Melanie McDonagh

The natural but unspoken response of many of us to Israel's “ limited, localised and targeted ground raids ” against Hezbollah in southern

Oh. My. Lord. I've been looking at Dawn Butler's spoken verse as presented by her on X and it's difficult to know what to say. It is, it seems, Dawn's contribution to Black History Month.

Boris Johnson, Unleashed, Collins, £30 Unleashed is the title of this memoir, with a picture of Boris looking sexily tousled on the front.

Lower Than the Angels (that is the condition of man, according to the psalmist and St Paul) is a book that combines the two most fascinating subjects, religion and sex – but you do have to take both bits of the agenda. This is Christian history with an eye to marriage, sexual acts, sexuality, celibacy,

There is something cheering about a world in which we can argue about fish knives. Anne Glenconner, once lady in waiting to Princess Margaret, raised the issue this week at the Cheltenham Literary Festival where she was promoting her book on picnics. She recalled having lunch with Camilla and her sister Annabel Elliot and when the waiter presented them with a choice of normal or fish knives, the three of them began in unison: “Phone for the fish knives, Norman”, the opening line of John Betjeman’s satirical poem, How To Get on in Society. Poor waiter.

The hereditary peers aren’t beholden to political patronage; they’re a unique part of the constitution.

Once, I worked on this paper with a colleague who would one day be inheriting a peerage.

If there’s one thing to bring out your inner Herod, it’s the twee tendency in younger children’s books. It’s at its worst in the depiction of pirates. Ten Little Pirates shows them cute; The Pirates Next Door as rambunctious; Never Mess with a Pirate Princess as egalitarian; Pirates Love Underpants as… oh stop it. It

Critics of the Assisted Dying Bill have been warning for a while that it would lead to a 'slippery slope'. Their fears are looking legitimate

Kim Leadbeater, who introduced her assisted dying bill in the Commons yesterday, has said it’s all about the safeguards. Well, no, it’s not. It’s about a clash of irreconcilable principles. On the one hand, there’s Kim’s contention that “too many people have been condemned to die in misery and pain”. In other words, we’re talking personal autonomy which is in many respects a valuable aspiration.