An odd new feeling has crept up on me – sympathy for the police
Spring has come to my local park in its usual way. First the magnolias, then the cherry blossom, then the…
Has Virgin trains lost the plot?
Twelve minutes till the train. That had seemed like quite enough time as I approached the Virgin ticket machine. Two…
Commitment-phobic men are the real reason women are having children later
We are becoming a nation of older mothers. The average age at which a woman has her first child is…
Why we keep ignoring NGO sex scandals
Why we keep ignoring NGO sex scandals
‘Peacekeepers’ abuse the girls in their care, yet no one is ever punished
Last week, women working for the UN became the latest to join the #MeToo gang, and for all the eye-rolling…
For some girls, therapy does more harm than good
In the churchyard by the church near my grandmother’s house, there’s a tombstone with an inscription that’s haunted me since…
How can any intelligent person have faith?
Ten years ago, I had a strange debate about faith with a famous Jesuit and an agnostic psychoanalyst in a…
An exceptional new film about Jane Goodall unearths a remarkable love story
Mary Wakefield talks to the director Brett Morgen, whose film about Jane Goodall tells a remarkable love story
The iciness at the heart of the #metoo movement
On rolls the Harvey Weinstein horror show with no finale in sight. The next episode looks likely to star Uma…
Don't blame Iain Duncan Smith for the Universal Credit tragedy. Blame George Osborne
How welfare reform is pushing the poorest into crippling debt
Calling Stephen Paddock a 'lone wolf' isn't racist
It’s been nearly two weeks since Stephen Paddock committed mass murder in Las Vegas and the FBI is still casting…
What's it like to have created the world's most famous photograph?
The photographer Steve McCurry talks to Mary Wakefield about the ethics of making pain look pleasing
Gentrification is far from our biggest problem
The late afternoon sun fell on the anomalous pine trees of Gillett Square, London N16, and on the wooden decking…
We cannot afford to sit back and watch: robot wars are something to fear
From Lethal Autonomous Weapons to tiny nano-drones, the warfare technology in development is thoroughly alarming. We cannot afford to sit back and watch
If gender stereotypes are an invention, why do we all freely conform to them?
Later this year, the Advertising Standards Authority will reveal to the world their list of rules designed to wipe out…
My son and the back-crackers of Harley Street
All along Harley Street, charlatans and medical experts have set up side by side with no obvious way to tell…
Sex and the sect: the infamous Brethren
You can never completely leave a religious cult, as this strange and touching memoir demonstrates. Patterns of thinking, turns of…
Sex, lies – and a stolen Stradivarius
Because I’d been reading about Stradivarius on the bus home, my helpful iPhone suggested a related story: the Totenberg Ames…
Jean Vanier’s world of love and kindness
Jean Vanier on the beauty in all of us
How to banish the scary jihadi monsters
Saturday evening in Durham. My in-laws and I had just begun our usual postprandial shout about Donald Trump when my…
Why are district nurses quitting in droves? Because they care too much
Sometimes, on Sundays, I visit Richard, a friend who’s 95 and lives alone. The idea originally was that I’d be…
Henry Marsh: How doctors can become monsters
The celebrated neurosurgeon Henry Marsh on saving lives and facing death
The gang in our park have united us... in impotence
The baby, unbothered by diesel fumes, enjoys an outing down the main road through London N1. Each passing bus is…
The mad, bad crusade against 'cultural appropriation'
It’s usually best to ignore the indignant fury of the 21st-century young. We’re used to them now, these snowflakes, posing…
A new Ripper mystery: Why Patricia Cornwell won't stop hunting him
Why has crime writer Patricia Cornwell spent two decades and $6 million hunting Victorian London’s most notorious killer?
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