Good Friday coincided with Passover this year. We didn’t have a proper Seder service because we had just moved house and everything we needed was hidden in unpacked boxes. But at least we had all our possessions with us. For …
Passover in war-torn Odessa
Odessa, Ukraine
The soldier leans through the car window and stares at me. He has the guileless but wary eyes of a child; he can’t be much more than 18. I’ve just crossed the border from Moldova into Ukraine and …
You can’t police offence
In virtue of my heretically archaic views about biology and the importance of women’s rights, I’m the target of quite a lot of rude online behaviour. The other day, for instance, I learnt I was lucky I hadn’t been hanged …
Australia’s zombie election
Australia’s election may have kicked off a little over a week ago, but aside from the TV pundits giddy at the prospect of filling airtime with banal updates of the location of the Prime Minister’s plane, it’s hard to find …
Should we forgive extremists?
Peter Cytanovic has become so accustomed to being hated that he rattles off some of the shocking messages he has received with the ease of going through a shopping list: “Why don’t you just kill yourself?”; “I’m going to come …
What Starmer can learn from Corbyn
With Number 10 now housing the first sitting Prime Minister to break the law, and with living costs soaring across the country, Her Majesty’s Opposition should be making the political weather, and making plans to form the next government. That …
The poison in France’s veins
France does not feel like it is entering a season of political turbulence. It barely feels like it is going through an important election. Away from the headlines — the disintegration of the old centre parties, the renaissance of Jean-Luc …
You can’t teach good sex
Where I grew up in the Sixties, girls were expected to marry straight from home. So when I went to That London at 17 to become a famous writer, I was widely assumed in the neighbourhood to have gone there …
Vladislav Surkov leaves the stage
Vladislav Surkov knows that no one goes to see puppet shows anymore. But for more than 20 years, the self-confessed ‘author’ of the Putin system built a career on the idea that puppet-masters can still attract an audience. Swirling rumours …
Northern Ireland’s dangerous future
It’s been exactly three years since the 29-year-old journalist Lyra McKee was killed in the Creggan area of Derry, hit by a stray bullet from the dissident “New IRA”. She was reporting from the scene of a riot, an event …
The books that made me
The first experience is hardly a memory, I can’t quite find the words. There was a veranda, in the shade, by the sunny courtyard (in my childhood memories it’s always sunny). There’s an armchair in the middle of the veranda, …
Kingsley Amis vs God
Close to my home stand two glorious late-Victorian monuments to what the preachers of the age would have called the beauty of holiness. A few minutes’ walk in one direction takes me to St Augustine’s, Kilburn, decorated with exquisite murals …
Have I abandoned my flock?
I will be baptising four new Christians on Easter morning: two adults, two children. One of the adults asked me about their baptism preparation last week. Traditionally, that is what Lent is for — a period of fasting and reflection …
How the Guardian enables Owen Jones
One of the greatest moments of my life was when I stood up to Susan Cuthbert. She ran our school playground and, yes, that is her actual name. (So sue me, Susan.) Every lunchtime, Susan assigned us a role to …
Was Jesus a revolutionary?
Easter is the time when Jesus Christ is said to have risen from the dead, having hung on a cross for six hours between two thieves. We are told that one of the thieves was saved, which Samuel Beckett described …