Yet the fall of President Zine el- Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and, more so, that of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt exposed the old thinking behind much of western foreign policy. In a hangover from the Cold War, our government and that of the Unite...

Last week, there was a marvellous morning in the Black Mountains. Sun and scarves of high cloud, the fields singing in new bright colours, the mountains bold against the blue. You could feel the metamorphoses everywhere, but no one quite dared to nam...

We learned that the one-time chatelaine of No 10 mistakenly ushered Rudy Giuliani's wife into a crockery cupboard and invited Prince Andrew to inspect the death-mask of that avid Royalist, Oliver Cromwell, that it is the custom for Downing Street sta...

But it might not be in future thanks to David Cameron. Usually the Speaker is re-elected after each general election through a conventional Commons vote. Re-election is generally a formality. But as we report today, the Prime Minister has given the g...

These "stable dictatorships" have enjoyed the support of Western powers, particularly the United States, for many years. When faced with uprisings, they want to maintain that support. But the protesters are demanding things that the West claims to su...

For the Soviets, Afghanistan was a worrying place, a neighbour that was a source of Islamic agitation, smuggled drugs, and American intrigue. It was a place where they needed influence, friends, and political stability. They believed that they had mu...

Personally, I'm excited, because I love a quiz. Or a test, or an exam. When asked almost any question, my instinct is to snake a hand into the air, and sit jiggling with the excitement of knowing a thing. It is, I might add, precisely this kind of be...

It was with spectacularly bad timing, a couple of weeks ago, that Hammersmith and Fulham Council announced plans to close its borough archives, making two experienced archivists redundant as of tomorrow. For it came just as the finishing touches w...