The Specials

Will only the rich go away to college now?

While it may be a sign of maturity for students to live at home, the Government should not be bribing them to do it

Morris dancing at 4am? Now that's art

As dawn broke over London, my brother performed to the pigeons on the plinth in Trafalgar Square

Preening populism hurts democracy

When ministers trade insults instead of getting things done, I can begin to see what Bernie Ecclestone means about Hitler

We don’t want PC Panic or Terminator

If we want to avoid a repeat of the G20 troubles we need to properly train bobbies

Radio assault leaves listeners in silence

Take-up of DAB technology is so pathetic that we must fight for our beloved analog sets

My lord! I'm peering into a house of silly ideas

New Labour's ‘reforms' of the Upper House have been extraordinarily half-baked. Will it ever get its act together?

Forget image - just make things work

I'm sick of 'personalities'. I wouldn't care if Brown were a werewolf his team got things done

The fame dragon feasts on human sacrifice

Artists need recognition, but the form it takes in our age of global celebrity can be toxic. Diversity, beware

Church is living with one foot in Hell

Don’t look away: it’s unbelievable that we still haven’t learnt the lessons from systematic child abuse in Ireland

A familiar reek of misogyny and mistrust

Poets always do invective nicely, but the Oxford professor appointment row offered a new target

We do understand greed, Margaret Beckett

MPs should not treat the public as half-wits

What happened to personal honour?

No amount of lame justification can excuse the ‘because I’m worth it’ politics exposed by the MPs’ expenses scandal

Human side of a man-hating feminist

Marilyn French was scary. But sometimes we need people to kick against the traces

Stop, get ready, go: let common sense begin

Personal responsibility is lost in the red stop-lights of an overregulated world. We must start thinking for ourselves again

COMMENT: Women know cost of ‘mommy track’

There are injustices in equal pay, but many mothers earn less than men simply because they want to avoid promotion

Go and join your favourite cluster

Whether edgy creatives or stolid misanthropes, we are happiest when we live close to the same character types

Honestly, my new book is a fiction

Libby Purves explains how she came to write her twelfth novel about a woman who has lost a son

Decades of secrecy fan flames of fiction

The PM can no more call back his political adviser's ugly rumours than he can unring tolling bells

COMMENT: Art is not proof of good character

Artistic endeavours have a proven role in rehabilitation but they must not be used as bargaining counters by a murderer