Poverty
A short history of flash photography
All photography requires light, but the light used in flash photography is unique — shocking, intrusive and abrupt. It’s quite…
The Florida Project never sanctifies or demonises and is absorbing throughout
The Florida Project is a drama set in one of those cheap American motels occupied by poor people who would…
Destitute Britain
I became aware that there was real destitution in modern Britain five years ago. Destitution, as I see it, arises…
How to be good
Suffering, wrote Auden, takes place ‘while someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along’. His…
Putting the boot into Italy
A young woman, naked and covered in blood, totters numbly down a night road. A driver spots her in his…
Change and decay
Writing of his grandmother’s cremation, Kushanava Choudhury reflects in The Epic City that, while his expatriate Indian cousins are separated…
Training the horse from hell
There were moments while reading this sprawling, ambitious novel when I thought I was reading a masterpiece. But at other…
Penury dictates that I find more lucrative work — but I can’t afford to
My adventures in penury land me with two job applications on my screen, one for MI6, one for Sainsbury’s. Do…
The climate change agenda is a conspiracy against the poor
In trying to protect ‘our grandchildren’ from climate change, politicians are hurting the poor. They shouldn’t
The climate summit in Paris will feature a lot of hot air
The delegates who will gather for the star-studded Paris climate summit include celebrities, presidents and perhaps even the Pope. Among…
Dear Mary: How can I make visiting friends realise it is a burden to take them to see the sights?
Q. I am an impoverished artist living in a famously cheap European city, largely for reasons of economy. I love…
The Tories must move quickly to recruit ex-Labour voters. Here's how
David Cameron might not be remembered as the best prime minister in modern British history but he will probably be…
Chairman Mao: monster of misrule
Mao Zedong, once the Helmsman, Great Teacher and Red Red Sun in Our Hearts, and still the Chairman, died in…
Archbishop John Sentamu on why politicians are like men arguing at a urinal
Archbishop John Sentamu is not scared to tell off politicians, across the spectrum
Why are there so many fat people in pictures of food banks?
Were you aware that the famous actor Andy Garcia was born with a foetus growing out of his left shoulder?…
Ukip is in the middle of the most cynical political repositioning ever
I think I’ve cracked it. If you want to springboard your minor political party into the mainstream and take British…
The nun who took down an Isis flag – and stands up for east London's Muslims
Sister Christine Frost, who works on an east London estate, sees why young Muslim men are going to fight in Iraq and Syria
If you thought this World Cup was weird, take a look at Brazil 1950
Old world Brazil has struggled to get ready for the World Cup, even though it hosted it before, in 1950.…
Is Hamas finally losing its grip on Gaza?
The party is out of favour with its foreign neighbours and with ordinary Gazans
Joy to the world
Pessimism sells. It shifts books and newspapers, sends ratings soaring. It fills lecture halls, wins research grants, makes political careers.…
