There has been no United Nations Security Council discussion of the situation in Bahrain, no trenchant Western demands for the regime in the capital, Manama, to acquiesce to the legitimate democratic demands of the opposition. No sorties by Nato jets...

Today, no country should have to act alone, and those states affected by recent political upheaval are assisted by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. International arrangements are in place to ensure that victims of violence and torture...

It is understandable why governments are shy of Lords reform. When the late Robin Cook attempted it, a decade ago, he could not find a way past the obstacle that while most MPs agreed that the Lords should be reformed there was no agreement over how ...

Gut feelings I read with something approaching despair that, in arguing against AV, David Cameron claimed that: "Politics shouldn't be some mind-bending exercise; it's about what you feel in your gut." I was hoping that politics and government mi...

And while some historians will doubtless wring their ink-splotched hands at the loss of lavender-scented lovers' letters and the sturdy Basildon Bonds of affairs of state, this is surely the future of archives. When even the poets have switched to em...

The Commons is increasingly dominated by professionals who go into full-time politics straight from university and spend almost their entire working lives in that milieu. Peerages can be the means of injecting people with experience of the wider worl...

Asthma sufferers should avoid outdoor exercise in the afternoon, and cut unnecessary car journeys. Research has shown that an increase in pollution levels during sunny weather is followed by a rise in emergency hospital admissions. The maximum risk o...

The researchers who discovered this feature point out that it could be used by jealous spouses or private detectives in ways that the phone's owner might not be particularly happy about. Of course, the feature could also, theoretically, help the abse...

But the banks have fought against doing the decent thing and repaying people all along. Typical of their delaying attitude is the fact that almost nine out of 10 PPI cases taken to the Financial Ombudsman are awarded against the banks, but they still...