There are two groups who suffer most from this lack of interest. One is women. Over the past 15 years, the number of female prisoners has more than doubled, and more than 10,000 women are now sent to jail every year. The five-part investigation which...

For an Englishman from Manchester, the nomenclature, and what it means in terms of identity, is all rather confusing. This topic has been in the news recently with Rory McIlroy, the world's number one golfer and a man born in the Northern Irish town ...

One wonders how the representatives who will gather in Birmingham next month for the annual Conservative conference would react if they were told that the Prime Minister's wife is listening to this song, "212", she claims to "love". A sample of the l...

Ordinarily, in a world in which every one of us has an A* in Political Disingenuity Studies, this would qualify as one of those enquiries known to Latin teachers, in the distant era to which the Education Secretary longingly harks, as “a question de...

The point is that we focus so much on tiny details, GDP statistics for example, that we tend to ignore wider socio-economic trends. If, thanks to relatively high fertility rates and reasonably strong inward migration, our population goes on growing, ...

Obama has blown most of the enthusiasm that won him the Presidency, but Mitt Romney is a genius at finding new ways of being shite, declaring that 47 per cent of voters will always back Obama, because they “think they’re entitled to healthcare, food,...

When, for example, he talks about his second wife as a “woman in a mask”, and when he talks about being unfaithful “because of” another woman’s beauty, and when he talks about the “majestic narcissism” of his fourth wife, and when he talks about the ...

When it comes to same-sex civil marriage there are strong views on both sides. Fully respecting those views is vital. That’s why we have been discussing our proposals with faith groups, LGB&T groups and others through a national consultation.My v...

He had been locked up there after being found guilty of a planning role in a campaign of non-violent animal rights direct action against one of the country’s largest practitioners of corporate vivisection. And while I may have utilised the odd custar...

"The wolves are back, with roughly 6,000 in the contiguous United States and 7,700 to 11,200 in Alaska. The Obama administration has declared all but two small populations — Mexican gray wolves in New Mexico and Arizona, and red wolves in North Carol...

Personally, I disagree with abortion as a choice. Women in the West, particularly, have other options open to them if they find themselves unable to raise their biological children. Children can be placed in foster care, or placed up for adoption.How...

What's ap Frenchie?Banana Republic, Levi's, Gap, Nike, Tommy Hilfiger, McDonald's, Virgin and Abercrombie & Fitch and soon the famous jeweler Tiffany's: has the United States transform the Champs-Elysees in an American mall? nytimes.comAdult Kill...

i Editor, Stefano Hatfield, ( @StefanoHat) writes that merely teaching kids just to pass exams is self-destructive, we should be focusing on better education, not just exam grades.Commentator, Annalisa Barbieri ( @AnnalisaB) , writes for our new Inde...

Foster Klug of the Associated Press writes, "The metamorphosis of South Korean men from macho to makeup over the last decade or so can be partly explained by fierce competition for jobs, advancement and romance in a society where, as a popular catchp...

Spokespeople for St James's Palace (who are these people?) express the anger of the young couple and their intention to sue, although as yet they have not threatened France with a gunboat or two.Meanwhile, more innocent people are killed in Syria, Ar...

I enthusiastically spurn the safest form of transport. I prefer clutching onto the handrail of a bus driven by a sociopathic grudge-bearer, or hurtling up a motorway while being overtaken by someone who's simultaneously trying to find a Jaffa Cake in...

You’ll pass or you’ll fail. There will be no re-sitting of individual modules; the entire exam would have to be repeated. Children will be judged on nothing other than their exam paper. This, it has been said, will mean that the “top grades will only...

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sure looking at Mel B’s impressive assets in a copycat of Janet Jackson’s 1993 Rolling Stone cover makes me immediately want to strip off and look for lumps.But sorry to feminists out there, I happen to rather like the pic...

Since I have never knowingly listened to Ed Sheeran, as he looks too baby-faced and wholesome for my raddled tastes, I can’t tell you if the pirates are making a good choice in their law-breaking. What I can tell you is that Sheeran himself seems lar...

Major emitters have lobbied hard against reform of the carbon market - a sure sign they fear significant intervention is a serious possibility. For the sake of all European economies and their citizens, we should hope their fears are warranted. The ...

Over the past week we have launched independentvoices.com, a new home for Comment, Campaigns and Community from The Independent titles. What I want us to achieve is a marriage of editorial brilliance, in the form of strong and clear argument, with di...

The long report at Politico concludes: Some Romney loyalists think Stevens never fully appreciated what a good and unique candidate they had in Romney, and pleaded early on to showcase what they saw as a generous, wise and gifted leader. Still, for r...

19 year-old Holly Pereira, who needs a double lung transplant, says:"Being put on the list means that my chances of survival without a transplant may mean I only have a few years left to live."The teenager adds: "There is nothing more I can do but ho...

As Gawker reports: Yes, damn the media and the elites and anyone who has bothered reading a book that isn't the Bible. Those smarts with their logic will never understand Santorum's staunchly anti-gay perspective. Vice Presidential candidate Paul Rya...

But urban living wasn't quite so thrilling when someone was attacked on the pavement outside my flat on Friday. According to the police who taped off the road, a man had been bottled. "Don't worry, he's not dead," said the officer who had covered up ...

The advent of 24-hour news and the internet has made journalism more accessible and participatory, more divisive and diverse. Far from passively listening to a lecture or reading an article, audiences want to be involved, to engage with the speake...

"A year in, Occupy is not a political movement; it remains a loose affiliation of largely autonomous interest groups...While some had hoped it might be a liberal answer to the rightwing Tea Party, resistance within the group to being “co-opted” – by ...

"It strikes me that BP has already paid a heavy price for the catastrophe, and that there is now a risk that the punishment will get out of hand. The company has paid $7.8 billion to compensate fishermen, condo owners and other tourism inter...

"To be blunt," says Harris,  these welfare reforms are "a war on the poor largely waged by the very rich, and shame on the Labour party and the wider Labour movement for not making nearly enough noise about it.""One statistic makes all coalition clai...

Ofqual and the three examining boards should be given notice. In their place Mr Gove should set up a single, arms-length, government-funded agency to examine GCSE (if we really must keep it) and A-levels (or ideally their replacement) in England.The ...

So far, those who may have been implicated deny all wrong-doing. But with eight people charged over phone hacking and the police investigation now winding down, the parallel inquiry into other illegal activities at the NOTW is set to be more shocking...