The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Imagine the terror of the Chinese officials

David Tang reflects on his visits to Beijing in the run-up to the Games, where Western expertise has been harnessed to the ruthless efficiency of China’s government machine

Nudge, nudge: meet the Cameroons’ new guru

The economist Richard Thaler — a favourite of the Cameron and Obama camps — talks to James Forsyth about the power of ‘nudging’: small transformative acts of persuasion

The cross-party consensus on welfare reform echoes the Gingrich–Clinton revolution

Fraser Nelson on the coming political week

The Falun Gong show that meek can be provocative

Lloyd Evans joins the dissident movement in a ritual exercise near the Chinese Embassy. He is unsettled to find himself understanding why China’s rulers get so paranoid about them

Big Brother versus YouTube: let the Beijing Games commence

Mark Leonard, Britain’s pre-eminent analyst of modern China, says the Olympic genie is out of the bottle. The prospect of global scrutiny has actually increased repression as the authorities try to stamp out dissent. But digital technology is impossible to police

If the liberal press is to be believed, nobody has ever been stabbed — ever

Rod Liddle imagines the hoodie at home, allegedly innocent of any wicked intent, arming himself with a Stanley knife only because of the supposed alarmism of the right-wing media

We have a duty to protect Zimbabwe

Robert Mugabe is murdering, starving and brutalising his people in the run-up to the presidential elections next week, says Peter Oborne. We should act now to prevent civil war and ethnic cleansing

‘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

Obama and McCain offer a choice, not an echo

This presidential race will be the first real Right v. Left contest in a long time, says Irwin Stelzer. On free trade, healthcare, tax and pariah regimes, the two men are worlds apart

Very few single girls actually have that much sex

Marianne Macdonald says that, in an encounter in New York with Sarah Jessica Parker, she realised, finally, how much of a myth Sex and the City really was