Last year, a 12-year-old student was forced to take legal action after he was threatened with suspension by his London school for wearing his hair in dreadlocks. More recently, a six-year-old was sent home from school for having a “skin fade”, a common black hairstyle, because his primary school claimed it would [...]

With days to go until the polls open for the European parliament elections, most political parties are finding it a struggle to convey the relevance of the EU to voters (in 2014, voter turnout was just 42%). Eurosceptics from Nigel Farage to Matteo Salvini, Marine Le Pen to Alternative für Deutschland’s Alexander [...]

Trying to define a nation’s self-image is always an interesting exercise, especially if one tries to boil it down to a single word. What would that be for Britain? Independence, perhaps. For Sweden, there can only be one word: goodness. We aren’t looking quite as good as we would like to right now, though. [...]

In 10 days’ time, two political dramas will reach their denouement, thanks to the votes of a combined total of about 1.3 billion people. At the heart of both will be a mess of questions about democracy in the online age, and how – or even if – we can act to preserve [...]

Lady Thatcher may be an icon to her most devoted fans but, as far as I know, none of them has ever worn a “What would Maggie do?” wristband. That’s not to say that they don’t find themselves asking (or being asked) the question now and then. After all, Thatcher, together with her eponymous –ism, have become [...]

Eurovision has always been an exercise in bad taste, but this year’s event takes things to an extreme. If you want to enjoy the kitschy song contest, which will take place from 12 to 14 May in Tel Aviv, Israel, then you have got to ignore the bloody political context that surrounds it. Indeed, Israel is so intent on [...]

In the days following the Yom Kippur war, after the Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, agreed to a ceasefire and subsequent peace treaty with Israel, he faced questions at home about his climbdown. When confronted on his capitulation, he is reported to have said that he was prepared for battle with Israel but not with [...]

I used to love Instagram. Amid the family politics and local gossip of Facebook and the unpredictable snark of Twitter, my little private Instagram account felt like a pleasant place to be. It’s still the only social media app I use with any regularity. But lately, I’ve been trying to extricate myself from its [...]

Credit where it’s due. The Saudi Absher app, just described as “inhuman” by two clearly terrified Saudi refugees, also has some fabulous user reviews on its supplier websites, Apple and Google [...]

How should we make sense of the Easter Sunday church and hotel bombings in Sri Lanka that killed more than 350 people and wounded 500? Now that Islamic State appears to have claimed responsibility for the attacks, the question arises: is this merely the latest symptom of an epidemic of Islamist violence, motivated by [...]