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Comment & Features, Comment

Assisted suicide: I claim the right to live as I am - imperfect »

When I was a teenager I was extremely lucky, landing in the middle of a cultural and social revolution. Driving into assembly on the back of a motorbike, having a fling with an unsuspecting English teacher and being desperate to get myself laid at 15 g...

Wed 15 Feb 2012 by Nikki Kenward | Read more »

So you want to be a journalist? »

You’re the type of person who likes to know what’s going on in the world, and you’ve always wanted to be one of those hard-hitting reporters you see jumping into a crowded press room to ask that all-important question about some scand...

Wed 15 Feb 2012 by Katie Richardson | Read more »

There is an alternative - investing in growth »

The government is caught in a contradiction over its policies for university tuition fees. The Browne Review recommended variable fees with no upper cap. In order to retain support from the Liberal Democrats, a cap of £9,000 was introduced alongs...

Wed 15 Feb 2012 by John Holmwood | Read more »

Students at the heart of the system? Ultimately, it is the minister who chooses »

The dust has yet to settle on this year’s UCAS applications, the first to involve students under the new fees regime. The data released by UCAS tells us about applications received by different universities, and for different subject areas, but w...

Wed 15 Feb 2012 by Gurminder K. Bhambra | Read more »

Does the Scottish Parliament have the power to legislate for an independence referendum? »

In 2011 the Scottish National Party gained an overall majority in the Scottish election, making the prospects for an independent Scotland more real and immediate, rather than merely a long-term aim. The UK and Scottish governments have in recent w...

Wed 15 Feb 2012 by Tom Mullen | Read more »

Protecting the right to vote is a moral imperative »

In July 1965 when President Johnson signed the landmark Voting Rights Act into law, he proclaimed that, “the right to vote is the basic right, without which all others are meaningless.” A month earlier, on a trip to Ohio to rally supp...

Wed 01 Feb 2012 by Eric Holder | Read more »

Ministers need to consider Scottish families »

A fair and efficiently functioning social security system is essential to eradicating child poverty in Scotland; a goal shared by UK and Scottish government alike. Yet the UK coalition government’s Welfare Reform Bill, about to return to the Comm...

Wed 01 Feb 2012 by John Dickie | Read more »

Birzeit: "We hope that the student body at Edinburgh will distance themselves from this shameful trip." »

We are very disappointed and shocked to learn that a sabbatical officer, Emma Meehan, from Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA) which is twinned with Birzeit’s Student Council and the Right to Education campaign; a twinning tha...

Tue 24 Jan 2012 by Majdi Hafi | Read more »

Predicting 2012 in technology »

In 1900, John Watkins, an American engineer, imagined what life would be like in 2000. He speculated that "Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world” and "Man will see around the world. "Persons and things of all kinds will b...

Wed 18 Jan 2012 by Iain Whiteside | Read more »

Scots are better off in the Union »

This referendum business has stirred up a lot of vitriol between unionist and nationalist factions among the Scottish. As one of many Anglo-Scots mongrels, I'd like to think I'm an independent outsider here. There is, no-one can disagree, quite a lot ...

Wed 18 Jan 2012 by Jonathan Baldie | Read more »

Keep the Honours List meritocratic »

The British author and journalist Michael De-la-Noy once wrote that “Britain has developed the most complex, class-ridden and - to all but a handful of civil servants, courtiers and snobs - the most baffling honours system in the world.” Th...

Wed 18 Jan 2012 by Dominic Sowa | Read more »

An ethic attacked in the name of defence »

Wednesday 11 January 2012 marked ten years since the ‘War On Terror’ began; ten years since the first 20 detainees were transferred to Guantanamo Bay, the US detention centre situated in Cuba. However, to my mind this date marks ten years s...

Wed 18 Jan 2012 by Nadia Mehdi | Read more »

Has there ever been a more confounding time to be working in journalism? »

Over the past year we’ve moved from congratulating the media’s dogged persistence in exposing illegal phone hacking, to the closure of one of the oldest newspapers in the world, and the hounding of hard working journalists. The Inquiry int...

Sat 03 Dec 2011 by Dominic Bascombe | Read more »

Youth unemployment is a cost we can’t afford »

  As youth unemployment tops one million, in Scotland it has hit 100,000, its highest since records began. This is higher as a percentage than the rest of the UK. Youth unemployment has been a concern of mine ever since I worked with unemployed ...

Sat 03 Dec 2011 by Stephen McCabe MP | Read more »

Vulture funds - preying on the wastelands? »

Capitalism is under scrutiny as the recent Newsnight and Guardian investigation into the practices of ‘vulture’ companies has highlighted the moral bankruptcy of the system. The facts appearing from the investigation show sections of the f...

Wed 30 Nov 2011 by Dominic Sowa | Read more »

William Hague: A stable Afghanistan means fewer threats to NATO and its allies »

We all share a common objective in Afghanistan, which is to ensure that the country never again becomes a safe haven for international terrorism. We also share a common purpose: to build the capacity of the Afghan national security forces and the Afgh...

Tue 29 Nov 2011 by William Hague | Read more »

Whose side are you on: Vatican or Benetton? »

It is the question every parent has to confront at some point in their lives. At what point do you tell your toddler to stop saying ‘poo!’ in public. At first it is mildly amusing. It rapidly becomes tiresome. Eventually, it is simply irrit...

Tue 29 Nov 2011 by Nick Spencer | Read more »

My friend is not a rapist »

My take on Julian Assange's recent extradition ruling in the UK is that the judges failed to sufficiently analyse the evidence. They only looked at the demands of the law, and the way it was structured, which meant the European arrest warrant was a box...

Sun 27 Nov 2011 by Gavin MacFadyen | Read more »

Buzzwords, business and big university access issues  »

Last week I visited Abdul Rahman at his school in north London, a comprehensive academy, to discuss his A-level choices and his progression to university. A first generation immigrant, son of Libyan refugees, he achieved outstanding GCSEs (11 A*s) ...

Sun 27 Nov 2011 by Jonathan Sobczyk | Read more »

Berlusconi and I »

I first came across Silvio Berlusconi in the late 1980s, when I was living in Milan and working on the history of that city. Then, he was ‘simply’ a larger than life Football President (of AC Milan) and TV entrepreneur. I dedicated a whole ...

Wed 16 Nov 2011 by John Foot | Read more »