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Dominic Lawson: Spare me these orgies of self-congratulation

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

I realise none of us is compelled to watch the interminable displays of professional log-rolling and improbable frocks otherwise known as movie awards ceremonies; but somehow the obsession of the broadcasting media with these festivals of self-congratulation leaves us with no escape. Thus, at 7am yesterday, I – along with everyone else whose reluctant emergence into daily consciousness is punctuated by Radio 4's news bulletins – had to endure the sound of a hyper-ventilating Meryl Streep telling an invited audience at the "Orange Baftas" that her performance in The Iron Lady "located something real".

Sam Gurney: It's too little, too late – but it still offers hope of a better future

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Apple's decision to investigate the working conditions at its factories in China is long overdue, and more work is needed to ensure meaningful change.

Ben Chu: As the cuts hit home, inequality is fanning flames of rebellion

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Just how severe is Greece's austerity? The raw statistics are certainly alarming. This is the fifth year of economic contraction. The economy shrank by 5.5 per cent last year. Some forecasters expect a similar decline this year. Almost half of the population under 25 is out of work. But it is the human stories that paint the most vivid picture of suffering. There have been reports of children being put into care because parents cannot afford to feed them and whole families surviving on the pension of an elderly relative.

Steve Richards: No one is above the law – and that includes 'The Sun'

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

The manner in which parts of the media condemn the various investigations into their conduct highlights how they got into trouble in the first place. In the past, some journalists behaved as if they were above the law. Some appear to expect now a higher threshold of leniency or tolerance compared with everyone else. At the very least, they demand a generous sense of proportion that they do not apply when reporting on politicians or others.

Effie Kesidou: Greece should cut its losses and exit now

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Why are neoliberal economic remedies that have failed spectacularly in other parts of the world being rebranded and applied to Greece? Despite uproar on the streets, the Greek parliament has now voted to accept the package being pushed by Europe and the IMF to address Greece's crisis. This postulates that austerity – cutting public expenditure, reducing salaries and increasing taxes – will stabilise the economy in the long run.

Deborah Ross: Join now to find that someone who isn't the least bit special

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

If you ask me, and to celebrate Valentine's Day plus help singles everywhere, I would like to introduce you to my new online dating agency, notpicky.com, which I have set up especially for those who are not picky and have decided they'd better settle for whomever if they are ever going to be with anyone at all.

Vladimir Putin: My goal is to make Russia a more just society

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Social policy has numerous goals. It should support the weak, those unable to make a living. It should provide upward social mobility and an equal "starting point" for everyone based on their capabilities and gifts. Above all, the effectiveness of social policy is determined by whether people think our society is fair or not. In Russia, we have a much higher level of social protection than in countries with similar levels of productivity and revenue per capita. And we have made real progress in fighting poverty, in bettering healthcare and education.

Susie Rushton: Don't put our Olympics patience to the test

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Britons tend to be rather ambivalent about events of Great National Importance. At moments when other nations might respond with earnest enthusiasm, we're often downright cynical: during general elections; at the declaration of war; the opening of the Millennium Dome. Of big sporting events, we're usually more supportive. Until there's reason not to be.

Rhodri Marsden: What we like and what we don't like are often closer than you'd think

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

I was 14 when someone first said to me: "You're not my type". It felt like a sophisticated comeback for a 14-year-old girl. She evidently knew what she wanted from a 14-year-old boy – mainly that he had to be older than 14. My dissimilarity to the socio-economic profile she'd carefully constructed meant that I had to change, quickly, to try and tick some more boxes, but in this particular case it seemed to involve joining Spandau Ballet, which was going to be tricky. Then a friend told me that it was shorthand for: "I'll never go out with you no matter what you do," which was demoralising, but also something of a relief because Spandau Ballet weren't keen.

Simon Kelner: How many industries could withstand this scrutiny?

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:09:46 GMT

It took the arrest of five journalists from The Sun to put Lord Justice Leveson's examination of our newspapers into context. At the end of last week, it would have been possible to believe that the most significant aspect of the inquiry into press standards was the dispute between Hugh Grant and the editor of the Daily Mail over a woman with a posh voice.

Rebecca Armstrong: Making a complaint? You need some words of power

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 09:55:57 GMT

I'm terrible at complaining. Well, I'm great at whining, moaning and harrumphing to my long-suffering colleagues and to you, poor readers, about whatever is making me want to unsheathe my claws at any given moment (people saying "yourself" when they mean "you", leggings as trousers, cruelty to creatures), but not when it comes to making an Official Complaint. I quail, I rage impotently and there are usually hot, ineffective tears involved before I give up on addressing whatever it is that needs complaining about.

Jeremy Laurance: Not everything is safe just because it's not illegal

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

If it's legal it must be safe. This is the misconception that is leading many drug users into danger. Like the fashion for organic food, people are being lulled into a false sense of security.

Stefan Stern: Our public gaze is beginning to shame the shameless

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Cameron calls for bank bonus truce" ran the Financial Times headline on Saturday. To some this truce will look more like a white flag. It is a curious moment to relax the pressure on financiers just when some appear to be acknowledging that things have got out of hand. First among equals, in this regard, is the Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive, Stephen Hester.

Sophie Heawood: Glossy stars aren't meant to go like this

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

There was a radio phone-in the other day, on BBC 6Music, where people had to request songs by women with nonchalant or bored voices. Listeners asked for the sultry drone of Nico, or the icy electro of Miss Kitten. Somebody even proposed Grace Jones, pointing out she sang with a commanding air of indifference. Nobody, but nobody, suggested Whitney Houston. This is because Whitney Houston had a gigantic lightning strike of a voice, as far from nonchalant as any could possibly be.

Kate Allen: It's time for America to put an end to this shameful scandal

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Ten years is a long time. That a former British resident has spent every single one of the intervening days between February 2002 and today in a cell in Guantánamo, without answering a single charge or having had one day in court, is an affront to the concept of justice.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: We've become experts at sex – but losers at love

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

At the supermarket on Friday night, my beloved said a red, heart-shaped candle was tat and a total rip-off at £8.99. Guess he won't be buying me the latest big thing for Valentine's day then, made of a new metal amalgam, rubedo. Created by Tiffany, it's slightly pink and quite attractive. Hoop earrings cost £1,000 and a bangle seven times as much, and not even real gold as my mother would have said. But for someone called Edwina Ings-Chambers, an effusive connoisseur of high style, a piece of rubedo would be making, she wrote in a Sunday newspaper: "... that statement of statements – the 'will you love and cherish me forever' one..."

Patrick Cockburn: All the evidence points to sectarian civil war in Syria, but no one wants to admit it

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

As Syrian army tanks mass around Homs and its artillery pounds Sunni districts of the city, Syria is slipping into the first stages of a sectarian civil war. This conflict could be as bloody as anything seen in Iraq between 2006 and 2007 or as long as the civil war in Lebanon (1975-90). The two words that best describe the current process in Syria are "Lebanisation" and "militarisation"; neither bodes well for Syria's people.

Rupert Cornwell: The Romney dog-food brand still isn't selling

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

For sheer craziness, few events on the American political calendar beat the annual gathering in a cavernous Washington hotel each February of the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Joan Smith: It's not older women the BBC lacks. It's women in general

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

It's official: the BBC has a problem with older women. The director-general, Mark Thompson, has admitted as much, acknowledging that the BBC's treatment of Strictly judge Arlene Phillips and former Countryfile presenter Miriam O'Reilly – she won an age-discrimination case against the corporation – has damaged its image. There are "manifestly too few older women broadcasting on the BBC", Thompson admitted. The only bit of that sentence I take issue with is the word "older".

Tom Hodgkinson: Why love isn't as simple as we think

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

What is love? As this week's cover story makes clear, these days it can take many forms. But as Valentine's Day approaches, I too have been reflecting on the meaning of the word. Help has come from the author Roman Krznaric in his new book The Wonderbox, a sort of self-help manual that uses historical precedent to shine an old light on new problems, from love to work. I've also been reading The Art of Loving (1956) by the radical psychologist Erich Fromm, another great guide for the confused in love.

John Rentoul: Lansley's Bill is safe, but he is not

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Having spoken to many well-placed sources I conclude that the health Bill is not going to be dropped. Which is a strange coincidence, because that is what my well-placed sources tell me. Quite often, it is safer to assume that the opposite of what people in government say will happen is what will actually happen. But in this case, there are good reasons for thinking that the Bill will survive.

Sarah Sands: A friend is not the one you turn to, but the person who turns to you

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

It took a while to digest the revelation by David Beckham that he had only three good friends. Was this a parable of the vagaries of fame? One of the most familiar and admired men in the world, ambassador for the Olympics and underpants, yet he counts his friends on one hand. People who are not multimillionaires, and who are not married to superwives with tiny heads and big sunglasses, counted their blessings. Who doesn't have more friends than David Beckham?

Ian Burrell: How far will Rupert Murdoch go to save the Currant Bun?

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Is this the end of The Sun? Rupert Murdoch is reportedly flying to the UK, ostensibly to save a newspaper he has loved since he bought it in 1969 from being engulfed by an unprecedented police bribery scandal.

Iain Duncan Smith: Fairness for the taxpayer – and for the claimant

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Beveridge's vision for the welfare state was one of a safety net, a system that prevented people from falling into poverty at times of difficulty, but that expected people to do all they could to work: want and squalor were giant evils, but so too was idleness.

Katy Guest: The Rant & Rave of romance (12/02/12)

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Rant