Grillo causes a big problem for polling companies. While mainstream candidates tend to end up close to predictions, new, populist, and radical parties often confound them.

Don't assume conspiracy theorists are simply ill-informed. Alex Jones is hyper-informed; probably over-informed. He spends many hours a day sifting media and doing research. He, and other conspiracy theorists, often know more about the minutiae than any non-specialist.

Online information is extremely useful, but scepticism is always required: especially with screen-grabs.

We are making progress in our understanding of poverty, but insisting on a single solution risks everyone falling through the net.

Anyone who genuinely, seriously wants to protect our welfare state should be full-square behind Iain Duncan Smith's latest ideas for reform.

Boris Johnson provoked both glee and outrage when he wrote, in his regular Telegraph column, that the next Director General of the BBC should be a Tory. "Imagine", opined Alastair Campbell "if we had said what Boris said". The difference, of course, is that a Labour politician would never say it. They just did it.

The gay-rights brigade have allowed their quest for gay marriage to tip over into active hetero-phobia. If they don't snap out of it, they'll even lose the support of gay people like me.

It's been a busy year for identity politics in Britain. Most recently, millions have watched the woman of My Tram Experience express her opinion on who is and isn't British in the UK today.

PRESS ASSOCIATION -- Parenting style is one of the strongest influences on how much alcohol a child will drink as a teenager and young adult, new rese...

There was something in Starkey's argument that does merit consideration. Underneath the rant about 'white becoming black', and 'black culture' being at blame - he was correct to point to a sub-culture in which glamourised violence and lack of respect for other people.