Is it ok for Muslim parents to stop their kids having non-Muslim pals?
Is it all right for the Muslim parents of children at British state schools to prevent their sons and daughters…
After decades in London, I still long for home. Is that too Brexity?
As I get older, and particularly after having a child, I feel myself unexpectedly drawn back to the countryside I…
An odd new feeling has crept up on me – sympathy for the police
Spring has come to my local park in its usual way. First the magnolias, then the cherry blossom, then the…
Has Virgin trains lost the plot?
Twelve minutes till the train. That had seemed like quite enough time as I approached the Virgin ticket machine. Two…
Commitment-phobic men are the real reason women are having children later
We are becoming a nation of older mothers. The average age at which a woman has her first child is…
Why we keep ignoring NGO sex scandals
One of the oddest things about the Oxfam sex scandal is how little we all seem to care. Even now,…
UN ‘Peace-keepers’ abuse the girls in their care, yet no one is ever punished
Last week, women working for the UN became the latest to join the #MeToo gang, and for all the eye-rolling…
For some girls, therapy does more harm than good
In the churchyard by the church near my grandmother’s house, there’s a tombstone with an inscription that’s haunted me since…
How can any intelligent person have faith?
Ten years ago, I had a strange debate about faith with a famous Jesuit and an agnostic psychoanalyst in a…
An exceptional new film about Jane Goodall unearths a remarkable love story
There are times when our national passion for cutting people down to size is a little tiring. I left Brett…
The iciness behind the heart of the #metoo movement
On rolls the Harvey Weinstein horror show with no finale in sight. The next episode looks likely to star Uma…
The universal credit crunch
It only dawned on me in late summer just how terrible our new benefits system, universal credit, might be both…
Calling Paddock a ‘lone wolf’ isn’t racist
It’s been nearly two weeks since Stephen Paddock committed mass murder in Las Vegas and the FBI is still casting…
Savage beauty
Could it, at times, be frustrating to have taken one of the world’s most famous photographs? Steve McCurry’s ‘Afghan Girl’…
Gentrification is far from our biggest problem
The late afternoon sun fell on the anomalous pine trees of Gillett Square, London N16, and on the wooden decking…
Oh brave new gender-fluid world…
Later this year, the Advertising Standards Authority will reveal to the world their list of rules designed to wipe out…
The end of brotherly love
You can never completely leave a religious cult, as this strange and touching memoir demonstrates. Patterns of thinking, turns of…
Beware the back-cracker quacks of Harley Street
All along Harley Street, charlatans and medical experts have set up side by side with no obvious way to tell…
The strange case of my first love and the stolen Stradivarius
Because I’d been reading about Stradivarius on the bus home, my helpful iPhone suggested a related story: the Totenberg Ames…
Lessons in love and loss
Some of the time, most of the time, it’s tricky to believe in God. There’s just too much that’s sad…
There’s no need to tell children about terrorists
Saturday evening in Durham. My in-laws and I had just begun our usual postprandial shout about Donald Trump when my…
Why do nurses quit? Because they care
Sometimes, on Sundays, I visit Richard, a friend who’s 95 and lives alone. The idea originally was that I’d be…
At the cutting edge
There’s a graveyard inside Henry Marsh’s head, though you’d never guess it to look at him. There he sits in…
Who dares face down the teenage gangsters?
The baby, unbothered by diesel fumes, enjoys an outing down the main road through London N1. Each passing bus is…
The mad, bad war on ‘cultural appropriation’
It’s usually best to ignore the indignant fury of the 21st-century young. We’re used to them now, these snowflakes, posing…
