Last week, the Islamist group Boko Haram launched a horrific attack, bombing five Nigerian police stations and killing 186 in one day. What started as a campaign targeting Christians in the north has now grown into a crisis that threatens to overwhelm the Nigerian government — and the church leaders who appealed for foreign assistance
Home The government was defeated in the Lords by 252 to 237 on an amendment by the Rt Rev John Packer, Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, to the Welfare Reform Bill, removing child benefit from the proposed welfare cap of £26,000 a year per household. Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, said in the Commons that
I have a book out this week and, as always, it’s a torrid time, alternating between delight at good reviews (A.N. Wilson in this magazine) and despair at the massacres (the Marxist critic Terry Eagleton in the Guardian). It was just after one such dark assessment of my future that happier news arrived from an
So: So: capitalism bad, ‘responsible’ capitalism good. But is ‘responsibility’ the real issue? What is irresponsible about taking bonuses written into your contract? For people in that world, there should be more at stake. Cicero’s de officiis (On Duties) — so influential that it was the first Latin text set in print (1465) — was
Lords spiritual The bishops in the House of Lords, who led a successful rebellion against plans for a benefits cap this week, are a remarkable survival of Lords reform. — While most hereditary peers lost the right to sit in the Lords as part of the House of Lords Act 1999, the number of bishops
Behind the pack Sir: Melissa Kite (‘Labour’s Iron Lady’, 21 January) writes an excellent article examining the pros and cons of Yvette Cooper’s suitability for leadership of the Labour party. She is quite wrong, however, to state categorically that ‘Cooper’s intelligence is beyond doubt’. Cooper’s academic ability may be so described but, dear oh dear,
