Features

ONLINE ONLY: Thoughts from a Hospital Bed

Fri, 24 May 2013 16:34:40 +0100

Author:Lincoln Allison

ONLINE ONLY: Academic Boycotts Teach Us Nothing

Mon, 13 May 2013 12:52:47 +0100

Author:Charlie Laderman

Antonio Munoz Molina

Earlier this year an internationally renowned intellectual was invited to Israel. When his intention to accept the invitation was made public, he was showered with insults, accused of providing succor to Zionism and urged to disinvest from involvement with Israel. By interacting with the Israeli state he was marked as an enemy of the Palestinian cause and warned that he would be indelibly defiled if he shook the bloodied hand of his host, President Shimon Peres.

ONLINE ONLY: Send in the Clowns

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:45:35 +0100

Author:Kenneth Minogue

Nigel Farage: The victor in last week's local elections

When in the May local government elections, a party of "clowns" and "fruitcakes" got about a quarter of the vote, commentators went giddy with polling projections in search of what such voting would mean for the main political parties. They were missing the point. Here was a mass expression of derision for the whole British political establishment. In a small democratic way, it was nothing less than a revolution against the "soft despotism" that has prevailed in British politics for more than a generation.

ONLINE ONLY: Thatcher, Reagan and the Dictators

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:22:07 +0100

Author:Brendan Simms

Thatcher with Reagan: The Cold War leaders were, above all, democrats

The Resolute Courage of Margaret Thatcher

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:13:03 +0100

Author:Paul Johnson

The key to Margaret Thatcher is simplicity. By comparison with the Big Ten of English history, alongside whom she must surely be ranked, she was a straightforward person. Whereas King Alfred, Edward I, Henry V, Elizabeth, Cromwell, Chatham, William Pitt, Gladstone, Lloyd George and Churchill were all, in varying degrees, complex and many-sided people capable of surprising, confounding and shocking close admirers, Thatcher was simple, consistent and reliable.

America's New Isolationists Are Endangering the West

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:09:03 +0100

Author:John Bolton

Paragon of the new conservative isolationism: Republican Senator Rand Paul is a vocal opponant of America's foreign policy

The spectre of isolationism is stalking the Republican Party. It is still far from dominant, but we would be ignoring reality to underestimate the risks evident in today's turbulent political milieu. Ironically, Republican isolationism is in many respects attributable to Barack Obama. His palpable lack of concern for foreign and defence policy issues, and the public's false sense of security thereby generated, combined with his massive federal expenditures and consequent budget deficits that threaten the vitality of America's economic system, have created an unexpected and deeply troubling reaction among Republicans, heretofore America's national-security stalwarts.

An Alternative To Our Reckless Energy Gamble

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:03:06 +0100

Author:Patrick Heren and John Constable

Fossil fuels sparked the industrial revolution and took society from laborious poverty to unprecedented wealth: An illustration from the Morgan Bible, c.1240, left, and an illustration of the Imperial Gasworks, King’s Cross, London, 1824

The Family is the Key to the Future of Faith

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:53:22 +0100

Author:Mary Eberstadt

Who's going to church?: Commentators have assumed that faith is now the preserve of poorer communities. The opposite is true

Persecuted Muslims Who Love Life in England

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:45:08 +0100

Author:Ed West

“We like it here, everyone is free”: Rafiq Hayat (right), with Philip Breeden, Press Counsellor at the US Embassy, London

As Friday prayers end thousands of believers stream out of the mosque. Keen-eyed men with Pashtun cheekbones hover by a convoy of cars, many of them wearing the traditional hats of Pakistan's North-West Frontier province. Were it not for the Tube depot in the background, one could be in that exotic land with its long and sometimes unhappy links with Britain. Departing last, and driven safely away, is Hadhrat Mizra Masroor Ahmad, the fifth leader of the worldwide Ahmadiyya community.

They Were the Future of the Tory Party, Once

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:16:39 +0100

Author:Laura Freeman

Their days were numbered: Members of the Young Conservatives promote a recruiting rally on the Whitechapel Road in 1961

All who were there agreed that the first annual fashion show of the South Hammersmith branch of the Young Conservatives had been a triumph. Although the February day in 1964 had dawned cold and foggy, the damp air did not deter the local MP William Compton Carr nor his wife Mrs Compton Carr from attending. The Reverend Sullivan was also in the audience at the Constitutional Hall.