The Independent

Music: Madonna giving her all in Indianapolis last weekend

Editor-At-Large: We can help women into paid work, but where are the jobs?

12 February 2012 12:00 AM

Steve Hilton, Dave Cameron's "blue sky thinker" might be parodied online and mocked for his ghastly taste in casual wear, but I'll give him credit for one thing – persuading the PM to attend a get-together last week with the heads of the Nordic Baltic countries. Yes, the countries whose television drama we've fallen in love with – intelligent, civilised fare like Borgen, Wallender, The Killing and - soon to come, The Bridge and Lilyhammer on BBC4. This group includes the brave nations (Norway and Iceland) who decided to implement a quota of 40 per cent women on the boards of their public companies. And guess what – nothing ground to a halt and economies didn't implode. There's so much to like about this group, even if you're not a fan of oily fish and snow.

Janet Street-Porter: We're being told to holiday in Britain. This is my reply ...

05 February 2012 12:00 AM

Editor at Large

Janet-Street-Porter: The BBC is like the Titanic – going down fast

29 January 2012 12:00 AM

Editor at Large

Janet Street-Porter: They pile in to damn Sir Fred's gong, but what will it change?

22 January 2012 12:00 AM

Politicians are jumping over each other to demand that the disgraced former RBS chief Fred "the Shred" Goodwin should be stripped of his knighthood. Why? What difference would it make? I can see that the ritual of public humiliation might turn some people on, but this futile gesture won't help the huge number of folk fruitlessly looking for work or trying to pay bills. It won't build a single affordable home, fund a crèche or keep a library open. Ed Miliband is the latest lemming to demand Fred's head on a platter, telling anyone who'll listen that Gordon Brown should "never" have handed out the accolade in the first place.

Editor-At-Large: Looks do count, Ed, but it's conviction that voters like most

15 January 2012 12:00 AM

As Ed Miliband made yet another "relaunch" speech last week, I looked across the room where I was lunching and spotted a geeky-looking bloke with bog-brush hair, wearing a pristine white shirt and a red tie – his brother David, impossible to ignore. He looked too scrubbed up, a bit otherworldly. Gary Lineker was nearby, but he blended into the hustle and bustle, a regular-looking chap with a bit of a tan. What is it about the Milibandroids that sets them apart from us, no matter how often they say they understand our aspirations and our concerns?

Editor-At-Large: Bin those useless self-help books and tuck in to a pie

08 January 2012 12:00 AM

January is traditionally the month of deep self-loathing. Big bills and big bellies inevitably lead to thoughts of new beginnings, a chance to mend our ways, and start afresh. Turn on the television, open any newspaper or magazine and you can't ignore exercise DVDs and diet books. Davina McCall (slender mother of three) reigns supreme at the top of the bestsellers (again), and even the comical Towie mob is flogging a keep-fit routine, complete with extras such as "what to wear to work out in Essex". Ignore them. Here's how to deal with windy and grim January: eat the same food as in December. I've enjoyed macaroni cheese, fish and chips and fruit cake, done the same amount of walking, played the same amount of tennis. When appearing in public, I wear a pair of buttock-clenching pants.

Editor-At-Large: The royal liggers should stick around in hard-up Britain

18 December 2011 12:00 AM

Buckingham Palace has a terrible sense of timing. As the latest figures show unemployment reaching the highest level for 17 years, one group of plucky Brits can look forward to a spot of sun and fun in 2012, and, even better, they won't have to pay: the hard-up British taxpayer will. Lavish plans to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee were unveiled last week, just as the number of women out of work passed a million, just slightly more than the number of jobless young people. Given that Great Britain plc is staring at the very real possibility of a double-dip recession, and personal debt is higher than ever, you might think the bureaucrats who organise events for the Royal Family would have some sense of appropriateness, of adapting to straitened times. Sadly, not.

Jane Fonda extols exercise but tops up with surgery

Editor-At-Large: Most Britons' idea of exercise is reaching for their Dairy Milk

11 December 2011 12:00 AM

I guarantee that the one sport we'll win gold medals at in 2012 is loafing. We'll excel at lounging on a sofa staring at a screen, one hand around a jumbo bar of Dairy Milk, the other resting by a can of fizzy liquid.

Editor-At-Large: Let's sober up – and stand up to booze industry bullies

04 December 2011 12:00 AM

It's that time of year again – pubs and pizzerias full of gurning office workers wearing paper hats and pulling crackers, downing house plonk by the bucket load, all in the name of seasonal good cheer. Later there'll be puke in the gutters and piss on the back walls of buildings up and down the land.

Editor-At-Large: We are more unkind and callous, and yet everyone's in tears

27 November 2011 12:00 AM

Ed Balls blubs – not because more black boys rot in jail than attend our leading universities – but at the price of a pot on Antiques Roadshow. A teenage criminal can't see why he should say sorry and more or less tells his victims to bugger off. On an everyday level, we rarely bother with a simple thank you (and most of us don't mean it either). Does "cheers" do the job? Our emotional wiring seems to be in meltdown.

H&M's Versace range, promising bling on a budget, goes on sale on Thursday

Editor-At-Large: Creating fear is this brutal government's idea of a policy

13 November 2011 12:00 AM

Around 9pm on Wednesday, a police helicopter hovered a few hundred feet over my home (next to sheltered housing for the elderly) in central London. The noise was deafening, the feeling of utter helplessness unnerving. Why were the residents of Islington, Holborn, Finsbury and Clerkenwell being subjected to unpleasant harassment in the name of maintaining law and order? It was clearly pointless calling the police, so I just seethed.

Bob, why not put your money where your mouth is?

Editor-At-Large: Dear Bob Diamond...

06 November 2011 12:00 AM

I was thrilled you've finally realised that you and your high-earning pals are the single most reviled group of "workers" in the UK. Maybe it's because you make huge amounts of money by the click of a mouse and profit by other people's debts, while the rest of us think that work is something that involves an activity, a physical or mental effort, an interaction with a reality rather than an inspired gamble. I was impressed that your speech for the BBC last week asked bankers to become "better citizens" to regain our trust. Not easy – you've been described as "the unacceptable face of capitalism" – so how are you going to reinvent yourself and step up to the challenges facing Britain by creating jobs and helping other people?

Editor-At-Large: Women must look after themselves, not rely on the law

30 October 2011 12:51 AM

Clare Wood met George Appleton on Facebook. After their relationship ended, he turned up at her house, smashed the front door, and threatened her with an iron. Clare called the police, but four months later, Appleton strangled her, set her body on fire and then hanged himself.

Editor-At-Large: Seems we'll use any word today except a word of kindness

23 October 2011 12:00 AM

Ricky Gervais is smart – not a bully or a bigot, even though recent events might indicate otherwise. Now he's apologised for using the word "mong", let's get the affair in perspective. Sure, he was naïve, and posting oafish pictures on Twitter was dumb. They attracted a storm of protest – and Gervais was even accused of ramping up the controversy to promote his new television series. But after Nicola Clark, the mother of two teenage girls with severe autism, cried on the Jeremy Vine radio show as she described the insults she's had to deal with from the public, Ricky contacted her and they talked privately and he said sorry. He then offered her a "very public thank you" on Twitter. Unlike Frankie Boyle, with his revolting comments about Katie Price's disabled son Harvey, Ricky knows when to admit he got it wrong.