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The latest culture as recommended by our staff

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

What Jacko needed was someone to say ‘No’

My defining memory of Michael Jackson — vulnerable, brilliant, otherworldly — is of watching him dance to the soundtrack of a movie.

Michael Jackson Notebook

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

Apologise for torture? ‘That’s not appropriate’

In an exclusive interview, Dick Cheney tells Daniel Collings that Obama is wrong to say sorry for waterboarding and enhanced interrogation techniques. The former Vice-President turned critic-in-chief has no regrets: if he upset Blair, he was ‘just doing his job’

The rise of British racism may be horribly close

As the June elections draw close, Fraser Nelson goes on the stump with the BNP and is struck by a troubling paradox: the less racist Britain is, the more popular this racist party becomes. As Westminster implodes, far Right politicians are posturing as the tribunes of working people

If we lose hearts and minds, we will lose the war

David Kilcullen, the man who helped think up the strategy that saved Iraq, saysthat high-tech weaponry is not the answer in Afghanistan. Only a genuine partnership with the people can help us win

Confessions of a drink driver on a ‘rehab’ course

Banned for a year, James Hughes-Onslow found himself sent to a group discussion class every Friday in which two ladies schooled him in the art of sobriety on the road

J.G. Ballard was a man of the Right — not that the Right really wanted him

Rod Liddle says that the great writer, who died this week, always espoused the pessimism about the human condition that is the mark of a true conservative. He even wanted American missiles stationed in his garden