For the first time, a major US party has nominated a black American for President. This is a milestone whose significance cannot be overestimated, regardless of the result on 4 November. For all the injustices and divisions that persist in American s...

That is why we welcome the House of Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee's report today, which makes a powerful case for wholesale reform of the benefits available to carers. As the report points out, if these individuals were paid by the priva...

It therefore makes perfect sense for the Olympics minister Tessa Jowell to float the idea of doing things rather differently. We must not try to emulate Beijing, she suggests, but we need to come up with new ways of thinking – perhaps by holding the ...

If I had believed half of what I had heard and read I would have expected an A* just for being able to write my name in vaguely the right place on the exam paper and ticking a few boxes in multiple-choice questions. Far from it. The course was stimul...

The Achilles heel of South Africa's democracy is the lack of a relevant, effective and credible opposition party that talks to the country's long-suffering black majority. This void has led to extraordinary complacency in the ruling African National ...

Although Moss doesn't exactly frame this as an overtly political comment – she attributes her low weight to the fact that "when I was doing shows and flying economy, nobody ever fed me", when really, how much trouble is it to buy your own sandwich be...

The fallout from this is utter boredom and feeling trapped. A lot of people I meet have retired too soon, and have become bored. Because they are affluent, they can afford to get divorced. They are from a generation with far more material wealth than...