Melanie McDonagh

Melanie McDonagh

Melanie McDonagh is an Irish journalist working in London.

François Hollande – all the president’s women

Obviously, the whole Hollande business is utterly compelling from a prurient point of view, though journalists did brilliantly in coming up with spurious public interest reasons for talking about it (Corsican mafia! Presidential security! Lying!). The most riveting aspect, for me, is the heroic restraint of his former partner Ségolène Royale when she was asked

Gendercide, abortion and hypocrisy of the pro-choicers

There was a lovely little ultrasound picture of a foetus to illustrate the Independent’s splash today about the incidence of sex-selective abortions in Britain. According to the paper’s analysis of ONS statistics, the incidence of second daughters among immigrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh and possibly those from other countries such as India isn’t quite the

Have your say on the EU

The EU commission office in London was kind enough to send me this, a warmup for a ‘town-hall style meeting’ on the part of the Vice-President of the Commission, Viviane Reding, though I’m not entirely sure that the Royal Institution is quite your normal town hall. Anyway, something of the spirit of the open primary has

How we lost the seasons

So, what are you doing with your Christmas decorations? Still up? Did the tree get put out on 2 January? Maybe you’re holding out until the Twelfth Day, on the basis that it’s bad luck to have the decorations up after that? Or are you going out on a limb and keeping your holly, bay

Exodus by Paul Collier – my political book of the year

Paul Collier is an Oxford economist specialising in the poorest African economies, and the striking thing about his important book on migration, Exodus, is that his focus is largely on the effects on the countries the migrants leave behind. We’re so self-obsessed when it comes to the issue that we forget that emigration may not be in the

The ugly, cynical EU immigration debate

Tristram Hunt, Shadow Education Secretary, is an intelligent and articulate individual but like everyone in politics, has the handicap of having to square his views with the record and policies of his own party. His interesting interview with the Fabian Review is a case in point. He attributes some of the education failures of white

Mrs Hanrahan’s sauce: a delicious way to a happy Christmas

The prospects for peace on earth to men of goodwill – the original Christmas present — look a little slim right now, so by way of compensation, here’s a perfectly fabulous recipe for something to go with your Christmas pudding. It’s Mrs Hanrahan’s Sauce from Darina Allen’s A Simply Delicious Christmas. And frankly, it’s so

Jimmy Carter talks sense about the late Nelson Mandela

Rod Liddle’s observation about the death of Nelson Mandela, cut off, alas, at the age of 95, hardly needs supplementing but I was struck by one aspect of the blanket coverage, viz, its quasi-religious character. The Mirror, the day after the sad event, observed that Mr Mandela was as near as we get in this

Melanie McDonagh

The best children’s books for Christmas

Animal stories for children are always tricky; as J.R.R. Tolkien observed in his essay on fairy stories, you can end up, as in The Wind in the Willows, with an animal mask on human form. Watership Down has been described as a nice story about a group of English public schoolboys with occasional rabbit features.

Is the permissive society causing pain and harm?

It was a curious coincidence, don’t you think, that the sexual conduct findings that the Lancet published today coincided with the publication of a report from the Deputy Children’s Commissioner, Sue Berelowitz, about child-on-child sexual violence? The two stories were juxtaposed uncomfortably in the news. In the case of the Lancet survey, which is conducted

Who was surprised by the Mail’s immigration poll?

Was any one actually surprised by the splash on immigration in yesterday’s Daily Mail? Its poll (of 1,027 people by Harris/Daily Mail) suggests that nearly two thirds of people think that immigration since 2004 has not been good for British society; eight in ten think that 176,000 net immigration last year was too much; and nearly

The man who made it OK to talk about immigration

It takes a lot to make the subject of immigration respectable for liberals, at least if you’re pointing out its problematic aspects. But Paul Collier, an Oxford economist specialising in the world’s bottom billion, has, in the 270-odd pages of his new book Exodus, opened up the issue for the left — well, for all