Articles:
- The secret to surviving winter? Preserved lemons - Tart, bitter, home-made preserved lemons – these wonderful things are never boring, full of the faraway taste of sunny days - 19th December 2011
- Comment, like a strangler-fig, is getting stronger than the politics on which it feeds - Commentary demands absolute opinions, while uncertainty comes over as weakness, and so tribalism inevitably thrives - 24th October 2011
- Times are tough: Cameron's best hope now is to be dull - The centre ground is the prime minister's natural home, and it is the safest place for him as the economic storm worsens - 3rd October 2011
- Greece is doomed. Banks are bust. And Ed Balls is silent - The left must offer more than the ghost of an alternative economic programme - 26th September 2011
- What is the government's 'nudge unit'? - The work of the Behavioural Insights Team is one of the under-discussed elements of creative coalition thinking - 20th September 2011
- Derby's fury could provoke a sensible plan for UK industry - The failure to give a key contract to our last train factory undermines what ministers say about rebalancing the economy - 19th September 2011
- Clegg must remind Lib Dem moaners they are in power - A conference speech to play to the faithful would be easy, but Clegg needs to show he is still intent on making coalition work - 12th September 2011
- How Liam Glover and his dog Lamy cost us £2.7bn - Identity theft amounts to a collective mugging of the British public on a grand scale. We should do more to stamp it out - 5th September 2011
- When all hope is collapsing, it's time for a reality check - A Panglossian take on the economy and riots would be trite. But we should not let facing society's ills turn to paralysing despair - 16th August 2011
- Cameron's marathon statement on the riots set the theme of responsibility - This is difficult territory for David Cameron – as it is for Ed Miliband – but his Commons performance was good - 12th August 2011
- The cry for leadership goes out – and no one answers - In the midst of a financial meltdown is a thundering absence of bright ideas. The best we can do, the message goes, is not sink - 8th August 2011
- Lines for electoral boundary changes could crack the UK coalition - Turning 650 old electoral districts into 600 new ones will shape the next election. But it could trigger a crisis before that - 1st August 2011
- Osborne does not have a plan B, but there is a plan A+ - Forget phone hacking – if tomorrow's growth figures are dire, the coalition really will be fighting for its life - 25th July 2011
- Who tops the phone-hacking inquiry charts? - Decoding the news: Just how many phone-hacking inquiries are there – and who is behind the scenes? Find out with our top inquiries countdown - 20th July 2011
- Mothballing ships makes little sense. We need these armed forces - The fate of HMS Albion, soon to go into 'extended readiness' after the farce of the defence review, makes a pitiful spectacle - 18th July 2011
- David Cameron had little choice but to back Labour's BSkyB motion - Cameron's News Corp links have hurt him badly – and Miliband knows the best opposition tactic is to keep on punching a bruise - 12th July 2011
- Now the coalition will try to set its compass for reform - The public services white paper is an attempt to rebuild momentum in a wobbly time. Even if it's ignored, it matters - 11th July 2011
- Diaries may lack purity, but the personal really matters - The new volume of Alastair Campbell's diaries reminds us how much we can learn from first-hand accounts - 4th July 2011
- Why Sunderland and Stoke are the tomorrow's world of the UK economy - I shared the country's gloom about Britain's manufacturing future – until a visit to a car plant and a ceramics factory - 28th June 2011
- The coalition still hasn't worked out the principles that bind it together - Retreat on the NHS, on sentencing – Conservatives and Lib Dems talk of pragmatism, but cannot define a common purpose - 21st June 2011
- The Afghan war is lost. So now who'll take the blame? - There is no single villain. The military did the disastrous deed, but it was civilians who created and defined the mission - 13th June 2011
- Gove's silent revolution in schools may ease the state-private divide - The education secretary's plans, quietly enacted, won't turn every school into Eton but could turn Eton into the exception - 23rd May 2011
- Our crazy approach to our crazy loss-making railways - Unions, passengers and politicians will all find fault with Sir Roy McNulty's review this week – and it will change little - 16th May 2011
- They gave us Lembit Opik, but we still need Lib Dems - The Lib Dems can be infuriating, but a third party is vital if we want to avoid politics-as-bloodsport, and maintain democracy - 9th May 2011
- The coalition love-in is over, but it needn't mean divorce - Rivalry is natural, but if the government wants to survive it has to show that it's big enough to handle opposing views - 2nd May 2011
- Guantánamo piled lie upon lie through the momentum of its own existence - What is given new prominence by these leaked Guantánamo files is the cold and incompetent stupidity of the system - 25th April 2011
- Cameron's positive miasma is a sort of Gestalt politics - The prime minister is often a mystery, even to his own party. But if he can't explain his vision, how can it be sold? - 18th April 2011
- The cultural cringe subverted - Only in Tasmania could Mona exist – an outsider's tilt at the orthodoxies of the art establishment - 14th April 2011
- Few politicians say it, but most think it: our Afghan war is a disaster - The army is on the Soviet occupiers' path, with less success. What follows may be worse. All we can do, perhaps, is go - 11th April 2011
- The best architecture for spring 2011 - From an exquisite new bridge in Salford, to a Finnish music venue - 5th April 2011
- Nick Clegg's social mobility plans should not be lost amid mockery - This may have felt like a horrible week for Nick Clegg, but he is brave in using his own privilege to abolish advantages for others - 7th April 2011
- The coalition must hold its nerve on NHS reform - Compromise is fine, but walk away from NHS reform completely and the government puts at risk pride and confidence in its entire programme for public services - 4th April 2011
- Will community power halt the uglification of Britain's buildings? - Planning laws are to be shredded. But we should not fear more building, because England is greener than we realise - 28th March 2011
- Budget 2011: Guardian columnists' verdict - 24th March 2011
- The budget will not break this bloody-minded coalition - It's not the cuts but the AV referendum that will test Cameron and Clegg. Whatever happens, one side will feel defeated - 21st March 2011
- The anarchy and ecstasy of Cheltenham races - It's not just the horses and the crowds. I love Cheltenham because the normal rules don't apply - 18th March 2011
- The world's nuclear fate rests in Japan - A post-quake meltdown could end people's trust in atomic energy. But the planet would suffer for it - 14th March 2011
- England then and now: fond of dogs, tea and fancy foreign food - We are richer, freer and more diverse than 300 years ago but, as a book from 1808 reveals, so much remains the same - 21st February 2011
- In its dealings with Russia, Britain must tread a narrow path - The government's natural instinct is to improve relations – but it must not ignore the truth about Putin's regime - 14th February 2011
- Our bus services are being slowly crushed by the pensioner burden - All sense but political sense says scrap the ill-judged generosity of spending £1bn a year so over-60s can travel free - 7th February 2011
- A situation report from the electoral reform battlefield - This isn't a battle over constituencies any more. It is now a showdown of wills between the executive and the opposition - 1st February 2011
- For growth, it's often best that the state does nothing - Economic recovery is unpredictable and easy to damage. The politicians' problem is that appearing hands-off looks dreadful - 31st January 2011
- If nationalising forestry was a disaster, an unthinking sell-off would be worse - We should fear the breakup of the Forestry Commission less and care about restoring our lost greenwoods more - 24th January 2011
- A coaltion that breaks things up to change society can't stop at the state - Fairness means liberals should be as unsparing in pursuit of private oligarchies like BSkyB as of public bureaucracies like the BBC - 17th January 2011
- Oldham result relied on borrowed votes - The real talking point of the Oldham byelection is not the Labour victory, but the redistribution of votes between the main parties - 14th January 2011
- High-speed rail is the future. At least, the state bets it is - I've returned from the Chilterns still a believer, but struck by the local protest and unsure the line is in the national interest - 6th December 2010
- Snow white sensations - We can now get plenty of data on the weather, but the numbers can't tell how it'll make us feel - 29th November 2010
- As the left falls into a negative sulk, the centre-right have become the optimists - Everything, the Labour party says, is about to get worse. The task of dreaming dreams has been left to Nick Clegg and David Cameron - 22nd November 2010
- The web may be lawless, but it won't stay that way - These skirmishes over Twitter are a reminder that, for all its pretence to liberty, we can't stop the internet civilising itself - 15th November 2010
- Oldham could point the way to a Lib Dem obliteration - The byelection will provide a perfect experiment in coalition politics. Perversely, Labour has least to worry about - 7th November 2010
- Ten tips for the Liberal Democrats - Contrary to what many believe, the Lib Dems were right to choose coalition, and can remain a distinctive force - 4th November 2010
- Don't turn a failed bomb plot into an al-Qaida victory - Yemen is a catastrophe of a country, and we should help it. Talking up confrontation is a stupid response – and exactly what terrorists want to hear - 1st November 2010
- The Tower Hamlets fiasco is localism at its very worst - A dubious candidate was elected mayor by a tiny minority of voters. That's local democracy – the centre has to live with it - 25th October 2010
- Many people now hate the Lib Dems for having power - This mindset doesn't judge the coalition for its actions but condemns its existence, and damns Clegg for compromising - 18th October 2010
- The left should recognise that equality is undesirable - It sounds horribly rightwing, but a fair society may be one in which people have the right to strive for inequality - 11th October 2010
- Tories must tackle the failure of the state, not abolish it - Ministers should mount a defence of smaller, more effective government – still the only way some goals can be achieved - 4th October 2010
- My advice to the coalition? Don't be nasty to Miliband - Smearing Labour's new leader, a decent man, as Red Ed will backfire on his critics. They should be testing him instead - 28th September 2010
- Westminster theory meets anaesthetised local reality - The resigned acceptance of cuts I saw in Cannock is a good sign for the coalition. Yet there's raw meat for Labour here, too - 20th September 2010
- Yes, the coalition wants to smash the state. That's good - The misery of cuts will grind the government down unless it boldly declares the ideology behind its spending plans - 13th September 2010
- South America could be a good friend, but we ignore it - Development and democracy flourish on the continent, and trade with it would help the UK to escape recession - 6th September 2010
- The dark side of gay liberation - Officially no one cares about a politician's sexuality. The William Hague case shows that isn't true - 2nd September 2010
- Tony Blair the actor, Gordon Brown the grump? No, the split was much deeper - Blair's book shows he thinks Brown was very wrong on policy - 1st September 2010
- Now that cuts are accepted, we must all decide our fate - The coalition has shaped the argument brilliantly. But the spending review could fall apart without full public involvement - 3rd August 2010
- Labour reacts to Michael Gove's academies bill like a childhood nightmare - In its agitation, the oppositon has failed to notice the revolutionary part of the otherwise thin academies reform - 26th July 2010
- Politicians matter again as the Commons is revitalised - But Westminster's new spirit may be stifled if the alternative vote, at core a top-down compromise, ever comes to pass - 19th July 2010
- We have the cenotaph: we don't need more memorials - If you want to put up a statue to the fallen of world war two it seems nothing can stop you. It is becoming a death cult, and it's time to end it - 12th July 2010
- The coalition must stay calm and ignore the sour yoghurt - The government must rise above the left's howl against budget cuts and explain its attempt at a fair distribution of pain - 5th July 2010
- Every prime ministerial career ends in the ditch - The job traps you for life. Always departing in some form of ignominy, former PMs must then do penance for ever - 28th June 2010
- This is the moment to pack away the diamante wands - As the No 10 drinks party showed, the political battle over sexual politics is won. Yet the cultural battle is far from over - 20th June 2010
- The coalition's sunshine phase is over. Things are about to get nasty - Next week's budget will crush the fairytale mood. There is no great division in the coalition, but there may be in the country - 14th June 2010
- Why Cameron wants to cut - The economic arguments will go on, but it's the PM's small-state instincts that have guided him to the decision to make these cuts - 8th June 2010
- Saving industry needn't pit sentiment against machismo - Theorists like Cable say bailing out British firms is pointless. Mandelson's cheque, however, would back a success story - 7th June 2010
- David Laws: felled by a creditable but misplaced sense of shame - This man of exceptional nobility has been broken: if not for entertainment, then because of a process no one seems able to stop - 31st May 2010
- David Laws: I fear he won't survive - This is a scandal – if it is a scandal – caused by the Liberal Democrat MP's inability to face up to his sexuality, not a desire to fiddle expenses - 29th May 2010
- The digital switchover is folly. Listeners like radio as it is - Billions must be spent on new sets. Car radios will stop working. But an industry has been built to impose this on us all - 24th May 2010
- Nick Clegg's careful not to over-promise - The zeal for reform is not in doubt, but the Con-Lib coalition has only a modest fund of political capital to draw on - 20th May 2010
- The public wants a ceasefire, so let's give peace a chance - Critics of the Lib-Con pact should pause: whether or not it brings permanent change, most people want this deal to work - 17th May 2010
- Hand in hand, in a liberal wonderland – that's Clegg and Cameron - Sceptics say the coalition can't last. But the PM and his deputy have created a government of breathtaking ambition - 13th May 2010
- Conservatives won't put up with being strung along forever - Cameron has held his party together during the negotiations, but he must avoid being tainted by Lib Dem indecision - 11th May 2010 (Cif at the polls)
- The onus is on Lib Dems. Do this Tory deal, or be consigned to irrelevance - Some of Clegg's MPs may desert – but that's no bad thing. Here is a real chance to take British politics beyond tribalism - 9th May 2010
- Labour left clinging to hope - With all three parties within a few points of each other, anything is possible – but Labour shouldn't be too optimistic - 4th May 2010
- David Cameron's view of progress isn't revolution, but quiet effectiveness - Cameron doesn't offer a new paradigm for government. He believes in taking things as they come, and in human potential - 4th May 2010
- Election 2010: Could a blue-yellow coalition work? - Conservatives and Lib Dems share a lot of common ground. But would David Cameron agree to PR? - 26th April 2010
- Nick Clegg sees Labour as a dead party - Get real about the Lib Dems, Gordon Brown. They are gunning for your role as Britain's leading progressive force - 22nd April 2010
- Election: Stick us no more bills, please - Labour has passed enough new laws – too many to police. Politicians and the press should stop demanding them - 12th April 2010
- Cameron is right - we need a liberal middle way - A Conservative leader seized by the idea of giving the ownership of group decisions back to groups deserves encouragement - 5th April 2010
- Our defence policy is caught between pride and guilt - Fear of looking weak drives everything. Britain keeps buying the wrong equipment at the wrong price for the wrong wars - 21st March 2010
- The painful limits of localism - As the high-speed rail plans prove, the latest Tory attempt to distinguish between the national and the local is essential - 8th March 2010
- 'Britain needs a Tory victory because …' Struggling to fill the blank? David Cameron is - It's co-ops one minute and harsh cuts the next. The Conservative leader must this week join the dots, clearly and simply - 22nd February 2010
- Why vote for Cameron? Just look to Australia's Abbott - The Liberal leader offers a foretaste of a much nastier leader for Britain's centrist Tories - 12th February 2010
- Jack Straw demonstrates the flaws of the principled political careerist - The justice secretary kept his head down and put the government's survival first. He has been the vehicle for many wrongs - 1st February 2010
- Polls dictate the state of play. And sometimes get it wrong - The possibility of error in tracking voting intentions is increased by a spiral of silence. Labour shouldn't write off the election yet - 17th January 2010
- Africa needs more than latter-day Livingstones - If its wildlife is to be preserved, more income from the tourists who flock to safari parks must find its way to local people - 4th January 2010
- Even if Tory toffs are Labour fantasy, Cameron needs to skewer that myth - Crude class war may not wash, but Conservatives are at risk if they don't show the modern intake is far from the stereotype - 7th December 2009
- Climate heats up Australian politics - Australia's Liberal leader is being forced out over emissions trading. The crisis may be a taste of what's to come elsewhere - 30th November 1009
- We cannot allow this foul insurgency to triumph - If we scuttle away from Afghanistan we will inflict horror on its people. The wrong people will win: in three years they might not - 23rd November 2009
- This bulldozing of nimbys must not become colonial - A new planning body that puts the national interest ahead of local concerns is welcome, but must be closely watched - 9th November 2009
- New Labour is not the only enemy Cameron must slay - If the Tories come to power, they will face further battles in trying to overthrow the entire progressive establishment - 26th October 2009
- Cameron needs to read the one about the birthday cake and the feral abacus - The shock conservative loss in 1993 Australia is a cautionary tale: it is very, very risky to avoid explaining your plans - 13th October 2009
- A fast rail link could make all of Britain middle class - Without high-speed trains, London would become a first world island isolated from an impoverished hinterland - 28th September 2009
- The next election will be a battle of Worcester vs Lidl - As Britain becomes more diverse, voter intentions occur at microscopic levels that party pollsters struggle to measure - 14th September 2009
- The hard moorland way: trouble in our national parks - The question of who is in charge of the countryside takes in jealousy, diggers and class but deserves our honest attention - 31st August 2009
- High-speed rail: the builder's estimate - Network Rail's figures for new rail links are so precise, they'll all turn out to be wrong. Someone else needs to take charge - 27th August 2009
- The Tories are fretting over the wrong thing this summer - Cameron's exclusivity and isolation from the past are his strengths. He is most at risk from the tide of old Tory ideas - 3rd August 2009
- Did Brown save the world as the Tories did nothing? - During the banking crisis the PM had a plan. But it wasn't all good, and Cameron might have been just as effective - 20th July 2009
- How Mandelson shrugged off his ermine to take control of the country - Imagine the scenario: after a summer of further calamity Brown finally folds, leaving a lord to restore Labour fortunes - 6th July 2009
- This is openness in a V-sign, two fingers held up to voters - A parliament that felt remorse would not have allowed its expenses to come out dripping with ink from the censor's pen - 19th June 2009
- We still view the east from the Crusaders' battlements - David Miliband's plea for an end to the dark dualism between the west and Islam must be heeded - 25th May 2009
- Direct democracy - A new politics: In court, the jury system works. Why not bring unelected people into public bodies too? - 20th May 2009
- We deserve a full confession rather than a shallow apology - Our politicians peddled an economic illusion. They need to show us they now realise they're the reason for the failure - 27th April 2009
- Caring cuts are just massage. Cameron will need a hatchet - A Tory government will face a big bust-up with the public sector. Like the miners' strike 25 years ago, it could be definitive - 23rd March 2009
- A collapsing carbon market makes mega-pollution cheap - Europe's system to edge up the cost of emissions and boost green energy has backfired. There isn't much time to rescue it - 23rd February 2009
- So that's how to say sorry then - on the Bruce Springsteen apology over his Wal-Mart deal - 3rd February 2009
- Shaken survivors of economic blast ask: what went wrong? - Davos has the air of crash inquiry into an airline that intends to keep on flying - 30th January 2009
- Most tabloid hysteria is fake. The Baby P coverage is ghastly because it manipulates genuine outrage - Could it be that what we liberals really fear is the possibility that the tabloid press does reflect our own nation? - 27th November 2008
- Winston Churchill never even went to Australia so why do they still have bones to pick with him? - He had a habit of borrowing the dominion's navy and army for war, without telling its prime minister - 20th November 2008
- A simple rule for our politicians: just stay away from the Russian billionaire's superyacht - What part of: 'Oligarch. Big boat. Peter Mandelson. Spells trouble,' did George Osborne fail to understand? - 22nd October 2008
- For Brown, prospect is loss of leadership - and his own seat - Glasgow East byelection - 25th July 2008
- Sorry, Mr Brown, but 10 and 10 don't always add up to 20 - Perhaps more than any other, our prime minister is mesmerised by polls. If only he understood what they were telling him - 21st June 2008
- Watch and learn, Mr Brown: nerds can be winners, too - Britain's embattled prime minister should take a leaf or two out of his focused and assured Australian counterpart's book - 10th April 2008
- Davos 08: openly networking -When they could tear themselves away from their phones, Davos delegates were eager to find out about the future of mobile technology - 26th January 2008
- Davos 08: the accidental presidents - Which leader was worse, George Bush or Vladimir Putin? - 25th January 2008
- Davos 08: The vicar comes out - For a moment, it was as if he were still prime minister - except that, in his Downing Street days, Tony Blair didn't do God - 24th January 2008
- Davos 08: Inside the brain - Neuro-economics anyone? The science of the mind is the next decade's greatest challenge, apparently. It could be terrifying - 24th January 2008
- Davos 08: The Condi show - Condoleezza Rice's keynote speech was a huge draw, and her attempted defence of the neocon worldview was a plea for sympathy, if not an admission of failure - 23rd January 2008
- Davos 08: Reasons to be anxious - The conference centre is full of people worrying about all sorts of doom: economic, environmental and political - 23rd January 2008
- Davos 08: Climate change is out of fashion - The UN official who led the Bali climate change talks has an uncompromising message for the World Economic Forum - 23rd January 2008
- The wind of no change - Seeking refuge in empty language, Jacqui Smith appeared on the Today programme this morning with absolutely nothing to say - 17th January 2008
- Turnout down under - Next weekend's election in Australia should see 95% participation by voters: is there a lesson for Gordon Brown here? - 19th November 2007
- The national indifference - England and Scotland are becoming foreign lands - thanks chiefly to ignorance on the south - 30th October 2007
- State inaction on climate is a grave dereliction of duty - Government exists to achieve tasks individuals cannot tackle alone. On the environmental crisis, it has badly failed - 8th September 2007
- The allure of a snap election is laced with cowardice - A prime minister who had faith in his own character would resist the temptations of going to the country early - 1st September 2007
- Campbell's coup - Political diaries can vary from the sensational to the staggeringly dull. If anyone can tell the difference, it should be Tony Blair's former spin doctor - 9th March 2007
- Why the Cockerell crows - Neil Kinnock said Tony Blair likes chaps in uniforms, but what else did we learn from part one of Michael Cockerell's documentary? - 21st February 2007
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