Education Secretary Arne Duncan, like many liberals, seems afflicted by Sixties Nostalgia Syndrome, a longing for the high drama and moral clarity of the civil rights era. Speaking this month in Alabama at Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge to commemorate t...

Seth Masket sighs: It seems pretty clear to me that the thing is going to pass. It's also clear to me that the Democrats are going to lose seats this fall. And what will annoy me is the pundits who...

San Francisco, California, 12 pm

Science News reports on bad studies: “There is increasing concern,” declared epidemiologist John Ioannidis in a highly cited 2005 paper in PLoS Medicine, “that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of publishe...

The Tories and the government are less far apart on the imposition of a new tax on banks than may appear at first glance - and perhaps the significance of this weekend's shift in both of their positions is that the big banks and other substantial finan...

To the best of my knowledge, in the 4,000-odd columns I’ve written for The Times so far, there’s been hardly a word about marriage. But then I’ve written little about motherhood and nothing about apple pie. All these are so plainly good things, and s...

David Cameron will tomorrow pledge that a Tory government would introduce a new tax on the banks, even if other countries don't move ahead with such a tax. That marks a difference between the Tory position on a bank tax and the government's, in that t...

There's a fascinating insight into the differing attitudes to pay of the chaps who run Barclays within the pages of its annual report published today. The president of the bank, Bob Diamond, who made a none-too-shabby £27m from last year's sale of Bar...

Better to assert the human qualities of kindness to all creatures and avoid unnecessary pain to any of themShould animals get the vote? If they are said to have rights, surely they should have representation; and if representation, then the v...

One of the tragedies of the viciously politicized battle over health-care reform is the defection of the nation's Roman Catholic bishops from a cause they have championed for decades.

Doubling down on dubious bets is characteristic of compulsive gamblers and federal education policy. The nation was essentially without such policy for grades K through 12, and better off for that, until 1965. In that year of liberals living exuberant...

To a northern constituency, a safe Conservative seat, to speak in support of a friend standing for Parliament there. The meeting in a town hall was well attended, mostly by what the media like to call “Tory activists” — but this sounds sickeningly...

This week we're on the road and live in front of an audience in Manchester, not only the birthplace of the Guardian but also the capital of north-west England, which will form a crucial battleground in the coming election. From Bury to Blackpool, and C...

The contretemps between President Obama and Israel needs to be seen in a broader global context. The president who ran against "unilateralism" in the 2008 campaign has worse relations overall with American allies than George W. Bush did in his second ...

Willie Walsh is right - BA's dinosaur practices must be stamped out. Starting with the preference the airline gets from ministersAll strikes are political, but some are more political than others. This weekend's British Airways strike has been hyped fa...

LONDON

The Lords is for people of all faiths and none: there is no space for reserved benches for the clergyOver the last few days the 26 bishops who sit in the House of Lords must have been astounded to receive over 50,000 letters telling them their time as ...

Everyone but the rich is outraged by the financiers' billowing wealth. At the budget, Labour can tip the balance back to the peopleThe budget is 10 days away and yet already the chief secretary, Liam Byrne, appears to have ruled out any new tax rises t...

Tories not set to walk it this May? Preposterous! Hardly anybody thinks the Labour lot are any good, and I’ve yet to hear a knockdown objection to David Cameron and crew — so how can Cameron not win?

President Obama has said he wants to emulate Reagan's political success. Here's how he can.

The increasingly puerile spectacle of presidential State of the Union addresses is indicative of the state of the union and is unnecessary: The Constitution requires only that the president "shall from time to time give to the Congress information of ...

Britain has paid a horrific price for allowing the City to dictate credit policy. Yet there is no inquiry, no questioning, only silenceStill no inquiry. Still no answers. A trillion pounds has been devoted over the past 18 months to protect Britain's ...

Because we never face up to how much we need government to do, there is a pathetic quality to our discussion of big deficits.

There is plenty of pessimism about democracy these days, and autocrats seem to be on the march on every continent. So we should take note when democracy triumphs over autocratic temptations.

Democrats nervous about voting for health-care reform should look back to lessons of the 1994 crime bill.

Unnoticed amid the wailing about "broken government," a broad bipartisan consensus is emerging in one unlikely area: foreign policy. On Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran -- the most expensive and potentially dangerous foreign challenges facing the United St...

To say that Santiago looks far better today than Port-au-Prince is of no comfort to the people of Chile. It will not rebuild their ruined houses, nor will it bring back their dead. It will not reconstruct the damaged airport or mobilize the field hosp...

Republicans are giddy about the prospect of returning to power in Congress. But Obama's first year offers a cautionary tale.

Let's be serious for a moment: Barack Obama will not bomb Iran. This is not because he is a liberal, or because he is a peacenik, or because he doesn't have the guts to try and "save his presidency" in this time-honored manner, as Daniel Pipes has urg...

I have seen America's future, and it is Greece.

"The reason why I supported the policy to start with is because General Colin Powell, who was then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is the one that strongly recommended we adopt this policy in the Clinton administration.... ...

Scott Lucas parses: With his offer last night to send Iran’s 3.5-percent uranium outside the country in exchange for 20-percent stock, the President was reversing a line that had been maintained for months...That is a major shift, and it remains... ...

The reversal of the banning of so many popular Sunni candidates from the looming election is a huge step back from the brink. And it does help support Petraeus' view that the Iraqi leadership is maturing. I've been a deep...

David Cameron is still searching for an election-year voice for Prime Minister’s Questions. Assuming that he becomes Prime Minister, this phoney winter war will soon be forgotten, of course. The last time the Conservatives removed a Labour Government...

Was I hallucinating? It was late Monday night and I was on the top deck of a No 277 London bus from Islington to Limehouse. As we rounded a junction I saw beneath us what looked like a sea of orange plastic. I blinked and pressed nose to window. L...

A sombre comparison struck me as, watching the Chilcot committee interview Alastair Campbell this week, we ran, yet again, round the same old course. It reminded me of my own interview, 15 years ago, with Jeremy Thorpe.

It's staggering to me that this callow charlatan is supported by people who call themselves Christians. There is no way for anyone who is not a monster to respond to the fathomless tragedy of Haiti by immediately using it to...

Tweets from inside the court house are relaying Michael Lamb's testimony on parenting and child development (FDL and Courage Campaign are live-blogging). The best tweet of the morning: AmerEqualRights Prop. 8 proponents' cross-examination so far has br...

A reader writes: Just saw your post lashing out at Coakley as a "hack machine" politician. I understand your sentiment about one party rule and breaking that mold. But this Brown guy is not the moderate Bill Weld type Republicans... ...

Tom Clark and Allegra Stratton look back at the extraordinary career and personality of Margaret Thatcher with three Guardian commentators who have written about the Iron Lady from different angles.Seumas Milne chronicled the rank and file struggle aga...