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Hermione Eyre: Everyone's got an opinion – but should they all count?

The thing is, 100,000 signatures isn't what it was. It is currently the "magic threshold" used for government e-petitions: cross it and your idea is given a parliamentary debate. But as Labour MP Natascha Engels explained yesterday, online campaigns can now marshal this number of signatures "in a week".

Hermione Eyre: Vandalism leaves a bitter aftertaste

Was that a smirk in the newscaster's voice as he announced that Fred Goodwin's home had been vandalised? A "he-had-it-coming" curl of the lip? Perhaps not (headline readers are admirably po-faced) but certainly, the public response to the news that Sir Fred's windows had been smashed had an unmistakable undercurrent of jubilance. Which gives me the shivers.

Hermione Eyre: You think you want power? You may be mistaken

Public achievement comes at a price. Why stick your head above the parapet

Hermione Eyre: Thought for the day: get us thinking, BBC

How much longer can "Thought for the Day" continue on Radio 4's Today programme? That little slot of sanctimony before the 8am news bulletin – only two minutes and 45 second in duration but always seeming so very much longer – is again being targeted by secularists, who politely suggest it should either widen its remit to include non-religious contributors, or shut up shop altogether.

Hermione Eyre: Nonsense? At least the Tories are thinking

Let's be clear: the Policy Exchange's suggestion that certain northern cities are not worth regenerating is pure, steaming nonsense. Government funding should be used to correct the gravitational pull of money and commerce to the south, not to reinforce it. But however ill-judged that particular report may be, and however much bad publicity it has caused for David Cameron (closely allied with the Policy Exchange, he was a guest speaker there in July) it is a sign of something good: the Tories are thinking.

Hermione Eyre: Uncaring, unethical – and a risk to us all

Compelling as it is to discuss David Miliband's little finger (isn't the way he waves his hands about just so Blair?), there are other issues that the party political personality contest should not completely obscure. Yesterday we learnt what Alan Johnson would rather we didn't know: that government policy on healthcare access for failed asylum-seekers is worryingly out of step with medical opinion. The more you look at the scheme, the more you think it is out of step with common sense as well.

Hermione Eyre: Cool title, but what does it mean?

The Government has pledged to build three million extra homes by 2020, but how can this be done without concreting over the countryside? This question has been worrying me, as it must worry anyone who likes grass, and thinks some of it should still be visible in the South-east. So I went along to a lecture on this topic at the Royal Geographical Society this week, where the message was sent out loud and clear: Worry not. We can do it.

Hermione Eyre: How did exploiting teenage girls become acceptable?

A giant pole was raised outside Parliament on Tuesday. Sadly, it wasn't a maypole. It was a pole of the type that women gyrate around, semi-clothed, for money, and it was an angry stunt by women's campaign group Object ("challenging Sex Object Culture") to raise awareness of the fact that we now have twice as many of these poles in this country as we did three years ago. Yes, lap-dancing clubs have doubled since the Licensing Law 2003 came into effect in 2005, and Britain is a grubbier and less safe place for it. Meanwhile the BBC isn't helping stem the filth, either.

Hermione Eyre: A catcall is not only sexist, it's bad for business

Builders working on Wimpey construction sites across Bristol were banned last week from wolf-whistling. Was this a spoilsport piece of petty bureaucracy, or a fillip for women's rights?

Hermione Eyre: Not only witnesses need state protection

Hirsi Ali has been in limbo ever since 2006, when she admitted falsifying details on her asylum application

Hermione Eyre: Whoever said feminism was a thing of the past?

I wonder how the world would look if viewed through a gender looking glass

Hermione Eyre: When making our mark is not art but crime

Graffiti – the rudimentary scrawled kind – is a human variant on cocking a leg

Hermione Eyre: Generation bird-brain? It's just evolution

The shifty downward gaze, the darting thumb – it was unmistakable. The man was composing a text message. The problem was that we were in the theatre. On stage, Leontes was ranting and roaring; in the front row of the audience, Mr Busy Thumbs was scrolling through predictive. He didn't even try to hide it really. He just seemed to have put the sound down on the performers, to have flipped the channel on them, while he compulsively, absently busied himself with something else for a minute or two. Concentration is a dying art.

Hermione Eyre: I have seen the future, and it is dark

It is clearly a very exciting time to be a computational cosmologist ... and that's before Lily Allen pops up

Hermione Eyre: Was Flashman's world really no place for a girl?

I went to Rugby school when I was 13 and the spirit of the cad was still somehow intangibly present
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Day In a Page

No secularism please, we're British

No secularism please, we're British

Arguments about the role of religion in national life have recently acquired a new urgency
Harold Tillman: 'Chinese tourists can save the high street – if we let them'

Harold Tillman interview

'Chinese tourists can save the high street – if we let them'
Working as a jail torturer ruined my life

Working as a jail torturer ruined my life

Meet the former soldier who has joined the political prisoners he tortured in Turkey's Mamak prison by suing the generals who led a regime of terror
The local high street jet shop

The local high street jet shop

Got a spare $50m and can't stand the queues at Heathrow? Get yourself down to London's first private plane dealership
Do you like your doctor? It could be the death of you

Do you like your doctor?

It could be the death of you...
The mysterious affair of how Agatha Christie is teaching foreigners English

How Agatha Christie is teaching foreigners English

Twenty of the author's novels have been adapted and presented with learning notes and a CD
Six Grammys, five years off: Adele puts love before career

Six Grammys, five years off

Adele puts love before career
The 10 Best binoculars

The 10 Best binoculars

From no-frills to bins with digital cameras
Milan for £300

Milan for £300?

A cultural family holiday - on a budget - to Italy's most stylish city
'Black-hole' resorts: Turn up, tune out, log off

'Black-hole' resorts

Turn up, tune out, log off
New Arsenal face an old question of credibility in San Siro

New Arsenal face an old question of credibility in San Siro

Remodelled since winning in Milan in 2008, for all their consistency – and prize-money – Wenger's side are yet to claim a European title
James Lawton: This prodigal son deserves no forgiveness

James Lawton: This prodigal son deserves no forgiveness

City would be putting their desire to win title ahead of morals if Tevez plays for them
Mark Cavendish: Is Olympic gold at end of the rainbow?

Mark Cavendish interview

Is Olympic gold at end of the rainbow?
Apple admits it has a human rights problem

Apple admits it has a human rights problem

After years of complaints and workers' suicides in China the technology giant faces up to the human cost of its gadgets
Peter Moore: 'I feel guilty I'm the only one alive'

Peter Moore interview

'I feel guilty I'm the only one alive'