Baghdad Not so many months ago we all heard a lot about Iraq. The terror and destruction here made the headlines. But then our troops came home and things seemed to be getting better. News of Iraq moved to the centre pages, then practically disappeared altogether. A few weeks ago, things seemed to change again
Deborah Ross meets Anya Hindmarch, Britain’s accessory queen, and finally gets to the bottom of our obsession with fashionable bags Look, can I be totally honest? I know, I know, it’s not usually my style, but today I’m going to be honest and what I want to honestly say is this: I may be a
There is a joke about Libya which goes something like this: why does Libya has a population of both six million and four million? The answer is that one million are abroad and the other million are in prison. It’s not a funny joke, but it’s a revealing one. As the country prepares to celebrate
Rod Liddle says the al-Megrahi affair has shown no one in a good light. American outrage is astonishingly hypocritical given their support of the IRA, and our own government is worryingly supplicant to Gaddafi’s truly evil regime What exactly was the point of the letter from our Prime Minister to the Brotherly Leader and Guide
Kate Williams says that Tarantino’s reduction of Nazi atrocities to entertainment is part of a dangerous trend in which the great evils of history become show business One of this summer’s big screen openings is Quentin Tarantino’s hyperbolic battle movie, Inglourious Basterds. Featuring Brad Pitt demanding his men search for ‘100 Nazi scalps’, this ironic
Downloading the Valuation Office Agency’s no-longer-secret £13 million database, I find that having lived in my house for the past 50 years and having, for those five decades, diligently paid my income and council taxes, my home is about to become my misfortune because of so-called taxable amenities. Using the Freedom of Information Act I
Hilary Mantel lives in a lunatic asylum. Admittedly it hasn’t been a lunatic asylum for a while — the site was converted into flats 20 years ago, and Mantel and her husband are up on the top floor in a scrupulously ordered apartment with views over the treetops of Woking. Nonetheless, there’s something apt about
Jonathan Foreman says that the focus upon the death toll in the Afghan conflict obscures the high numbers of soldiers who have suffered catastrophic wounds — and the scandalously inadequate compensation they have been offered once home in a land unfit for such heroes It is not easy to measure success and failure in counter-insurgency
Rory Stewart’s career to date reads like something from the heyday of the empire. Rory Stewart’s career to date reads like something from the heyday of the empire. Eton and Oxford- educated, he has been a tutor to royalty, an officer in the Black Watch, the deputy governor of an Iraqi province, has founded a
Rod Liddle takes issue with Wilbur’s grieving owners who want a change in the law to impose restrictions upon creatures such as snakes. What we really need is a new citizen’s right to defend ourselves against the feline menace It’s been a grim summer for news, all things considered, what with Afghanistan and flying pig
Among my life’s achievements I treasure a rare and special honour. I have the lowest ever recorded score on Strictly Come Dancing. That quartet of steely-hearted judges awarded me a lamentable eight out of a possible 40 points for a Cha Cha routine that was hypnotically and hysterically hopeless. A record, I’m quietly proud to
A semi-conscious Simon Hoggart attends a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party in which the Prince of Darkness has replaced Gordon — and is cheered to the rafters It was one of those dreams we all have. It had its own internal logic: everything that occurs seems to make perfect sense, and it’s only when
As the controversy over torture gathers pace, it is ‘open season’ on the intelligence agencies — investigated by the police and challenged by MPs. Scrutiny is fine, says Matthew d’Ancona — but beware of making life impossible for those responsible for our security ‘One question at any rate was answered. Never, for any reason on
How can we expect our children to grow up, asks Harry Mount, when British culture is becoming increasingly babyish — full of primary colours and little letters It first struck me how babyish modern Britain has become when I got a flyer through my door about a new doctors’ surgery in Kentish Town, my patch
Alan Cochrane says that it’s not just Alex Salmond who is agitating for Scottish independence. There are forces on both sides of the border who hope for the break-up of the UK If it’s August, it must be Scotland. Upwards of half a million people will descend on Edinburgh over the next month for the
Far from being invented and refined by toffs, Richard Sanders says that the world’s most popular sport was civilised and modernised by ordinary people As a new football season begins, and a sporting legend (Sir Bobby Robson) passes away, it seems the right time finally to expose the big lie at the heart of football.
Labour’s deputy leader is tipped to succeed Gordon Brown, says Rod Liddle. But her vacuous feminism, her reflex loathing of men, her lack of interest in real statistics and her worrying links with trade unions would spell disaster for the party So — Harriet Harman, then. Would you? I mean after a few beers obviously,
Not so long ago, the National Consumer Council decided that some shops on railway stations were selling chocolate bars too cheaply and that the public should, for its own protection, pay more for them. This occurred at about the same time as the RSPB mulled over the possibility that it might start shooting or gassing
Hardeep Singh Kohli lifts the veil on the new ‘underground kitchens’: confidential gatherings of gastronomes in secret locations, meals that are governed by the rules of omerta So there I am, in a stranger’s kitchen on a summer Saturday night, knee-deep in freshly cooked basmati rice, chutneys and pickles a go-go. And I’m ladling spoonfuls
Reihan Salam is a fan of Cameron’s plan for shifting power to citizens. The trouble is — as the row over Obama’s healthcare reform shows — technocrats can often be right As neoconservatives pressed for the democratic transformation of the Middle East, curmudgeons on the right and left often wondered if the peoples of the