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‘Kill him, Jimmy!’ A night at the cage fight

So we went to Wembley Arena to witness for the first time what is called ‘cage fighting’. So we went to Wembley Arena to witness for the first time what is called ‘cage fighting’. The reason for this being, of course, that the combatants go to war in a rather large cage. The cage is

Mark Birley: a man who was right in everything

We had arranged to see Mark Birley at noon on the day he died. But my wife Lucy and I were just too late. He had suffered a stroke that morning. We missed him by a couple of hours and now, forever. I heard confirmation of the terrible news as I boarded a plane for

The supernatural is as British as fish and chips

We’re all accustomed to stories about credulous Americans; as an American living in Britain I am constantly asked to defend the 43 per cent of my compatriots who believe in creationism. We’re all accustomed to stories about credulous Americans; as an American living in Britain I am constantly asked to defend the 43 per cent

Meet the shadow minister for militant Islam

The biggest risk to David Cameron’s leadership to date has been his appointment of Sayeeda Warsi as the shadow minister for community cohesion. Warsi’s rise makes Cameron’s ascent from freshman MP to leader in four years look almost sedate. In just two years she has gone from failed parliamentary candidate to being responsible for, perhaps,

Moral panic is the right reaction: we are afraid of our young

Some things don’t change in Britain: the teddy bears and CCTV pictures, for example. First come the teddy bears. A princess dies in a sordid drunken accident, a child is abducted in Portugal, two girls are brutally murdered in Soham, a child is shot accidentally-on-purpose and you can’t open a newspaper without seeing a photograph