Biography:
About: Libby Purves is a BBC Radio 4 presenter, columnist and author. More at BBC Radio 4 presenters
Education: Convent schools in Thailand, South Africa, France; Beechwood Sacred Heart School, Tunbridge Wells; St Anne's College, Oxford: English Language and Literature (first-class honours)
Career: After a varied journalistic career, joined BBC as studio manager, 1971 - studio manager at the World Service; studio manager Radio Oxford, then presenter and producer of the morning programme; joined Radio 4's Today programme as a freelance reporter, 1974, and (first woman) (youngest) presenter from 1977/1981; presenter of Midweek programme, from 1983, and also presents The Learning Curve; columnist on The Times since 1990. A new blog - Faith Central: Libby Purves guide to religion and thought - commenced in June 2007, inspired by the "glories, inspirations and eccentricities of world religions and cultural traditions"
Current position/role: Presents Midweek on BBC Radio 4 and writes a column for The Times
- also writes/written for: Writes a monthly column in the sailing magazine Yachting Monthly and is a regular contributor to The Oldie magazine
Other roles/Main role:
Other activities:
Disclosures:
Viewpoints/Insight:
Broadcast media: BBC Radio 4: The Learning Curve - The definitive guide to learning (Info/contact/listen/archive)
Video:
Controversy/Criticism:
Awards/Honours: OBE for services to journalism, 1999; Columnist of the year, 1999
Scoops:
Other: Married to broadcaster Paul Heiney
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Articles:
All journals:
- What happened to innuendo? - Suggestive humour is fine provided it is witty, but adult content these days is often puerile - 6th November 2011
- No one ever profits from a pseudo-friendship - ‘Networking’ has become a term of approval, but as the Fox furore demonstrates, it’s just nepotism by another name - 10th October 2011
- ‘Tory toff’ isn’t political debate, it’s prejudice - Jeers about accidents of birth are boring, bullying and dull-witted. Policy, not poshness, is what really matters - 3rd October 2011
- Sober up. Freshers week is just a drunken scam - Being fleeced and humiliated is no way to start student life. Let’s hope fees and austerity kill off this Saturnalia - 26th September 2011
- We were all Americans then. Aren’t we still? - That generous, optimistic nation deserves to be defined by the best of its leaders and the fortitude of 9/11 survivors - 12th September 2011
- What do we do when old lags become older? - It’s a sign of decency that the growing band of elderly convicts enjoy ‘reminiscence therapy’ and gardening - 5th September 2011
- Of our 99 problems, rap lyrics are a big one - Anyone familiar with rappers’ words will know there was some truth in David Starkey’s clumsy analysis of the riots - 29th August 2011
- We have much to thank Diana Lamplugh for - The mother of the missing estate agent ran a relentless and innovative campaign – and I played a small part - 22nd August 2011
- It doesn’t insult the police to heed good advice - There’s nothing intolerant or alien about Bill Bratton’s methods. Ministers have every right to listen to him - 15th August 2011
- Robert Robinson: goodbye to a master of the 'curious trade' - When Robert Robinson grew tired of interviewing politicians at the BBC he turned himself into a superb quizmaster - 14th August 2011
- ‘Strategic vision’ won’t fix a leaky lavatory - You can’t run a care home on diktats from head office. Bring in the micro-managers and restore some pride - 8th August 2011
- Learn our language. The bigots will hate that - Compulsory English lessons will integrate immigrants and undermine the far Right Brits admired by Breivik - 1st August 2011
- Come back, man on the Clapham omnibus - ‘Human rights’ and ‘health & safety’ shouldn’t be boo words, but the tick-box mentality has made them so - 5th July 2011
- Reagan’s revolution is still toppling tyrannies - The Arab Spring is the legacy of the President’s passionate commitment to democracy - 4th July 2011
- Why couldn’t the judge protect the Dowlers’ privacy? - The family’s court ordeal may have been a necessary evil. But I know from my own life how public intrusion can hurt - 27th June 2011
- Lay off the bitching, sisters! Just be nice - As the world changes, so must feminism. Surely the different generations of women can unite around that? - 13th June 2011
- The problem isn’t little girls. It’s adult ones - It is a truth universally acknowledged that women must look ‘hot’. Until that changes, children will be sexualised - 6th June 2011
- Why the big grin? The buck stopped with you - Sharon Shoesmith’s department was found to be thoroughly incompetent. The least she could have done was resign - 30th May 2011
- Our airbrushed age needs ancient sages - The Queen’s visit to Ireland reminds us that many of the great personal virtues only come with experience - 22nd May 2011
- We need to talk about man-hating feminism - The nightmarish son in the film that’s exciting Cannes is a toxic caricature women are too ready to believe in - 16th May 2011
- Enough of these disgusting sneers at Clegg - It’s easy to vilify the Lib Dem leader but, as a new play appreciates, he has done the right thing in a honest way - 9th May 2011
- Sorry, grouches: the royals had the last laugh - A few po-faced critics tried, but it was impossible to sneer at the outbreak of family joy and national fun - 2nd May 2011
- How to relax about interns: pay them (a little) - Asking young hopefuls to waive some of their rights in return for cash is the way to break the charmed circle - 25th April 2011
- The Albert Hall must keep its broad appeal - And it’s not just the big blob in Kensington. All our community halls need the freedom to be recklessly diverse - 18th April 2011
- I’m not in the mood for smiley ‘happyology’ - Politicians want to measure our happiness, but they need to distinguish between fulfilment and fleeting feelings - 11th April 2011
- Blame public prurience for our privacy laws - When the famous behave badly and the media gleefully follow, in the end we must question our own tastes - 4th April 2011
- Less flair, more care. Sheer plod also shines - We urge creativity in our children, but as recent police errors show, attention to dull detail matters as much - 28th March 2011
- Please, sir, don’t give them any more Ritalin - Naughtiness is not a disease. Drugging thousands of children, from nursery age, will come to be seen as barbaric - 21st March 2011
- Affirmative action? That’s a clear negative - Nick Clegg should not be shoehorning more women or black people on to his party’s lists. It doesn’t work - 14th March 2011
- Facts + liberated teachers = real education - A painfully prescriptive curriculum and a modish faith in ‘research skills’ is driving learning from classrooms - 7th March 2011
- Cut the red tape and let our Kiwi spirit fly - In a crisis, New Zealanders cheerfully chip in. But our freedom to help has been chipped away. That must change - 28th February 2011
- Tie the knot now or be tied up in knots later - Never mind the tradition and the trappings. Marriage is still the best way to protect yourselves financially - 7th February 2011
- If money comes first, the cost could be drastic - Nurses are vital in giving vulnerable people a voice. The reforms threaten their role - 31st January 2011
- In politics, every day cannot be a honeymoon - As Alan Johnson’s sad tale shows, in a challenging job, all you need isn’t love but a quiet, dependable partner - 24th January 2011
- Move along, please, or you’re not a traveller - It is not racism but a sense of unfairness that turns Middle England against ‘special cases’ on makeshift trailer parks - 17th January 2011
- The small charity our Big Society is failing - Iceni is working to help addicts like the five sex workers killed in Ipswich in 2006. Bureaucracy is working against it - 6th December 2010
- Disclosure, diplomacy and keeping the peace - Outwardly friendly, privately frank, the diplomat plays a crucial role that Wikileaks threatens to destroy - 29th November 2010
- At last, sanity on sexuality is breaking out - The Pope’s more humane line on condoms is remarkable. Will the Church now show respect for homosexual love? - 22nd November 2010
- The blame lies with governments, not sailors - Paul and Rachel Chandler were not reckless: we let piracy flourish and more than 400 seafarers are still being held - 15th November 2010
- Pick your side: the bosses or the real BBC? - Corporation staff are more aggrieved about its legions of overpaid managers than the pension changes - 8th November 2010
- To keep safe we must focus on real dangers - As the cargo bomb plot shows, security depends on intelligent watchfulness, not back-covering and box-ticking - 1st November 2010
- Thank goodness we’re in the era of trader chic - Half a million people face unemployment, but at least TV programmes are helping to foster a culture of job creation - 25th October 2010
- The Stones defined the Sixties? Gimme strength - Keith Richards’ book makes for fascinating reading, but his rock ’n’ roll lifestyle did not represent my generation - 18th October 2010
- Time alone will get us trusting teacher again - The rules on restraining schoolchildren badly need reforming. But it will take more than a minister’s word to do it - 4th October 2010
- The great council sell-off. Everything must go - It has led to strikes, errors and waste. So why does local government think outsourcing has an outside chance? - 27th September 2010
- The truth is out. They’re not selfless angels - Public sector employees have profited too long from the idea that they are overworked and underpaid - 20th September 2010
- Let pupils make hay when the sun shines - We rarely need children to help with the harvest in August, but there are other benefits to a long summer break - 13th September 2010
- Why should we suffer for the taxman’s pay slips? - It should be Pay As You Earn, not Pay When the Government Says So. The State is supposed to be our servant - 6th September 2010
- Put all that private stuff back in the closet - Cute babies, sibling rivalry and MPs’ sexuality all distract from what matters: whether people do their jobs properly - 30th August 2010
- Children of addicts deserve a chance of a better life - It’s not taking away benefits but taking away children from damaging and chaotic parents that will make a difference - 23rd August 2010
- Old Britannia has survived the war on nostalgia - At last, official recognition that tradition and country houses must be allowed to play their part in luring tourists - 16th August 2010
- Out of the toy cupboard and into our hearts - Who’d have thought Toy Story 3 would provide an insight into the Big Society? - 26th July 2010
- Let’s face it, not all of us have an inner tycoon - Unemployed graduates should start their own businesses, says a minister. But many of us are natural wage slaves - 18th July 2010
- Our trigger-happy reply: blame the cops - There are countries where the police would not hesitate to shoot a man like Moat. I am glad this is not one - 12th July 2010
- Well-meant meddling may shipwreck us - Boosting foreign seafarers’ pay will maroon them with unscrupulous bosses - 6th July 2010
- Hail Mr Fischer, a beacon in the darkness - The man who stood up to British Airways over overzealous child protection rules is an example to us all - 28th June 2010
- At last the BBC is telling ‘talent’ where to get off - If a cherry jumps off the cake, it’s still a damn good cake - 22nd June
- Niceness, not NICE, will teach kids about sex - Libby Purves Condoms on cucumbers mean less than kindness and respect - 20th June 2010
- All we are saying is give Field a chance - A tangled welfare system in which it pays to do nothing is an appalling waste — not just of money, but of lives - 14th June 2010
- Listen Govey, not all sink schools are failing - Our new Education Secretary’s eagerness to fire ‘underperforming’ headteachers could result in an own goal - 7th June 2010
- On the endangered list: free-range children - Dens, dams and the call of the wild are being denied to our young. Conservation bodies and parents are to blame - 31st May 2010
- Big business is too big a deal for the Duchess of York - She is neither evil nor greedy, but Sarah Ferguson should be tucked away cooking hearty lasagnes in the shires - 24th May 2010
- Too few women? Read my lips: I don’t care - No laws bar us from politics, so cut the squealing about there being only four female Cabinet ministers - 17th May 2010
- Back to ’80s excess? No, been there, done that - The Tories are resurgent but few people will yearn for a return to the big hair and bigger egos of the decadent decade - 9th May 2010
- In the echoing halls of election night, it seems the rich aren’t that different - Democracy is a great leveller, even for plutocrats like the Goldsmith clan - 8th May 2010
- Once upon a time there were three leaders . . . - As if by magic, we are in a fairytale election. Which of the three to choose? Goldilocks would sympathise - 3rd May 2010
- Once again the little Farepak guys have been shafted - The golden rule is that, if anyone suffers, it mustn’t be the board - 27th April 2010
- We are recruiting a new legion of the lost - There are a million 18 to 24-year-olds looking for work. Joblessness on this scale is a mass psychological disaster - 26th April 2010
- The Army’s job is to fight wars, not to fret about childcare - Such bitter home truths would rankle like bits of Lego underfoot - 14th April 2010
- Arrest the Pope? I rather think we should - The sin of making victims and the community complicit in the abuse cover-up is still not acknowledged - 12th April 2010
- Mothers don’t know better than anyone else - Spare us the ‘Mumsnet’ election. Women with a fertile womb and a keyboard are only a niche market - 5th April 2010
- Pity unstarry creatives in short-cut Britain - The bottom rungs of career ladders are vanishing fast. With the demise of The Bill a few more have gone - 29th March 2010
- Take a 13% pay cut. You know it makes sense - Unlike the whingeing public service unions here, Middle Ireland knows that a secure job is a privilege - 22nd March 2010
- Full marks to Four Marks for taking a stand - The police alone cannot keep the peace, but dare we risk unleashing our inner baseball-swinging vigilante? - 15th March 2010
- Cartoon grotesques let us face the real horrors - In a bland world, P. T. Barnum and Ronald Searle reflect our need to make safe the nightmares that haunt us - 8th March 2010
- Fathers cannot hide. They have a job to do - The odious self-pity of Khyra Ishaq’s father cannot obscure the paternal duty that men like him have taken on - 1st March 2010
- It’s Downing Street. Not a sheltered workshop - Rent-a-gob whiners should be given their comeuppance - 23rd February 2010
- Let’s all play confessions! What’s in it for me? - Brown, Gosling, Terry, Woods, Ford ... we’ve had a rash of revelations. The acceptable ones are those that are not-for-profit - 22nd February 2010
- Reading this at work? Well done - It’s National Sickie Day. But if staff are skiving, maybe their bosses should show more appreciation - 1st February 2010
- The moral is: question your motives, parents - Callous neglect, ‘mercy killing’ and sickness-faking — three extreme cases reveal some awkward truths about parenting - 25th January 2010
- BA staff find it doesn’t feel good on the receiving end - The Unite union has learnt why it is a bad idea to cross the paying public - 21st January 2010
- If you must get ill, make sure it’s before 6pm - As GPs reap the rewards of their 2004 pay deal, patients are dying. It’s time to rethink our contemptible out-of-hours cover - 18th January 2010
- Why the sea eagle has no right to land here - This is not about returning birds to ancestral homelands — it’s a costly gimmick to promote meddling ‘conservationists’ - 4th January 2010
- The perfect place for an AGM is outdoors - The annual review of the marital enterprise is best conducted on a long frosty walk, preferably with a dog - 3rd January 2010 (writing in The Sunday Telegraph)
- Listen well to this part-monk, part-maverick - Mike Richey sailed the seas as he lived his 92 years, with simplicity, skill and a talent for making the best of each day - 28th December 2009
- Tis the season for all things garish - Hurray for tinsel and flashing Santa hats. We need to cherish this extravagant nonsense - 21st December 2009
- List mania is the besetting folly of our age - From grading BBC talent to marking hospital performance, dim managers hide behind the false reassurance of tables - 14th December 2009
- Condemned out of hand by the Inland Revenue - If I were the Queen, I’d take my initials off HM Revenue and Customs in disgust - 10th December 2009
- Fantasy world fuelled by sex, drink and drugs - The bravado of the ‘sexually adventurous’, such as Amanda Knox, masks the real damage caused by a life of endless flings - 7th December 2009
- Fundamentalist brew: faith and power - Don’t blame anti-Catholicism and lawyers for the cover-up in Ireland. The Church protected itself - 30th November 2009
- Too proud to claim my Jaffa Cakes on expenses - There are two financial camps. And a man who won’t buy his own anorak for a charity climb is in the opposite one to me - 16th November 2009
- The key to rubbing along in perfect harmony - Authoritarianism is a sin of religiosity: believers need to heed the Jewish experience about respecting the secular majority - 9th November 2009
- Climb mountains, taste the salt of risk - Letters by celebrities to their younger selves show that Prince Edward was right - 3rd November 2009
- Good work. Commendable courage - Question Time wasn’t perfect the BNP won't gain from it, whatever the chattering classes say - 26th October 2009
- Cheap drink costs us dear - Britain has an alochol problem, and ltitle is being done about it - 25th October 2009 (writing in The Sunday Telegraph)
- Are you ready for couples therapy? - We’ve blown our fuse at the way MPs cheated on us. But we must offer a dash of understanding - 19th October 2009
- If the future’s worth it, it won’t be free - The internet generation believes it can enjoy other people’s hard work for nothing. This has got to stop - 12th October 2009
- Do put prisoners on stage, Mr Straw - The Justice Secretary’s diktat to limit drama in jails shackles brave prison governors - 5th October 2009
- Baby swap is nothing to do with Ofsted - Government and its regulations exist to defend us from incompetent or bad strangers, not our mates - 29th September 2009
- We romantics know prenups are here to stay - Pragmatic couples are signing contracts to ensure that divorces don’t turn into rip-offs. It’s time the law caught up - 28th September 2009
- If we can’t have more police, have less tolerance - The suicide of a mother tormented by feral gangs shows that it’s time we put the frighteners on young thugs - 21st September 2009
- Vulnerable people? Quick draft a law - Have the architects of the cockamamie child vetting scheme actually met a child? - 14th September 2009
- At times we long for yesterday - The Fab Four evoke an age of innocence. But we should not forget the harsh realities of the Sixties - 7th September 2009
- Neeeoww! Let’s stick up for boisterous boys - Dreary coursework and earnest women teachers have let pupils down. Many prefer the excitement of sudden-death exams - 31st August 2009
- Nurses need to clean up their act - The nurse's once-spotless image has been tainted by recent revelations of neglect - 29th August (writing in The Sunday Telegraph)
- Be a human: climb something - The adventurers who scaled Blackpool Tower belong to a tradition that defies our plodding culture - 24th August 2009
- An ungodly row with no respect on either side - The Muslim wedding fracas is a culture clash that has everything to do with smugness and nothing to do with faith - 17th August 2009
- Save the nation: log off and invent a machine - Forget smooth talking, software and money manipulation — to restore our pride, we have to get back to making things - 27th July 2009
- You are old, Father William . . . - . . . but I'm listening. Our understanding of the past comes from recollections of earlier generations - 20th July 2009
- Treat Africans as part of the human jigsaw - Our relationship with Africa has gone from pillage to guilty patronage. Now is the time for honesty on both sides - 13th July 2009
- Morris dancing at 4am? That’s art all right - As dawn broke over London, my brother performed to the pigeons – and hardly anybody else – on the plinth in Trafalgar Square - 8th July 2009
- Preening populism hurts democracy - When ministers trade insults instead of getting things done, I can begin to see what Bernie Ecclestone means about Hitler - 6th July 2009
- We don’t want PC Panic or Terminator - Policing crowds is a subtle science: if we want to avoid a repeat of the G20 troubles we need to properly train bobbies - 29th June 2009
- Radio assault leaves listeners in silence - Take-up of DAB technology is so pathetic that we must fight for our beloved analog sets - 22nd June 2009
- My lord! I'm peering into a house of silly ideas - New Labour's ‘reforms' of the Upper House have been extraordinarily half-baked. Will it ever get its act together? - 15th June 2009
- Forget image - just make things work - I'm sick of 'personalities'. I wouldn't care if Brown were a werewolf his team got things done - 7th June 2009
- The fame dragon feasts on human sacrifice - Artists need recognition, but the form it takes in our age of global celebrity – and spite – can be toxic. Diversity, beware - 1st June 2009
- Church is living with one foot in Hell - Don’t look away: it’s unbelievable that we still haven’t learnt the lessons from systematic child abuse in Ireland - 25th May 2009
- A familiar reek of misogyny and mistrust - Poets have always done invective nicely, but the row over the appointment of an Oxford professor offered a new target - 18th May 2009
- We do understand greed, Margaret Beckett - MPs should not treat the public as half-wits - 16th May 2009
- What happened to personal honour? - No amount of lame justification can excuse the ‘because I’m worth it’ politics exposed by the MPs’ expenses scandal - 11th May 2009
- Human side of a man-hating feminist - Marilyn French was scary. But sometimes we need people to kick against the traces - 6th May 2009
- Stop, get ready, go: let common sense begin - Personal responsibility is lost in the red stop-lights of an overregulated world. We must start thinking for ourselves again - 4th May 2009
- Some women prefer the ‘mommy track’ and accept it will cost them - There are injustices in equal pay, but many mothers earn less than men simply because they want to avoid promotion - 24th April 2009
- Go and join your favourite cluster - Whether edgy creatives or stolid misanthropes, we are happiest when we live close to the same character types - 20th April 2009
- Decades of secrecy fan flames of fiction - The PM can no more call back his political adviser's ugly rumours than he can unring tolling bells - 13th April 2009
- It's centralised, it's nutty, it's miles from reality - A small protest in Oxford about cash-strapped probation services reveals more about the nation than any G20 demo - 6th April 2009
- Someone has to say it - austerity must reign - We owe a debt of gratitude to Jacqui Smith's husband. He has thrown a lurid light on all the excesses that must end - 30th March 2009
- Life is short but this delightful poem lives on - After 150 years, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam still has an uncannily modern moral - enjoy yourself while you can - 23rd March 2009
- Josef Fritzl is the limit, the death of hope - I honour those who can pity the scheming, authoritarian torturer, but I want him dead - 19th March 2009
- E-borders - new frontiers of oppression - Soon, every time you travel, you’ll have to give all kinds of details. You can bet they won’t be secure - 16th March 2009
- Writers beware, childen own their lives - Julie Myerson should have resisted the urge to describe life with her druggy son. The story is painful and worse than useless - 9th March 2009
- What's wrong with a bit of drama in C Wing? - No amount of tabloid indignation can change this truth: entertainment and arts projects in jails are good for all of us - 2nd March 2009
- The lessons of a short life well lived - The story of Ivan Cameron's illness, and his family's acceptance of it, should speak volumes in our overcompetitive culture - 26th February 2009
- Pupils will never learn unless we make it fun - Yes, children need literacy and numeracy, but they also need the space to socialise and engage with stories - 23rd February 2009
- Leave Jade Goody to those who love her - This mawkish voyeurism tells us nothing about modern Britain - 20th February 2009
- Seaside - last resort for frivolous fun - When times are hard we must stand up to the bean-counters who want to cut uplifting entertainment - 16th February 2009
- And the winner is... the digital revolution - Forget the Baftas and Oscars, the real star of Revolutionary Road is the computer and the freedom it has brought women - 9th February 2009
- The worrying G-word is Greenroom - Was Carol Thatcher victimised because of her heritage and Is this an enlightened society, or age of the Thought Police? - 4th February 2009
- A morality tale built out of salvaged timber - Resourceful people clearing up the mess on their beaches - it's a romance of the high seas and a lesson for the high-ups - 2nd February 2009
- Dancing tips for tipsy young teenagers - There's much to be said for continental Europe's belief in a gradual climb into adult habits - 27th January 2009
- Try this for comedy: prison policy run by clowns - The arts are a valuable tool in prisoner rehabilitation. Jack Straw should know better than to fly into a panic and ban them - 26th January 2009
- Stories are woven threads of our lives - We know that facts can spoil a good story - but fiction arranges events to represent a higher truth - 19th January 2009
- We need real jobs for real money - If the Government is serious about unemployment, it must sweep away the laws that make it difficult to hire and fire - 12th January 2009
- Tread softly for you tread on our gift of life - Donors will naturally have strong feelings about who receives their organs. They should be treated with sensitivity - 5th January 2009
- High Sts must find life after shopping - Woolworth's, Zavvi, Whittard. By the time you read this at least one other familiar name will be gone - 29th December 2008
- Get back to doing good works - Corrupted by government, over politicised and over professionalised, charities need to rethink their role - 23rd December 2008
- Sequins, wigs and feathers... a theatrical Everest - Backstage with the wardrobe mistress of La Cage Aux Folles, I witness the hard graft behind the glitter - 22nd December 2008
- Sacking rule #1: show some respect - The BBC has shown us how not to fire someone. An employee should at least leave with head held high - 15th December 2008
- Our fatally sentimental view of motherhood - Crimes against children don't always spring from a broken society. We must admit that a bad mother is a bad mother - 6th December 2008
- There's more to Advent than cheap chocolate - Confectionery calendars are short-changing our children - 2nd December 2008
- Showbiz shock: we're not in it for the money - Creative types at the top of their game naturally want to entertain and amuse. They never needed to be paid like bankers - 1st December 2008
- A silly, fiddly and pointless tax cut - Doing your VAT return is like being a stripper in an empty room - 27th November 2008
- Giles's vision still speaks louder than words - Tired of piffling celebrity, mealy-mouthed nannyism, alarmist pessimism and economic whining? Here's the antidote... - 24th November 2008
- Nothing mean about a means test - We should not let the petty cruelties and errors of the 1930s cloud our debate today about how to reform the welfare state - 17th November 2008
- It's knives, firearms, cash, drugs. Every night' - Wearing a stab-proof vest, I'm ready to join a policewoman taking the fight against weapons and gangs to the streets - 10th November 2008
- Military has won back our admiration - The wars may be unpopular but the young men and women, returning hurt, maimed and weary, touch a raw nerve in our memories - 1st November 2008
- Our children need their fairytales - When we are young we use our fantasy world of magic and myth to grapple with fears about life - 27th October 2008
- Time for a clear policy on euthanasia - Assisted dying is different to assisted suicide: we need to tread carefully — and sympathetically - 20th October 2008
- It's time to take on gangsters of the sea - We run down British naval power at our peril. Without it we would have little food, fuel - or safety - 13th October 2008
- Please - enough of this ghoulish sideshow - The creepy attempt to exhume the remains of Cardinal Newman will drive people away from the Church - 6th October 2008
- Is the BBC a rival or a resource? - The Corporation has to decide whether it is more than just another big media competitor - 29th September 2008
- We're not heading for the rocks . . . - In a media-crazy age business and government prefer to insist that all is well when it is not - 22nd September 2008
- Does anyone know what's going on? - Punters predicted the XL crash - perhaps bookies' odds are as good a guide to the future as pundits - 15th September 2008
- Proposturos! Words wud lose there meening - 8th September 2008
- Take an evening class in failure - As the financial climate worsens, breadwinners who face ruin need lessons in survival - 8th September 2008
- That was just an availability check, Selina Scott - Something more irritating than ageism stalks the media world - 3rd September 2008
- Why did Alistair Darling choose 1948? - He could have picked several other years, but went instead for cheerful years of austerity and hope - 1st September 2008
- It's not what you spend, it's how you spend it - Our decision-makers seem to have lost the art of spending money wisely - and the results are disastrous - 25th August 2008
- We must train people to break rules - Petty bureaucrats are a necessary evil. But we must tell them when to use initiative and make exceptions - 18th August 2008
- NHS rationing: a reality to deal with - There will never be enough money in the pot to meet every need with the best and latest treatment - 11th August 2008
- Richard Dawkins, the naive professor -It's not a simple choice between God and evolution: none of us can know that there is nothing out there - 7th August 2008
- Simple way to stop being educated - Despite our school system and culture, Britons show a healthy urge towards autodidacticism - 4th August 2008
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