Robert Colls News Today

A century after his birth, EP Thompson’s empathy with those facing scorn and condescension is more relevant than ever

Human life is very complicated. All of us are constrained by and sometimes hostage to things we cannot easily control or change and might be unwilling to change even if we could. In the new biography of George Orwell's first wife, Eileen, author Anna Funder seems oblivious that factors other than a pernicious patriarchy might have shaped their relationship

A history of sport in England hits a six.

Coal-mining communities are disappearing in the UK so it’s more important than ever to authentically document their way of life.

Boris Johnsons government has spent more than £163,000 on Union flags in two years as part of its drive to boost pride in the national symbol.

Figures show spending has increased in virtually every Whitehall department since Boris Johnson became Prime Minister - with thousands spent on replacing worn-out flags.

THE UK Government spending more than £163,000 on Union flags in two years is a "deliberate plot" to promote its own political ends, the…

Jeremy Bowen writes powerfully and sensibly, as always (“The war that cannot be won”, 28 May). I only met Benjamin Netanyahu once over breakfast in Israel shortly before he became prime minister, and I took an instant dislike to him – bombastic, vain, and histrionic. As he faces serious criminal charges, the outside world must hope that Yair Lapid succeeds in building an alternative coalition government, however doubtful that looks. When I was a student in the late Fifties, many spent th...

With reference to Nicholas Lezard’s Twitter antagonist (Down and Out, 12 February), disdain for the banal might not be the evidence of high-minded seriousness some would assume. We find respect, even reverence, for the commonplace in poets such as William Blake, who famously wrote of seeing the world in a grain of sand, or the Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh (not noted for frivolity), who celebrated being able to “wallow in the habitual, the banal” after successful major surgery. Vermeer and...