouTube his son no longer has that option - 21st June 2011
- The long walk from Leigh Fermor to Obama - Even in the age of Google Earth and Wikipedia, travel writing is not dead; it just appears in other guises - 14th June 2011
- In the DNA era, there are no unknown soldiers - Once mass killers could hope that they and their victims would stay unidentifiable. Now science is fighting back - 7th June 2011
- We are not amused? Prince Philip couldn’t care less - The Duke of Edinburgh is a monument to a vanishing form of humour. We should celebrate him while we still can - 31st May 2011
- Obama’s bifocal view has Britain in sharp focus - Through his grandfathers the US President sees two sides of our past – wartime bravery and colonial cruelty - 24th May 2011
- France’s unfaithful servants of the people - Britain may be too censorious about its politicians’ sex lives but nudge-nudge admiration is no less misguided - 17th May 2011
- The truth will out. Obama should know this - While Britain is now intent on opening up the past to public scrutiny, America seems to be as secretive as ever - 10th May 2011
- Bin Laden: the false prophet who failed to steal history - A fraud, a coward and an historical vandal, bin Laden peddled a partial view of the past to further his barbaric cause - 3rd May 2011
- A pox on those who’d keep this deadly virus - By destroying the last stocks of smallpox we can finally bring an end to a toxic microbial arms race - 26th April 2011
- Steady. Aim. Fire. Tidy desk. Go back home - Is it really warfare when machines replace men — and risk, self-sacrifice, horror and bravery are taken away? - 19th April 2011
- Torture device No 1: the legal rubber stamp - Whether tackling the Mau Mau or suspects in Guantánamo, it is always wrong to put policy before the law - 12th April 2011
- The bare-chested cheek of a French thinker - Whether he’s muscling into queues or conflicts, Bernard-Henry Lévy doesn’t know his place. Thank goodness - 29th March 2011
- Desert that beat Rommel may fox Gaddafi too - The conflict in Libya today has remarkable parallels with the battles of 1941-42 – as the Colonel might appreciate - 22nd March 2011
- Why quakes leave the Japanese unshakeable - They call it ‘gaman’ – the unflappable stoicism that helps this nation survive whatever nature throws at it - 15th March 2011
- Britain’s dogs of war must be on a tighter leash - The UK is so reliant on private military companies that it may no longer be able to fight without them - 8th March 2011
- Prince is too keen to trade on his royal status - ‘Air Miles Andy’ should beware the anger aroused when lesser members of a ruling clan live too high on the hog - 1st March 2011
- Gaddafi’s model dictatorship is turning to dust - For all his seeming madness, the Libyan leader’s antics have been cleverly calculated to keep his people in check - 22nd February 2011
- A rare event – an artist displays intelligence - Until now, our images of MI6 came from Smiley or 007. Now a series of paintings exposes the blunt reality - 15th February 2011
- The novel handbook to Egypt’s revolution - To understand what is happening in Tahrir Square a surprise bestseller by a Cairo dentist is required reading - 8th February 2011
- Troubled America needs True Grit once more - The Coens’ remake of a classic western pays proper respect to a great novel that has striking modern resonance - 1st February 2011
- Indian-English – it’s absolutely super-duper - Where once India copied the language of the Raj, it now produces its own confident and flourishing version - 25th January 2011
- At last Hollywood history is no longer bunk - Nitpickers, beware, there’s not much wrong with The King’s Speech. The movie industry has new respect for the past - 18th January 2011
- A new opening in Afghanistan’s theatre of war - A fringe play transferring from London to the Pentagon will teach soldiers that their enemy’s history is their own - 11th January 2011
- France’s colonial legacy still poisons Africa - Ivory Coast’s spiral into chaos is exacerbated by the reluctance of Paris to give up power in its former possessions - 4th January 2011
- Scientists are the Chaco’s friends. Let them in - An ‘uncontacted’ Paraguayan tribe must be protected from intruders, but today’s researchers mustn’t pay for past crimes - 28th December 2010
- We should listen to Lawrence of Afghanistan - The hero of the Arab revolt pioneered modern insurgent warfare and still offers the best insights into defeating it - 21st December 2010
- It’s Tyrant TV and Iran’s ratings are slipping - From Ancient Rome to the Nazis, parading your enemies is not a sign of despotic power but of weakness - 14th December 2010
- Russian spying isn’t dead. It’s merely sleeping - We are obsessed with honey traps, hair colour and Mata Hari. We should take Moscow’s women agents more seriously - 7th December 2010
- To ctrl WikiLeaks will mean more del - Enjoy this stash of secrets while you can: diplomats are unlikely to leave their electronic tracks uncovered in future - 30th November 2010
- Nothing succeeds like the right succession - Women tend to make the best monarchs. Anne should be next in line, with Queen Zara (and King Mike) to follow - 23rd November 2010
- Call no man happy until he’s on our index - David Cameron wants to measure national contentment, not economic growth. But you can’t engineer satisfaction - 16th November 2010
- Bush’s history of the world in black and white - The President was a voracious reader about the past but overlooked its complexity - 10th November 2010
- The entente is about to get even more cordiale - After centuries of enmity, Britain and France will make common military cause. But the idea is older than you think - 2nd November 2010
- Cheap and very nasty, the gun for all seasons - The Kalashnikov AK-47 rifle has done more damage to the world than many more sophisticated weapons - 26th October 2010
- Downton Abbey, 1912 – why, it’s just like 2010 - The television series presents a picture of an elegant, untroubled age. The reality, like today, was very different - 19th October 2010
- Britain and Chile: a marriage of true mines - A century ago one in ten of our male workers was a miner. No wonder we’re fascinated by the San José drama - 12th October 2010
- When in MI5, spy as the Romans spied - The toga-and-dagger world of classical espionage has intriguing parallels for the modern security services - 5th October 2010
- In this Unholy Trinity the grandson also rises - The Kims have used all the trappings of religious fervour to establish their dynastic dictatorship in North Korea - 28th September 2010
- Real James Bonds don’t use the licence to kill - Britain’s wartime spy chiefs knew assassination was counterproductive. It’s a lesson the CIA should learn - 21st September 2010
- We British take to moaning, not to the streets - Our winters of discontent are a grim contrast with flamboyant French industrial action - 14th September 2010
- Scientist who won Blitz’s ‘Battle of the Beams’ - The unsung Reginald Victor Jones used radio waves to successfully counter the Luftwaffe’s deadly attack on Britain - 7th September 2010
- Cricket and espionage, an ideal partnership - The dismay at the exposure of the Cambridge spy ring has an echo today in the Pakistan betting imbroglio - 1st September 2010
- Bow your head. This is hallowed ground - Barack Obama’s biggest mistake as President has been underestimating the feelings over Ground Zero - 24th August 2010
- Coming to a plate near you: the Frankenfurter - Artificial meat grown in a vat of chemicals may not make the mouth water, but it could solve the world food crisis - 17th August 2010
- All quiet on the Afghan fiction front - A decade of warfare has yielded some brilliant nonfiction. But no novels - 10th August 2010
- Bluefin tuna, the fish that is too tasty to live - Man’s uncontrollable appetite has driven the Porsche of the seas to the brink - 3rd August 2010
- Bile and bias and golden nuggets of truth - Today’s political memoirs are not the first draft of history - 13th July 2010
- Spies, a mix of fact, fiction and fear - Anna Chapman fits a compelling narrative — that our enemies live among us - 6th July 2010
- Stop poverty: plant a city in a failing one - Hong Kong model: rich nations pair with developing ones to start special economic zones - 29th June 2010
- Salt water everywhere, so not a drop to drink - The Shatt al-Arab, which once watered the Garden of Eden, has been brutalised by war, politics and greed - 27th June 2010
- De Gaulle would have hated the Saville inquiry - The French leader glossed over his nation’s shortcomings. But sometimes cold examination of the truth is needed - 15th June 2010
- Cameron must address his rhetorical deficit - Churchill understood the power of words. In today’s economic crisis the Prime Minister needs to find his voice - 8th June 2010
- Today it’s hard to stop paying the price of fame - Fifty years ago Harper Lee could turn her back on celebrity. Now Susan Boyle seems inescapably trapped in its spotlight - 1st June 2010
- Can we stay humane, even in the hell of war? - Moral lines have been blurred on torture: our leaders should remember how the Allies fought with integrity - 25th May 2010
- Cameron and Clegg: who is more upper crust? - It’s an intriguing, very British – and entirely pointless – pastime to work out which of our leaders is the posher - 18th May 2010
- The partners in this relationship must move on - It’s no longer special between Britain and the US. There are now pragmatists on both sides - 11th May 2010
- Nights in Prestatyn, never reaching the end - Rare roast lamb on the Tory plane, curly sandwiches on Brown’s bus. Why I love being trapped on the trail - 5th May 2010
- Nights in Prestatyn, never reaching the end - Rare roast lamb on the Tory plane, curly sandwiches on Brown’s bus. Why I love being trapped on the trail - 4th May 2010
- Is there a bit of the baroness in Clegg? - Lib Dem leader’s remarkable great-great-aunt was a double agent who knew how to play both sides - 27th April 2010
- Message to parties: the slogan isn’t working - So far not one catchphrase has stuck in this campaign. The electorate is too cynical to swallow empty phrases - 20th April 2010
- In dark times Poland needs the truth - Conspiracy theories grow out of secrecy. The Smolensk air crash investigation must be open - 13th April 2010
- Triumph, disaster or a birthday present for Blair? - Tony Blair was born on May 6. Some of Gordon Brown’s supporters may feel that this is a good omen, a sign that he will at last eclipse the man who stood for so long between him and the premiership - 7th April 2010
- Online Ordnance Survey maps are a treasure - The mapping revolution has had a breakthrough. But too many Ordnance Survey jewels are still locked away - 6th April 2010
- Winston Churchill: an unlikely adviser in the Afghan conflict - The commander of US and Nato forces has been seeking guidance from the British statesman, who visited the Afghan-Pakistan border in 1897 - 30th March 2010
- Barack Obama must justify covert killing. Or halt it - It’s not just Israel that is eliminating its enemies. The US is pursuing a programme of state-backed assassination - 25th March 2010
- Blue shirts and blitzkrieg? It’s just not cricket - Hitler’s First XI was also his last. His aim to Nazify the sport was stumped by good manners and fair play - 18th March 2010
- Remember the Crimea. Look after the Army - The scandalous underequipping of soldiers in Afghanistan has uncomfortable echoes of 150 years ago - 11th March 2010
- A 17th-century power behind the Tory throne - The Conservatives want to present a modern face but the shadowy Lord Ashcroft belongs to a different era - 4th March 2010
- As Orwell foretold, Kim Jong Il is watching you - In the year that Nineteen Eighty-Four was published, the benighted North Korean state was born. Find the connection . . . - 25th February 2010
- The girl who stormed on to the bestsellers’ list - All the great fictional detectives hold up a mirror to their times, and Stieg Larsson’s bisexual Goth geek is no different - 18th February 2010
- Today we’re less secret – but probably less safe - The decision to release material on the torture of Binyam Mohamed was right. But secrecy is still vital to government - 11th February 2010
- To be deceived, first you must deceive yourself - Whether in Hitler’s high command or Blair’s War Cabinet, it is easy to fall prey to ‘yesmanship’ and wishful thinking - 4th February 2010
- We need a dug-out canoe to navigate the net - The new Apple iPad isn’t the half of it. The torrent of internet information is forcing us to change the way we think - 28th January 2010
- Haiti's fault line runs straight to France - The earthquake’s destruction has been aggravated not by a pact with the Devil, but by the crippling legacy of imperialism - 21st January 2010
- Buildings are where we store our memories - Auschwitz must be preserved; so must all important structures falling into decay, from Buckingham Palace downwards - 14th January 2010
- Hail, Britain’s Indiana Jones of the Amazon - The newly discovered rainforest civilisation shows that deforestation is not just vandalism but a crime against history - 7th January 2010
- Heroes of the moral resistance against Adolf Hitler - We forget in the retelling of history that Germans opposed to the Nazis were motivated by a powerful religious impulse - 5th January 2010
- Ambition always comes before a fall - The Burj Dubai is just the latest example of mankind’s ‘edifice complex’ - 31st December 2009
- Live TV debating will be a sudden-death contest - Britain’s political leaders are gambling with high stakes as they agree to American-style ‘presidential’ contests - 24th December 2009
- Can I be complimentary, my dear Watson? - We celebrate flashy, insensitive Holmes, but it’s his sidekick’s common sense, bravery and friendship that we should admire - 17th December 2009
- Where the Rosetta belongs can’t be set in stone - Great cultural artefacts and great intellectual ideas are no respecters of national boundaries. Everyone must share them - 10th December 2009
- Ted Hughes was a prophet of climate change - A generation of writers is just coming to terms with the biggest issue of our age. We should honour the man who foresaw it - 3rd December 2009
- The ghost of Robin Cook haunts Chilcot’s feast - In 2003 the irascible MP resigned over the Iraq war. His clarity of principle contrasts sharply with today’s grey fudge - 26th November 2009
- Bulldozers in! Away with nostalgia! - Those complaining at the Lord's plans are in thrall to a stupidly rose-tinted view of the postwar years - 19th November 2009
- A stiff upper lip is no longer a badge of honour - For generations public grief has embarrassed Britain. But as a new generation experiences the pain of war, that is changing - 12th November 2009
- The internet is killing storytelling - Narratives are a staple of every culture the world over. They are disappearing in an online blizzard of tiny bytes of information - 5th November
- Barack Obama must face down the ghost of Vietnam - As the President ponders sending more troops to Afghanistan, he is haunted by the conflict that scarred the US psyche - 29th October 2009
- It’s a bonobo-help-bird world - We’re taught nature requires usto be selfish, but a new study argues empathy is natural for all animals - 22nd October 2009
- Barack Obama is out of step on gays in the military - It takes two kinds of bravery to come out in the Armed Forces. Those who show courage deserve more than political cowardice - 15th October 2009
- Sordid tale brings shame on Britain - Labour and the Tories are ignorantly exploiting a tragic and complex period of Latvian history - 8th October 2009
- Sarah Brown and the regrettable rise of the political spouse - Come back Denis Thatcher and Norma Major. This conference performance was just too sickly - 1st October 2009
- Political scandal could become verse - In Britain, we hate being embarrassed. In France, disgrace is an excuse for a volume of doggerel - 24th September 2009
- Secrets can be good for you. Ask Dan Brown - The move towards transparency in public life has been a huge advance. But individuals still need their privacy protected - 17th September 2009
- War pictures can mean more than words - The US Defence Department may disagree, but the images speak for themselves - 10th September 2009
- A brilliant artist self-destructing in the public eye - The day Michael Jackson’s music died seemed almost impossibly predictable, the chronicle of a death foretold, by him - 2nd July 2009 (See: Michael Jackson; summary)
- The green cow: it's not emission impossible - They may be frightening on the charge, but it's the beasts' malodorous eructations that should scare us most - 11th June 2009
- Garbo, the secret agent from Hendon - D-Day would not have been such a success without the work of an eccentric double agent - 6th June 2009
- We've never needed history more than now - Its study may be declining in schools, but we are obsessed with the past and understanding it is crucial to the present - 28th May 2009
- Farewell to Westminster - Britain's oldest - and oddest - private club, which has finally been forced to play by public rules - 21st May 2009
- We can't just let sleeping dogs lie - It is an injustice to those who are falsely accused, both living and dead, if past secrets remain hidden - 14th May 2009
- The passing of the unknown soldier - Thanks to science, there will be no more Tommy Atkins. The war dead will be buried with their names - 7th May 2009
- With some effort Man created swine flu - If you abuse nature by mass-producing meat in appalling conditions, you pay the price - 30th April 2009
- The idea that torture works is fiction - Subject suspects to extreme pain and they will say anything. How can we trust the ‘secrets' they reveal? - 23rd April 2009
- The battle against piracy begins in Mogadishu - The Somali marauders who are terrorising shipping have deep roots in the local ‘shifta' tradition of outlaw robber gangs - 16th April 2009
- Musical politicians and bum notes - The Kim Il Sung-along is just the latest attempt by a world leader to harness the power of a good tune - 9th April 2009
- Let them wear hairshirts, not cloths of gold - Summits have been about conspicuous consumption since Henry VIII's day. In these grim times there must be a better way - 2nd April 2009
- World viewed from the window ledge - Suicide rate is likely to spike as economic distress combines with the collapse of belief systems - 26th March 2009
- We should sing louder for our heroes - We have become reluctant to elevate people to heroic status for acts of violence in distant lands - 19th March 2009
- The way we read as our world totters - Sales of romantic fiction, Dickens and Ayn Rand's paean to capitalism are soaring - 12th March 2009
- The Pakistan badlands must be tamed - Two British imperial legacies collided on the streets of Lahore when gunmen opened fire - 5th March 2009
- My turf in our green and peasant land - As the world slides into economic chaos, more people want a safe little patch of earth to cultivate - 26th February 2009
- Hark, I hear the ghost of a buccaneer - The goatskin-clad figure who inspired Robinson Crusoe resonates across three centuries - 12th February 2009
- Who boots the shoe throwers? - The significance of shoe hurling lies less in the intentions of the thrower than the reaction to it - 5th February 2009
- It matters who painted The Colossus - If we doubt who created a masterpiece then it no longer speaks to us in the same way - 29th January 2009
- Welcome back Tom Paine - The words of a drunken Norfolk pamphleteer lay at the heart of the new President's message - 22nd January 2009
- Taking a machinegun to history - Three recent Hollywood films set in the Second World War are fun, but miles from reflecting reality - 15th January 2009
- Wealth will bloom again - Whether it is flowerbulbs or derivatives there is nothing new about irrational speculation - 8th January 2009
- Why MI5 lifts its cloak and shows its dagger - The secret services were once exactly that. But the need for a different kind of recruit has heralded a new openness - 7th January 2009
- Headache? Scotland's poet can help - Burns's rude jokes and faith in old friends to overcome bad times provide a tonic - 1st January 2009
- Hunger for euphoria pulls the modern crowd - For the multitudes who will gather to celebrate the Obama inauguration, just being there is the most important thing - 18th December 2008
- Cure for cholera: a heavy dose of political will - If a state breaks down, as Zimbabwe has, the disease is likely to spread. But, as in Victorian times, the solution is obvious - 11th December 2008
- Arrogant and joyless: Obama's take on Britain? - The President-elect's writings seem to be coloured by his grandfather's brutal treatment at the hands of the colonists - 4th December 2008
- Snoopers/good neighbours keep out - Without a culture of neighbourliness, it's easy for the rapist father and others to get away with their crimes - 27th November 2008
- Don't panic, it's just Mariah Careyensis - The minister's soup memo, Madonna's loo seats. It's what happens when you're at the top too long - 20th November 2008
- The harsh lesson of Afghanistan: little has changed in 200 years - As President Karzai visits Britain, an account written by the first European to visit his country still has much to teach us - 13th November 2008
- The unlikely lad who grew up to be president - The journey of Barack Obama journey is as compelling as it is exotic, and it lies at the heart of his success - 7th November 2008
- They’ll always remember where they were when... - The election of Barack Obama, and his movingly understated acceptance speech, was one of those moments - 6th November 2008
- John McCain - he fought and lost with honour - He deserved to fail. But the Republican candidate was a worthy opponent - 6th November 2008
- Pope Pius: moral coward or saint? - More evidence is needed to judge how the wartime pontiff responded to his agonising predicament - 23rd October 2008
- The white lie that threatens Obama - The unspoken legacy of racism could still scupper Barack Obama's bid for the presidency - 16th October 2008
- How much does confidence cost? - The big money is chasing a commodity that cannot be bought or sold on the open market - 9th October 2008
- Two words spell trouble for US voters - One senator is ‘cool', one is ‘maverick'. But neither Obama or McCain can feel happy about their epithet - 3rd October 2008
- Small-town America still thinks big - It doesn't really exist, but the idealised rural community holds the key to the White House - 25th September 2008
- Greening the American dream - The US should put the same creativity that produced the car into tackling the energy crisis it has caused - 18th September 2008
- Give the laureate more cash - and more wine - And don't force the poet royal to write about royalty. It might be the only way to get any great poetry from the post - 11th September 2008
- The British are the masters of deceit - From bamboozling the Nazis in the war to fooling the Taleban this week, nobody lies better than those famous stiff upper lips - 3rd September 2008
- Ben Macintyre on the gory reality behind nursery rhymes - 29th August 2008
- A grimly familiar tale in US history - The alleged plot to kill Barack Obama fits a dramatic pattern that began at a theatre 140 years ago - 27th August 2008
- Fitting tribute to our enigmatic nature - Bletchley Park worked because of two great British traits - our secrecy and eccentricity - 22nd August 2008
- Creatures of our guilty conscience - As real-life creatures face extinction, mankind is fascinated by the possibility of imaginary ones - 14th August 2008
- War films: the great escape from the truth - The reality of Stalag Luft III was far grimmer than the romanticised derring-do that became typical of postwar movies - 8th August 2008
- Whodunnits? A cultural religion - The Victorians, like us, were fascinated by logical deduction and a suspicion of the neighbours - 18th July 2008
- The absent fathers of Obama and McCain - How absent parents were crucial in shaping the characters of both Obama and his Republican presidential rival - 17th July 2008
- We’re here . . . and you’re not - Ever since the invention of the British postcard in 1894, holidaymakers have been struggling to find the perfect message - 17th July 2008
- Let's all have tickets to the universal museum - 10th July 2008
- Mamma Mia, how can we resist the words of Abba? - 4th July 2008
- Adolf Hitler: From national bogeyman to ruinous failure - The waxwork Hitler in Berlin is the latest proof of Germany’s determination to come to terms with a gruesome history - 4th July 2008
archive
|
