Boris Johnson chooses a good day to bury bad news

We need a single mum subsidy, not cash for smug marrieds

By Amy Lamé

This Christmas hundreds of couples across the country will be getting engaged; it’s a traditional time of year to pop the question. However, the sparkle of diamonds will no doubt be dwarfed by the romantic offer of a £200 per year tax break for married couples courtesy of the Government. The marriage tax break is the most preposterous suggestion of how to set fire to a fistful of five pound notes – £700 million in fact.  The Chancellor announced yesterday […]

Mandela was the best of us – but he was neither saint nor god. He was a politician

By Mark Ferguson

How do you even begin to write about the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela? So many words will be written about the man, so many attempts to define what it was that made him great, to set him in his historical context and to talk of the struggle that he embodied. But any words we might have to describe him are too small – because next to him we are all so small. He was the colossus of 21st […]

I have lost a lifelong hero

By Emma Burnell

Every Christmas Eve, my Dad would take us kids to the West End of London. We had traditions that came and went – the windows at Selfridges, Hamley’s grotto, carols around the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square, chips from McDonalds and a bus along Regent Street to see the lights. One tradition on which we never wavered was to spent 30 minutes at the permanent vigil outside the South African embassy to express our solidarity with the cause of the […]

Nelson Mandela’s speech to Labour Party conference

As the world remembers Nelson Mandela’s life and legacy, here’s his clever, touching – and funny – speech to Labour Party conference:

‘Father of South Africa’ Nelson Mandela dies aged 95

Former South African President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela has died aged 95. Widely regarded as the “father of the nation” in South Africa and venerated internationally for his role in ending the racist apartheid regime, Mandela will be mourned by millions around the world. Mandela rose to prominence as a founding member of the Youth League of the African National Congress (ANC) and was a leader during the 1952 Defiance Campaign. Initially committed to non-violent actions he […]