Published in The Guardian (May 22nd, 2013) My daughter was ill at the weekend. Just a heavy cold; but when your child has profound and multiple learning disabilities, […]
Arts / Books / Politics
A politician with real class
Published in the Daily Mail (May 10th, 2013) This Boy: A Memoir of a Childhood by Alan Johnson (Bantam) When Alan Johnson was seven, his mother was in […]
Immigration / Policy / Politics
A Queen’s speech ruined by absurd anti-immigration measures
Published in The Guardian (May 8th, 2013) There is something reassuringly Ruritanian about the rituals associated with the Queen’s speech, from those flunkies in gold-trimmed finery to the […]
Health / Policy
A helpline in crisis and doctors who refuse to put patients’ interests above their own
Published in The Daily Mail (May 6th, 2013) For weeks there have been many stories emerging of patients left hanging on the phone, fearful or in pain; urgent […]
Aid / Politics
Corrupt, ineffective and hypocritical: Britain should give less aid, not more
Published in The Independent (May 2nd, 2013) When Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa, decided to give his family house in Nkandla a makeover, he did so […]
Jordan / Syria / World
Revealed: The schoolboy who sparked the Syrian revolution
Published in The Mail on Sunday (April 28th, 2013) It was a typical day for the teenagers, with school followed by a game of football – no different […]
Policy / Race
Christians, Muslims and the reality of religious persecution
Published in The Guardian (April 22nd, 2013) It is hard not to laugh. Three Christians are taking a landmark legal case to the European Court of Human Rights […]
Africa
Africa: the myth and the reality
Published in High Life magazine (16th April, 2013) If you think of Africa, what do you see? Perhaps a pitiful picture of a starving girl with flies on […]
Arts / Books / Immigration / Policy
Frightened by foreign bodies
Published in The Observer (14th April, 2013) The British Dream by David Goodhart (Atlantic); The Diversity Illusion by Ed West (Gibson Square) A couple of years ago I […]
Politics
Margaret Thatcher taught the next generation to set the agenda
Published in The Guardian (April 10th, 2013) The US academic Cass Sunstein was in Britain at the end of last month. In his usual slightly dishevelled style, he went […]