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The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Labour’s U-turn on social housing for non-immigrants is welcome but too late

Rod Liddle says that metropolitan liberal ideology is too deeply ingrained in local councils, social services and the judiciary to be overturned by one panic measure driven by Labour’s sudden fear of the BNP

To become an extremist, hang around with people you agree with

Cass Sunstein — co-author of the hugely influential Nudge and an adviser to President Obama — unveils his new theory of ‘group polarisation’, and explains why, when like-minded people spend time with each other, their views become not only more confident but more extreme

Who would have thought a herd could moonwalk?

The acclaimed web theorist, Mark Earls, says that the death of Michael Jackson unleashed the extremes of collective action: mass mourning and sick jokes

A splendid lunch with Jimmy McNulty

In the first of an occasional series of interviews over meals, Deborah Ross talks to Dominic West about The Wire and the challenge to an Old Etonian of playing an American cop

Michael Jackson Notebook

The news cycle of a dead celebrity is a curious thing.

Immortalised in print

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2001-2004, edited by Lawrence Goldman

You know it makes sense

Let’s not get too worked up if Guy Gibson’s dog ends up with a PC name

Low Life

Unkindness to strangers

Another Voice

Sleeping with Agatha Christie and the ghosts of guests past in Syria’s Baron Hotel

Discreet charm

I’ve got this brilliant idea for a Sunday night TV series.