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The chasm that could swallow Cameron alive

Mon, 20 May 2013 23:00:54 GMT

High Tory disdain for the party’s grassroots isn’t that new. It’s a tradition going back at least as far as the over-quoted observation by Arthur Balfour – an old Etonian like his present day successor as Prime Minister – that he would rather consult his valet than the Conservative Party Conference. Whoever depicted activists – or didn’t – as “swivel-eyed loons” was arguably not going that much further, if changes in linguistic fashion over the century are allowed for. Which simply underlines the point that the row’s significance is about more than whether the remark was made, and its obvious unwisdom if it was. It goes to the heart of the currently dysfunctional three-way relationship between Tory leader, party and public.

i Assistant Editor's Letter: A British crack at The Final Frontier

Mon, 20 May 2013 23:00:39 GMT

Rhodri Marsden: Pay attention: this stuff could be the future of comedy

Mon, 20 May 2013 23:00:00 GMT

Knock knock! Who's there? Peas. Peas who? Peas and carrots. It was 1975, and I was mighty pleased with my first attempt at writing a joke. It seemed to contain all the necessary elements of a thigh-slapping quip, and I told it to everyone. But it prompted quizzical stares and furrowed brows; "peas and carrots" was not the punchline that people were hoping for.

Donald Macintyre's Sketch: Cross-eyed, myopic or just old-fashioned, soon these swivelling Tories will be making T-shirts

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:25:30 GMT

It didn’t take long to get to it. The Tory backbencher Edward Leigh, a strong opponent of gay marriage, was warming to his theme that the “outlandish views of the loony left in of the 1980s… have now become embedded in high places.”

Editorial: Gay marriage is a large, liberal step

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:08:41 GMT

For all our liberality, Britain still has a way to go. Last weekend – ironically, just one day after the International Day Against Homophobia – two gay men were attacked in a south London park. Then, yesterday, more than a handful of MPs lined up to resist government plans to allow same-sex couples to marry. The two are, of course, not linked; it would be fatuous – not to say, unfair – to suggest that they were. But both are symptoms of the same root cause: the sense that heterosexuality and homosexuality are inalienably different from one another.

Editorial: Time is running out for A&E

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:07:37 GMT

The NHS has come to a pretty pass when hospital doctors are forced to warn that they “can no longer guarantee the provision of safe and high quality medical and nursing care”. Such is the crisis in Britain’s accident and emergency rooms, however, that 18 heads of casualty departments in the West Midlands have written to alert their hospitals’ management to just that.

Editorial: Obama has a tricky balance to strike

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:07:05 GMT

There was much cause for optimism when Barack Obama regained the White House last November. Never mind the warnings of “second-term blues”; with the small-government Tea Party looking like a spent force and the winds of economic recovery behind him, the newly re-elected President was all set to carry forward his moderate agenda, guiding through immigration reform, making progress on climate change, and enacting his healthcare reforms.

Politicians may choose to hide behind the EU, but the electorate will flush them out

Mon, 20 May 2013 17:58:05 GMT

The first law of referendums is that politicians want them only when they think they will get the right answer. Thus Lord Mandelson, in an interview with Jeremy Vine at the weekend, was frank enough to tell the BBC man that he was against the holding of any “In or Out” referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, because it would be “uncontrollable…. a lottery”. For the ultimate political control-freak – that’s Mandelson – there can be no more damning criticism.

Letters: Of course big business loves the EU

Mon, 20 May 2013 17:46:32 GMT

The predictable band of corporatists who claim that leaving the European Union would be a mistake because it would put “politics before economics” (letter, 20 May) have, as one would expect, no concept of democratic sovereignty. We eurosceptics put national democracy before corporate profit.

Rod’s not just Number One – he’s a lesson in getting your groove back

Mon, 20 May 2013 17:41:06 GMT

It was the Roman poet Horace who said that time flies, but he didn’t mention anything about it telescoping. I find the only way I now can keep track of world events is to assume that everything prior to this year happened roughly five years ago. Bucks Fizz at Eurovision, John Major as Prime Minister, the London Olympics: to me, these all took place in one long, fuzzy year.

The Lambton dispute: Everything wrong with Britain in one sorry family saga

Mon, 20 May 2013 17:23:46 GMT

On the face of it, the significance of a legal spat between three daughters of the late Lord Lambton and his only son, Lord Durham, over his will would seem to rate some way below other news – the appearance of David Icke on Alice Walker’s reading list, for example.

Internet porn is one thing, but LOLcats and Tumblr make up for it

Mon, 20 May 2013 17:12:38 GMT

Another reminder of how powerless grown-ups feel to prevent their children from stumbling into the grimy corners of the internet: in a survey for the National Association of Head Teachers, just over half of parents (51 per cent) said schools should teach children how to deal with internet pornography in secondary school, but a significant minority (42 per cent) felt that would be too late. Meanwhile NAHT also reports that parents are undermining teachers’ efforts to keep children innocent by signing them up for Facebook before they turn 13.

We can't turn back the online shopping tide, but we can change the way we think about high streets

Mon, 20 May 2013 17:02:17 GMT

For more and more people these days, the idea of retail therapy doesn't entail leaving the house. No public transport, no car journey, no search for a parking space, and no need to walk up and down the high street in all kinds of weather. Online shopping is just one of the reasons why actual, real-life, bricks-and-mortar retailing in the towns and cities of Britain is currently in crisis. The economy, notwithstanding what George Osborne may want us to believe, is another. Plus soaring levels of rents and rates. The never-ending winter has also had an effect. And then there are the out-of-town supermarkets driving traffic from the high street. Whatever the combination of causes, the stark fact is that the number of empty shops in Britain's high streets or malls is higher than it has ever been.

An interview with Sheriff Arpaio

Mon, 20 May 2013 15:25:36 GMT

The below is an extract from a feature that accompanied this interview, appearing in the December 2012 issue of GQ.

Kashmir: It's time for India take a risk

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:47:27 GMT

Press conferences rarely throw up much wisdom.

Why equal marriage should be enshrined in law

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:19:57 GMT

In February of this year we celebrated parliament's vote in favour of equal marriage - the outcome our Equal Partners campaign had fought for. Today, with the possibility that a "wrecking amendment" could delay legislation for two years, and renewed objections from anti-gay marriage MPs, we're revisiting some of the powerful pieces published in the run up to February's historic vote. So here's why we supported - and continue to support - equal marriage:

Robert Fisk: Where else but Northern Ireland would a killer on a school board even be mooted as a possibility?

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:00:54 GMT

The Brits have always been sending their experts to Northern Ireland to show the locals how to do their job. The G8 summit is going to have 3,600 of the boys and girls in blue arriving from the mainland in a month’s time to teach the Police Service of Northern Ireland – or the poor old “PSNI” as we are now enjoined to call it – how to do their job.

Where else but Northern Ireland would a killer on a school board even be mooted as a possibility?

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:00:54 GMT

i Assistant Editor's Letter: Fancy a family trip? Try the cemetery!

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:00:09 GMT

Editorial: A high-water mark for Burma

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:56:24 GMT

A Burmese leader will stand in the White House today for the first time since 1966. Not only does Thein Sein’s US visit cap an unprecedented round of diplomatic bridge-building that has taken him from Australia to Europe in recent months, it is also the high-water mark of his country’s return to international favour.

Editorial: Another week, another bout of Conservative Party in-fighting

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:52:46 GMT

David Cameron was in a tricky enough spot last week, forced to pretend it was, if not desirable, then at least acceptable that more than 100 obstreperous backbenchers voted their “regret” at his Government’s legislative programme. Between the high-profile grandees (Lord Lawson, Michael Portillo) and the existing cabinet ministers (Michael Gove, Philip Hammond) all voicing their scepticism on Europe – and implicitly criticising the Prime Minister’s renegotiation strategy in the process – the ghosts of John Major’s strife-riven leadership were abroad once more.

Editorial: Each to their own, Ms Walker

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:51:11 GMT

And so, out of all available literature, Alice Walker chose David Icke’s jaw-droppingly ridiculous book, Human Race Get Off Your Knees, to accompany her and her eight discs to Radio 4’s mythical Desert Island.

Austerity has hardened the nation's heart

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:32:40 GMT

Under the arches in Waterloo, a man sits, his head bowed. A scarf is wound tightly around his neck, as if he wants to strangle himself. His hands are grimy and covered in cuts, one suppurating. As I give him some coins and antiseptic plasters, I ask him why he is out there. He doesn’t look at me, and seems unwilling to talk.

The inquest into the death of Alexander Litvinenko has turned farcical - but who is hiding what?

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:23:38 GMT

In the shocked aftermath of Alexander Litvinenko’s death in a London hospital it would have been impossible for any but the most hard-bitten sceptic to believe that six and half years later the British public would be no closer to discovering what really happened. Much derided at the time, and since, I count myself one of those sceptics.

Letters: The benefit of European Union membership outweighs the cost

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:18:56 GMT

The economic case to stay in the EU is overwhelming. The creation of the Single Market was instigated by Britain, and is now the world’s largest trading bloc, containing half a billion people with a GDP of £10 trillion. To Britain, membership is estimated to be worth between £31bn and £92bn per year in income gains, or between £1,200 to £3,500 for every household.