The Independent

Iain Duncan Smith: Fairness for the taxpayer – and for the claimant

12 February 2012 12:00 AM

Government hands out £200bn per year but ends up trapping people on benefits

David Beckham and Tom Cruise feel the love. But is it only shared fame that binds them?

Sarah Sands: A friend is not the one you turn to, but the person who turns to you

12 February 2012 12:00 AM

David Beckham's admission that he has only three good friends rings true

John Rentoul: Lansley's Bill is safe, but he is not

12 February 2012 12:00 AM

The NHS shake-up is past the point of no return, and will proceed. Its author's future is less assured

Many children use mobiles, tablets or laptops unsupervised

Jim Gamble: We are losing the race to protect our young

12 February 2012 12:00 AM

Technology and the children who use it won't wait for slow-moving child-protection services and the police to catch up

Ian Burrell: How far will Rupert Murdoch go to save the Currant Bun?

12 February 2012 12:00 AM

Is this the end of The Sun? Rupert Murdoch is reportedly flying to the UK, ostensibly to save a newspaper he has loved since he bought it in 1969 from being engulfed by an unprecedented police bribery scandal.

Joan Smith: It's not older women the BBC lacks. It's women in general

12 February 2012 12:00 AM

It's official: the BBC has a problem with older women. The director-general, Mark Thompson, has admitted as much, acknowledging that the BBC's treatment of Strictly judge Arlene Phillips and former Countryfile presenter Miriam O'Reilly – she won an age-discrimination case against the corporation – has damaged its image. There are "manifestly too few older women broadcasting on the BBC", Thompson admitted. The only bit of that sentence I take issue with is the word "older".

Embattled: Theresa May has been wringing her hands over Abu Qatada

DJ Taylor: Top marks to our Schools minister

12 February 2012 12:00 AM

We may not like his party, but Nick Gibb is trying to right reading wrongs – and is vilified for his trouble

Wild about Harry: the soldier prince’s occasional scrapes help his image

Paul Vallely: There's something about Harry

12 February 2012 12:00 AM

The geezer name that can shape the way you live

Sophie Heawood: Traveller TV - one part cringe, one part inspiration

12 February 2012 12:00 AM

We are in the middle of a craze for gypsies. My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding is about to return for another series, having apparently given Channel 4 its highest viewing figures in years. Then there's Gypsy Blood, Channel 4's documentary last month about the bare-knuckle fighting culture. Paddy Doherty, a boxer, went on to win Celebrity Big Brother and get a spin-off programme of his own, shacking up with Sally Bercow, wife of the Speaker of the House of Commons. Meanwhile, the supermodel Kate Moss says she loves the gypsy weddings so much that they inspired her own. Then, in the news, we've seen the drawn-out evictions at the traveller site at Dale Farm, near Basildon. There are question marks over a traveller site near the Olympic area in east London. Disturbing reports are coming from Hungary of militias rounding up members of the Roma community.

The aftermath of Friday’s double bombing in Aleppo which killed at least 28 people

Patrick Cockburn: All the evidence points to sectarian civil war in Syria, but no one wants to admit it

12 February 2012 12:00 AM

World View: Arming the resistance can only increase the blood-letting

Rick Santorum was far more convincing during his short speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference than his rival Mitt Romney

Rupert Cornwell: The Romney dog-food brand still isn't selling

12 February 2012 12:00 AM

Out of America: The Republican frontrunner can't seem to win over the party faithful

Tom Hodgkinson: Why love isn't as simple as we think

12 February 2012 12:00 AM

What is love? As this week's cover story makes clear, these days it can take many forms. But as Valentine's Day approaches, I too have been reflecting on the meaning of the word. Help has come from the author Roman Krznaric in his new book The Wonderbox, a sort of self-help manual that uses historical precedent to shine an old light on new problems, from love to work. I've also been reading The Art of Loving (1956) by the radical psychologist Erich Fromm, another great guide for the confused in love.