Features

The family that helped Maro Itoje become a sports star

‘Education, education, education.’ At the time when Tony Blair was repeating this phrase after Labour’s victory in 1997, a Nigerian special needs teacher living in north London named Efe Itoje was drumming that same lesson into his young son. The boy was superb at football, rugby and athletics but his father insisted he focus just

Maro Itoje is a national hero for our time

Sport is a paradox. It’s supposed to be. Sport divides, but then again, sport unites. The England rugby union team play in the World Cup final in Japan on Saturday morning, thereby dividing the English from the South Africans, and dividing those who follow the game into two camps — England supporters and everybody else.

Bomb attacks are now a normal part of Swedish life

 Stockholm Until recently no one would have thought of adding a column on bombings to the crime statistics One night last week, explosions took place in three different locations in and around Stockholm. There were no injuries this time, just the usual shattered windows, scattered debris and shocked people woken by the blast. The police

Laura Freeman

Tat Britain: Museum gift shops are naff – but necessary

Exit through the gift shop. Pick up a postcard, a magnet, a novelty eggcup in the shape of Queen Elizabeth I. Treat yourself to a replica Rosetta Stone, a Babylonian bookend, a build-your-own Leonardo trebuchet. Tuck your little one up at night with a cuddly Anubis the dog. Nicholas Coleridge, chairman of the Victoria &

The Canadian election is turning into a comedy of cringe

Next week my compatriots will cast their votes in what has arguably been the worst Canadian election ever. By ‘worst’ I don’t mean allegations of voter fraud or political corruption or scenes of civil unrest but a collective release of hot prairie wind followed by a vague sinking sensation — the feeling of a prosperous

Melanie McDonagh

Should Muslim parents be allowed to challenge LGBT lessons?

We saw two different worlds, or at least two different value systems, collide in the High Court in Birmingham this week. On one side there was Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson, the headmistress of Anderton Park, a little primary school in Sparkhill, a largely Pakistani bit of the city; on the other, two men who represent Muslim parents

Germany’s ailing economy can’t afford a no-deal Brexit

The UK was the ‘sick man’ when we ‘joined Europe’ in 1973. Now, with Britain on the cusp of leaving, the European Union’s largest economy is decidedly out of sorts. After failing to recover over the summer, Germany is now almost certainly in recession. The state of the fourth biggest economy on earth always matters

Mary Wakefield

The cult of youth damages everyone

We’ve begun to behave as if young people are special; more virtuous and wiser than adults. It’s wrong and it’s creepy and we’ve got to stop it — not for our sake so much as for theirs. It looked, for a terrible moment this week, as if 16-year-old Greta Thunberg would win the Nobel peace