New look

SNP wants to have its cake and eat it

Beneath the party's self-confidence lies a rather unattractive seam of self-interest

Trump's golf course vs a bird's nest

‘Castle Trump' is huge and vulgar. But the arguments against it are even worse

BSE, vCJD and the moral maize

Feeding animal remains to beef cattle has become an ethical, not a scientific, question

Youth crime: no, prison does not work

Belfast, Brooklyn, Chicago and Glasgow - they have all found alternatives to locking kids up

Why Captain Nairac beats Big Brother

The singular bravery of the man tortured and shot by the IRA

The age of personal vitriolic abuse

The attacks on Gordon Brown have reached a pitch undreamt of in previous political eras

Gap on notion of Scotland going it alone is revealed

The gap between London and Edinburgh has never yawned so wide following an apparent U-turn on the question of a referendum

Alcohol abuse: remember Gin Lane

Making it harder, not easier, to buy booze may not sound revolutionary but it's effective

A grin goes a long way in politics

Gordon Brown could learn a thing or two from Alex Salmond, like how to smile for a start

No! Not another immigration debate!

Trevor Phillips was naive to talk about racial cold war. He may be open to misinterpretation

A lesson in monogamy from ospreys

They were extinct 50 years ago; now they are widespread. These birds are an inspiration

VS Naipaul: ignore his life

His biography shows that the Nobel prize-winner behaved despicably. But he is still a genius

Welcome to grasping Britain

Whatever happened to philanthropy? Today we make our benefactors want to leave

The Army must go into schools

Rule one: never underestimate the vacuous posturing of the National Union of Teachers

1968: we made a difference

You can mock us Vietnam War protesters if you like, but it was no fun being baton-charged

Scotland 'would be better friend to Iran'

Iranian ambassador causes amazement and horror with suggestion that Iran should foster closer links with Scotland

Happiness: we can choose it

Emotions like happiness are far too complex and variable to conform to the lazy notion that we are defined by our genes

Who knows there's a food crisis?

The early signals are there, but the world seems to be sleepwalking towards disaster

A grubby catalogue in print

The journalists' code of conduct seems often like a hazard to be negotiated rather than a standard to be achieved

The path to an amicable divorce

Surely there's a better way than the McCartney-Mills fiasco? Yes, and it seems to work