Counterpoints
Free to choose
The view that children need to go out alone, play unsupervised, take risks and learn independence and resilience speaks to something important that Western societies have largely lost
Brought to book
Mathematics publishing is a soft touch. The publisher usually hasn’t a clue, so they send the manuscript to someone like me to comment on. I used to be a soft touch too
A squarer mile
For better or worse, that City has undergone a revolution. Its old guard has been seen off, or paid off
Foie Gove
Michael Gove’s plan to ban foie gras is an essentially frivolous self-advertisement
Jam tomorrow
“We do so love a literary rejection, provided it isn’t our own, of course.”
The new normal
“Now nobody, it seems, wants to be seen as normal: not even normal people. But I do. All my life I’ve craved normality and never quite managed it”
Closed Minds
“In Britain’s universities, there is no incendiary debate on Brexit, merely a stunned lack of comprehension and the blithe assumption that all we “nice” people voted to remain”
Mañana, mañana
“Beyoncé got involved in youth voter registration — you could sign up at her concerts — because apparently, without the world’s most famous pop star yelling at us, millennials cannot fill out a life-defining form”
BOGOF, Nanny
“The proposed sugar tax and a prospective ban on BOGOFs — supermarket buy-one, get-one-free offers — are perfect examples of how muddled thinking leads to the busybody interference of the Nanny State”
The art of faking it
On Instagram, there’s nothing cooler than corporate sponsorship — so aspiring influencers are now creating fake sponsored content
How Top Boys topple down crime’s ladder
Too many prisoners rejoin society with no education, stable housing or job prospects. No surprise that more than half reoffend within a year
In the bleak midwinter
Christmas can be a bleak time of year. While some feel isolated, others are overwhelmed by the need for a perfect family Yuletide when their reality is different
My warnings to our spy watchdogs
Britain is under attack from Russia. And the government is blocking a Parliamentary report that details it