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Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: This confrontation is a calamity for the capital

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 23:00:01 GMT

We could call it the "Bonfire of the Vanities", but that literary cliché feels glib for what is happening in the Metropolitan Police today. Two responsible, mature men, holding the most critical jobs in the capital, upon whose judgements and actions millions depend, bust up in public. We are witnessing scenes more poisonous than the McCartney/Mills divorce as the men get sucked up in a vortex of fury.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Celebrities don't deserve this hatred

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:00:01 GMT

Madonna's world concert tour started with a whimper in Cardiff's Millennium Stadium. It didn't sell out. Shock! Horror! As she toned up vigorously the following dawn, I imagine her killing the punch bags and smashing her long-suffering treadmill. That is if she feels this was the first tumble of her fall back on to the rocky, inclement spot where ex-celebs lie still. It is the payback for too much fame and extravagant adoration.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: When your skin is just too dark

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 23:00:01 GMT

Beyoncé is not bovvered, it seems. Was she deracinated and "improved" by L'Oréal for one of their adverts? No comment from the singer. As one of their brand goddesses, she perhaps believes there is no point in scratching the hands that gild her. Paid millions, it must seem fair enough to be turned into a fair enough mock-up of her real self. The multi-national cosmetic company vehemently denies the accusation. They would, wouldn't they?

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: No welcome – now the Turks don't even want to join Europe

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 23:00:01 GMT

Just back from Dalyan in Turkey, a place of such natural beauty and human kindness you almost cry with relief and released joy. A lush river full of fat turtles and thin, dancing water snakes runs through the smallish town (only a hamlet when we last stopped over 15 years ago), making its way to the Aegean/Mediterranean seas, warm and playful. Although tourism is changing the nature of Dalyan, nobody hassles you and you don't begrudge the inhabitants the economic surge delivered by delighted visitors.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Shock Jocks

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:16:08 GMT

First I had the extreme experience of sharing a sofa on the BBC's Daily Politics show with Jon Gaunt, that patriot, who would, if he could, restore the Newgate gallows and string up all literate (yes I mean literate not literary) Metropolitan 'bloody latté drinkers', enemies of the nation in his very small book.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Shock Jockss

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:16:08 GMT

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Don't portray Muslims as victims. We've moved on

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:00:01 GMT

After the relief comes the doubt. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but Peter Oborne's blast about Islamophobia last week was too simplistic, too scattergun, and out of touch with where British Muslims seem to be at present.

Yasmin Alihbai-Brown: Don't portray Muslims as victims. We've moved on

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:00:01 GMT

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: In a sea of corruption we only catch the small fry

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:00:01 GMT

You can't blame Boris Johnson or Ray Lewis for being more baffled than mortified at what has just come to pass. "What is the big deal?" the chaps must be muttering to themselves. In the surf waves that crash in of political corruption and frequent transgressions, the scandal of the London Deputy Mayor is but a droplet. So, Lewis was investigated by the Met (three times, mind) in 1997 for alleged blackmail, then in 1999 after being accused of theft, and there were whisperings about sexual harassment. Not good for a former vicar, deputy prison governor and self-proclaimed saviour of black boys, admittedly, but was it really necessary for him to be pushed off so ignominiously?

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Religions should not be allowed to make ghettos

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:00:01 GMT

I cannot stand Cristina Odone, and the feeling is mutual. We haven't spoken for years, since the week when, as deputy editor of the New Statesman, she commissioned a hatchet profile on me by a female journalist (of course), who had met me once on a radio show. Even I, well used to abrasive attacks, was knocked back by the virulence in a left-wing magazine I had previously worked for. Time has not healed that bruise, and never will.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: When loyalty gets the better of morality

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:00:01 GMT

Zimbabwe bleeds, burns and moans as vicious cruelty and political intimidation destroy the democratic process. Thabo Mbeki, the one leader in Southern Africa who could deal with Mugabe, will not do so because this Zebra man, as he's been described, thinks in black and white stripes, trajectories that never can meet or merge. He once tellingly wrote: "Those who, in the interests of their white 'kith and kin', did what they could to deny the people of Zimbabwe their liberty for as long as they could, have become eminent defenders of the democratic rights of the people of Zimbabwe."

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Political labels no longer mean very much

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 23:00:01 GMT

You just can't tell these days. David Davis, a man with a hard glint in his eyes, a boxer's oft-flattened nose and rigid Conservative certainties, goes all sentimental and wobbly over human rights. Meanwhile, over on the other side, "ethnic" MPs, except for the feisty Diane Abbott, and ex-members of Liberty nod their heads with more vigour than seems necessary or seemly as the PM argues his dismal case for 42 days of detention without charge. An ill win is pushed through with bribes and threats.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Calling Obama black is an insult to his mother

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:00:01 GMT

Barack Obama is not black. He is the first mixed-race politician ever to get this far in the onerous and arduously testing American electoral process. In the US, under an over-arching American patriotism, separate ethnic categories are clearly labelled and race ghettoes (real or imagined) are commonplace. In such a severely organised society, Obama's achievements are all the more astounding since he fits neatly nowhere.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: A lament for the death of the left as a political force

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 23:00:01 GMT

"The best champagne and the best people" I was told, celebrated the launch of Standpoint, a magazine aiming to "celebrate Western civilisation", to reassert its dominance, shaken up by the effrontery of 9/11. It is edited by Daniel Johnson, son of Paul Johnson, the leftie who turned rabid right. His other son Luke, a libertarian, presides over Channel4 as chairman. Enthusiastic guests included Sir Tom Stoppard, Sir Vidia Naipaul, Frank Field and Nasir Ali, Bishop of Rochester, who appears to want to compel us all to join his church.

Pride and prejudice: In praise of Britain's colonial artists

Thu, 29 May 2008 23:00:01 GMT

I flew over to the USA in March this year, for the first time since September 11. An indefinable fear combined with fury over Iraq had kept me away for too long. The launch of the new American Empire, as morally corrupt as the old European hegemony, required severance of connections for a while, a self-imposed banishment.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: From the right to free expression to a duty to offend

Sun, 25 May 2008 23:00:01 GMT

Settle down with a cup of cocoa on Wednesday and watch a BBC film about Mary Whitehouse, the woman who railed against art, drama, popular culture, TV sex, spontaneity, equality, homosexuality, joy and freedom.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: This week, I've been ashamed to be a woman

Sun, 18 May 2008 23:00:01 GMT

In 1988 I was on BBC TV debating politics with an all-female audience. For most guests, the 1979 election of Margaret Thatcher had marked an optimistic turn of history. I disagreed vehemently. Our leaderine made me biliously ashamed to be a woman.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Eat only local produce? I don't like the smell of that

Sun, 11 May 2008 23:00:01 GMT

On Saturday night I committed untold crimes - against the nation, the planet, my grandchildren, and theirs. I should feel contrite and shabby, but I don't. Fourteen dined at our table and were fed patties of cassava and sweet potatoes, spicy Kenyan beans with tindola - vegetables like cucumbers the size of a baby's fingers. Also tilapia, a freshwater fish from East Africa, and a gruellingly difficult dish made with eight kinds of lentils, meat, oats and cracked wheat. Finally, almond and orange cake and raspberries in saffron cream. None of the ingredients was produced locally. This unrepentant sinner even chose Spanish raspberries, so sweet and more concentrated than the English variety.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: In Kampala, 1968 was a bit more complex...

Sun, 04 May 2008 23:00:01 GMT

"So what were you doing then?" I am asked at dinner parties these days as the nation looks back in awe at 1968. "I wasn't here, I was in Kampala," I reply, and the conversation falls off the edge of the table, impossible to retrieve, like a napkin that slips off the lap and disappears.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Why should Muslims put up with being stereotyped?

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:00:01 GMT

Looking back at what I did this week, a parade of identities walks past, each one a part of the whole, none the whole of me. A passionate Londoner, I declared against Boris Johnson. With Billy Bragg at the Barbican on St George's Day, I was graciously invited by him to feel part of "progressive" Englishness and, funnily, in that hall, I did.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Londoners would be mad to vote for Boris

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 23:00:01 GMT

As 1 May approaches, many Londoners feel only presentiment and ire. None of the candidates for Mayor are inspiring, and the two frontrunners are so flawed that it shames democracy itself. We lurch between democratic duty and an enervating loss of will. Our diverse and lively city is invited to choose either a jaded, aging Labourite who doesn't want to let go or a refashioned Tory with elitist, colonial and libertarian values. It is a contest between practised rogues.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: A reminder of the real cost of living

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 23:00:01 GMT

Suddenly you notice the costs have really shot up. For me the wake-up call came with the last few supermarket bills, which were already too high because we now need so many more fancy foods. The hairdresser costs a third more than this time last year, petrol too, and on Saturday the Chinese restaurant in the West End charged punitive prices, perhaps to pay for the Olympics back home. So, there will have to be longer gaps between getting the roots done, more trips to Shepherd's Bush market for fruit, meat and veg, and obviously less dining out.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: We must learn more about these murderous men

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 23:00:01 GMT

I am haunted by the faces of the eight British Muslim men currently on trial at Woolwich Crown Court, accused of plotting to blow up several transatlantic airliners. Prosecutors allege they contemplated the possibility of taking their own wives and children on their once-in-a-lifetime suicide trips. Recorded videos, played to the court, are chillingly solipsistic, callous and self-righteous.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: The real star of the show wasn't Carla

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 23:00:01 GMT

I was in New York when Mme Sarkozy was presented to the nation naked on the pages of some newspapers. Back here on Thursday, Carla was still provoking fantasies and drooling Britons had gone demented with hot desire, all very unseemly.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: This unhealthy strain of left-wing McCarthyism

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:00:01 GMT

Reading about the forthcoming book by Tony Blair's Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell, gives me an excuse to write on something that has been bugging me. The venerable John Pilger wrote just before Christmas on the British American Project (BAP), an Anglo-American network set up by the Right in the US in 1983. Alumni include the arch strategist, Mr Powell, several New Labour ministers, Tory top boys, business leaders and powerful media people - Paxman and Naughtie among them. Many US Masters ( and Mistresses) of the universe are also members.