Commentariat

You are browsing the archives of 2008 May.

Dave Hill: The BBC’s search for a new star to play Nancy in Lionel Bart’s musical Oliver! has gripped my family and fascinated me

We’re a society in restless pursuit of change: detox, makeover, upgrade, there’s an ever increasing list of words for it. But the more we talk about it, the less clear it is what we want to become.

Anita Sethi: Hay festival 2008: Can real characters truly thrive in politics? Melissa Benn and Guto Hari can’t decide

Roy Hattersley: Hay Festival 2008: My audience was as incisive as ever, but they still would rather have talked to Buster

Sean Usher: The happy couple and their friends called it a wedding, but the law insisted it was only a civil partnership

Benedict Rogers: The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, reminds me of Lady Hester Random in the movie Tea with Mussolini. Lady Hester, widow of a former British ambassador to Italy, played by the famous actress Maggie Smith, lives in 1930s Florence. As the…

Richard George: Tomorrow we will be marching in our thousands to protest at plans for Heathrow’s expansion. If it has any sense, the government will listen

Since the “Galloway Cats” series has just finished, and I will be spared the possible purgatory of keeping an eye on the “Lolcats”, I thought I’d post a few that proved unsuitable but were still memorable for their different reasons.

A temporary income tax holiday is mere fiscal sleight of hand that places the burden of funding government spending on the taxpayers of the future

Should I join my employer’s new mentoring scheme? I can’t make up my mind whether this is an important opportunity to learn or a colossal waste of everybody’s time

A temporary income tax holiday is mere fiscal sleight of hand that places the burden of funding government spending on the taxpayers of the future

Should I join my employer’s new mentoring scheme? I can’t make up my mind whether this is an important opportunity to learn or a colossal waste of everybody’s time

British Airways pilot who showed outstanding courage when his VC-10 was
hijacked by Palestinian terrorists.

Radio 4 executive who made the network sound warmer but thought that women
newsreaders were not up to the job.

American-born horsewoman who devoted much of her life to the Caspian breed which she rediscovered in northern Iran.

Gill Langley: Research on primates, however sensitively done, will always involve suffering. Thankfully, there are increasingly sophisticated alternatives

Gill Langley: Research on primates, however sensitively done, will always involve suffering. Thankfully, there are increasingly sophisticated alternatives

A quota system, supported by Fifa’s Congress, is seeking to force football teams to field home-grown players, just as cricket does.

If the Prime Minister wants to show he truly is listening, he must address the issues, and start dismantling a byzantine tax edifice that he himself has constructed.

The Scottish Broadcasting Commission has reported that support for the replacement of the existing BBC Six O’Clock News, with a Scottish version had grown considerably, writes Alan Cochrane.

For Tony Blair, resigning as prime minister does not seem to have been any reason to stop behaving like the Messiah, says a sceptical Vicki Woods.

Those parents who never read to their loved-ones at bedtime are missing a special treat, says Melanie McDonagh.