I have been writing television drama for the BBC off and on for 13 years and in common with most freelancers who work for it but not in it, have found it an increasingly puzzling institution. We've all been afraid to voice our concerns in public for fear of losing...

The posthumous allegations against Jimmy Savile have had a snowball effect. Children's charities report a massive increase in reporting of historic abuse and a scandal that the previous government thought it had put to bed in 2000 with the 1000 page Waterhouse Report into abuse in North Wales children's homes,...

For the first time in three years I have been on holiday; a good one. Together with my wife and two teenage sons we visited my half-brother's family in Connecticut, toured Boston, went camping (briefly and abortively) on the Massachusetts coast, stayed with friends in affluent Morristown thirty miles west...

'All men watch porn, scientists find', was the headline of an article late in 2009. It caught my eye because at the time I was finishing a novel, The Redeemed, which delved into the tricky area of sexual hypocrisy. Scientists at the University of Montreal had wanted to conduct research...

If something looks too good to be true, it is. If someone tells you they can conjure money from thin air, they're lying. The City of London has been both too good to be true and seemingly magically producing money for several decades, and following the latest round of revelations...

Earlier this month it was reported that US scientists have developed a blood test which claims to screen an unborn child for up to 3000 genetic conditions by examining its entire genome. Commenting on the morality of such a test, fertility expert Lord Winston said that screening based on the...

Whether or not Julian Assange is guilty of any offence, the manner of his likely extradition to Sweden is a cause for sadness, and a symptom of deep problems in our increasingly unaccountable and internationalised legal system.

The Supreme Court decided by 5-2 that Assange could be lawfully extradited to...

Firstly, I'll confess an interest: I voted for Dominic West and Emily Watson, both of whom won BAFTAs for their roles in the ITV serial Appropriate Adult. For once, my votes counted. Hooray! For those who didn't catch it, the story deals with the relationship between mass murderer Fred West...

It's a fact: no man can ever come close to judging women's parenting and work choices as harshly as other women. I've just been writing a TV adaptation of my novels that - apparently unusually for a male author - feature a hard working woman as the central character (Jenny...