A week ago, Peter Obourne observed that Gordon Brown had been mistaken to approve plans for a grand ceremonial funeral for Lady Thatcher. Ceremonial occasions are reserved for Royalty for good reason: the country can rally round an ancient institution that stands above the daily hue and cry...

For those of you that don't read Polly Toynbee on a regular basis, Dr Eoin Clarke's blog, the Green Benches, is a poor man's version. Previous editions have included a blog (since removed, presumably out of embarrassment), complaining about the terrible quandary of choice in Starbucks and pilloried...

I was lucky enough to attend Bristol University. My lectures and tutorials were held in the Wills Memorial Building. I lived for my first year at Wills Hall. Whenever I walked into lectures in the morning, I walked under the sun in splendour, proudly emblazoned on the arms of the...

Tim Montgomery and George Eaton both advocated "English votes for English laws' in articles for the Guardian and New Statesman this week, a proposal first raised by William Hague in 1999.

The suggestion that only English, or English and Welsh, MPs should vote...

This year marks 100th anniversary of the brave attempt on the South Pole by the Terra Nova Expedition, led by Robert Falcon Scott. Of the five men to make it to the Pole, three were English, one Scottish and one Welsh. The awesome feats of their endurance and sacrifice were...

The role of the advocate is an ancient one. The right of a person to be represented before the civil power has been and is fundamental to all legal systems, one maintained even where the process is little more than a smoke-screen designed to give state persecution the veneer of...

It isn't when people are proved right that they become convinced of the righteousness of their arguments. It is when they have been proved wrong. Nothing illustrates this better than John Wight's article on these pages this week.

After making one cursory remark indicating his disapproval of Gaddafi,...

Labour has grasped the nettle and stood up to the Murdoch press. They have done so fearlessly, if tentatively at first, and even named James Murdoch as having authorised a cover-up of the hacking scandal. The fact that this was done under Parliamentary privilege surely doesn't detract from...