The press, declared Lord Leveson, must not be allowed to mark its own homework. There is one profession, however, which the government seems quite happy to allow to judge its own success. Every few months we are presented with the latest set of crime statistics and invited to believe that crime is falling, clear-up rates
Home In the run-up to local elections, Kenneth Clarke, the Minister without Portfolio, described the UK Independence Party candidates as ‘clowns’. RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire, assumed control of ten Reaper drone aircraft in use over Afghanistan. Irfan Naseer, 31, from Birmingham, the ringleader of a plot to use eight suicide bombers in attacks that could have
It was a perfect spring day in Hiroshima last week. I was there for my 25th wedding anniversary, which may sound odd, but my wife and I both work on Foyle’s War, which is now set in the atomic age, so it seemed appropriate. We strolled together around the A-Bomb Dome, the twisted, iconic ruin
The Culture Secretary, Maria Miller, has said the arts world must make the case for public funding by focusing on its economic, not artistic, value; it must ‘hammer home the value of culture to our economy’. The ancients would have wondered what she was taking about. There was no concept of ‘the arts’ in the
Dots on the map An Edinburgh man is planning to stay 60 days on Rockall, a rocky island in the Atlantic 200 miles off the Western Isles — the longest-ever stay. Rockall was claimed for the United Kingdom in 1955, but it is far from our remotest colonial possession. Other islands include: Oeno A 120-acre
Goers and go-getters Sir: In her interesting article on the rising equality in the female world (‘Sex and success, 27 April), Alison Wolf states that A*/top-stream girls stay virgins until 20 ‘because they have more important things on their minds’. I am not sure about this. I certainly remember that this was not the case
