The Specials

Today's victim, tomorrow's feral brat

We emote for the Baby Ps of this world, but if they grow up and go to school, we ostracise them

Is lack of vitamin D linked to swine flu?

Scotland has a disproportionately high number of swine flu cases. There could be a simple reason

Swine flu is not entertainment

We all scoffed. Now the signs are that it's not going away

Englishness needs more than a festival

The national identity is a fragile mixture of decency, fairness, humour - and grievance. It will not be easy to nurture it

The life and soul of the drinking classes

Pubs are precious - warts, absentee husbands and all. But unstoppable forces are killing them

Why on earth are we banning a mouthy DJ?

The people on this exclusion list are as much of a threat as athlete's foot

Susan Boyle redeems us from superficiality

The ugly duckling didn't need to become a swan

Give me a hospital birth any day

Women who think they can have a baby without 21st-century medicine are spoilt and complacent

Hospitals have never needed God more

A&E departments are a war zone. There could not be a worse time to get rid of their chaplains

A sure-hoofed way to control the mobs

If humans are so clever, why do we rely on the least aggressive of animals to do our patrolling?

Don't just blame the police for not catching rapists

We should look at ourselves for our failure to respect women

Spare us from state-regulated grannies

If grandparents are paid for childminding, the bureaucrats will inevitably want to regulate them

First big case of death by empty words

The job of a hospital trust is not to produce impenetrable words, but clean sheets and treatment

Al-Qaeda stoked our Massereene fury

Public anger in support of the Armed Forces shows that our attitude to terrorism has moved on

Who are the real victims?

The case of a novelist's son and the tragedy of a baby expose our moral confusion over drugs

Can dour old Dundee be the new Paris?

Don't scoff at plans for a new V&A on the Tay

We're the ones caught in the rat trap

Take heed, all ye who evangelise about recycling. These rodents are cleverer than us