The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Labour’s punishment freaks are hounding honest citizens

Ross Clark says that far from keeping our streets safer or cleaner, the government’s new force of amateur policemen are ignoring the worst offenders and pursuing law-abiding innocents instead

‘Whoever killed Benazir wants to kill me’

Christina Lamb interviews the husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari, who hopes to be named President of Pakistan this Saturday

Never mind the Olympics — get set for the Jubilee

Free and open to everyone, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012 will eclipse the London Games, says Robert Hardman — an unforgettable tribute to the monarch

A pilgrim’s progress for the 21st century

Mary Wakefield talks to the author William P. Young, whose self-published religious novel has astounded the publishing world and sold nearly two million copies

In defence of David Southall

Theodore Dalrymple examines the evidence against two much-vilified British paediatricians, Professors Southall and Meadow, and finds it sadly lacking

Beijing Notebook

Boris Johnson recalls his recent jaunt to China on the occasion of the Olympic games

Don’t mention the Afghan–Pakistan war

Both Britain and America are reluctant to admit it but, says Fraser Nelson, our most pressing foreign policy problem is what to do about Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state in which terrorists have taken sanctuary

I feel for Ingrid Betancourt — I was kidnapped, too

Tristan Garel-Jones on being kidnapped and why the world should stand with Colombia

‘Touch wood,’ Karzai said to me. You hear it all the time

From the President downwards, all Afghans know that the peace in Helmand is precarious.Fraser Nelson reports from a shattered land of corruption and murky power where warlords wait to see if the West has what it takes to stay the course and thwart a horrific new conflict

Happy 60th birthday, Israel: well done for surviving

Melanie Phillips says that the prosperity and growing cultural confidence of Israel is a fitting riposte to the Western intelligentsia, American meddling and the daily propaganda assault that ignores the Islamisation of the Palestinians