Famous people have the most diffused power to influence others, but more concentrated power lies closer to home.

Role models have always featured in culture but never more so than now. The cult of the individual, allied to the staggering loss of trust in public bodies (in Britain alone, it has been a bad few years for the BBC, NHS, Parliament, the ......

A gripping film of the hunt for Bin Laden quietly asks us what values we stand for when confronted by those who mean us harm

Among a growing body of films devoted to the aftermath of 9/11, many feel that Kathryn Bigelow’s stand out for their determination to tell stories without the temptation to sermonise.  Among movies about the war in Iraq ......

Art compels a response, especially when it is serving up pain during entertainment

The Obama era TV drama, Homeland, about a US Marine who emerges from a protracted period of incarceration by Al-Qaeda during the occupation of Iraq as a covert operative of the Islamists has received plaudits for its portrayal of a country ....

The use of drones is going to change warfare out of all recognition in the next decades.  A conversation around its moral and legal limits is called for urgently

The adage ‘Only Nixon can go to China’ implies that hard-line Republican Presidents have the credibility to make peace with America’s enemies which others lack. ......

There is a dignity to human privacy which tells of the mystery of being made in God’s image, but try telling that to our social media gurus

An article in the German newspaper Tagesspiegel in the summer of 2012 raised the hitherto unexpected question of whether not being on Facebook means you may have psychopathic tendencies.  Noting that neither James Holmes,

The social landscape is changing for men and one generation in particular is not adjusting well

A report commissioned by the Samaritans has overturned assumptions about the most ‘at risk’ categories for suicide.  Instead of young people being the most likely to take their lives, it is early middle aged men.  Blanchflower and Oswald (2008) have already established a U-curve

Is it right to single out one private citizen for public shaming?  The Prime Minister took a step the Church has largely forsworn in an era of self-determination.

The tax avoidance scandal which briefly engulfed Jimmy Carr in June 2012 must have been profoundly unsettling for a comedian used to being on the right side of public approval. 

Is there a British identity and if so, what has shaped the values and institutions that form it?

In the wake of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, debate about the essence of British identity and values has surfaced again.  In Prospect, June 2012, several opinion formers were asked what they believe is characteristic about being British and some common themes emerged. 

A new apartheid is forming in society which few of us see with the clarity it is calling for.

The children’s charity Barnados sent out shock waves in November 2011 when it published a poll carried out on its behalf showing that 49 percent of the population ‘agree that children in the UK are becoming feral’. 

Social networking sites may have the potential to change the world but no-one should hold their breath waiting for that day.

‘Dad, do you know who Joseph Kony is?’ 

The question penetrated my absorption in work and it took me a moment to distinguish Joseph Kony from Jeremy Cony,

Two political deaths within a day afforded a salutary reminder of the use and abuse of power.

They are an unlikely couple to be joined at death.  Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright and reluctant president and Kim Jong-il, the overfed and egomaniacal leader of North Korea, a man without a shred of irony in his personality. 

Why are we so afraid of quietness today?  Only by absorbing it may we gain the resources to flourish.

The way the media pounced on Pope Benedict’s observations in January 2012 about the role of silence in human life suggests he touched a nerve.  Speaking in advance of a Roman Catholic Day of Communication,