Thatcher's funeral v Olympic Opening Ceremony - which is the real Britain?

After a week of media battles over Her legacy, BBC Newsnight opted to report Margaret Thatcher's funeral in an unusually useful way. Rather than take part in the central debate - She was divisive, no She wasn't -...

I suspect it was no accident that Simon Anholt's masterclass was held on the 28th floor of Millbank Tower -- one of the higher points in London (though, not yet the Shard). Instantly we were breathing the rarefied air of the global consultant, able to grasp distance as an illusion...

Against all my own expectations, the Olympic Games have emerged like unexpected blossom on a tree that only flowers erratically. When was the last time GB could stand so proudly tall? I'm reminded of the post war years when the response to the end of WW2 was to implement the...

Another year, another International Women's Day. As long as I have been watching, alongside the undoubted ongoing struggles, each IWD has recorded significant advancements for women. Interestingly, this is more noticeable in the developing world - where women have been acknowledged for their special skills -...

Against all previous form, I took part in a round of the X Factor this week. It was the familiar mix of competing styles and contingent emotion, followed by measures of first kind then merciless appraisal. My group didn't win: our blend of British "existential angst" with bold Brazilian overtones...

It's been a highly charged month for parents. In the midst of that annual break from routine - the Summer holidays - when kids are off school and looking for new adventures, we have been regaled with news of the worst possible outcomes. Sixty nine teenage activists and their guides,...

I'm hoping that one day, we will look back at the upcoming alternative vote referendum as the lowest point in British politics because -- short of a coup -- it can't get much worse.

In a liberal democracy, we only have one chance to cast our vote in five years....

I am ambivalent about WikiLeaks.

While I go with the undisputed righteousness and emotional pull of principles like freedom of speech, I feel I am being hoodwinked and dragged into a fight that is not my own.

During the '80s I ran a think tank called Conflict and Peace Forums,...

At the Labour Party Conference, Manchester, UK

Party leadership battles are never easy on party unity: for a short period of time -- in this case four months -- members are required to invest all their passions in one candidate and perceive the others as the enemy....

In the wake of the global financial crisis, the enormous question of how we can change our ways and become more sustainable is being asked in homes and communities the world over. In the UK, the prospect of unprecedented service cuts is prompting much discussion on the role of the...

It's a puzzling time for politics in the UK. All the familiar fault lines have fractured to create new patterns of connection between old enemies, leaving old friends angry and isolated. The Liberal Democrats, once considered a Centre Left Party are now in a deep embrace with the Conservatives, leaving...

A spectre has risen within British politics. After 13 years of a Labour government that spanned 9/11, the Iraq War and global financial meltdown, profound disillusion with centre-left politics has given way to the resurgence of polarisation. If the polls are to be believed, when the British people vote on...

We're into the final 10 days before the UK elects its next government. Americans would be amused to spot the many ways Brits are living in the shadow of Obama's historic achievement - yearning, above all, for the excitement he generated. So much so that all the major parties have...

Is there a connection between the lack of soft power in public life and the lack of women in top leadership positions? Are women inherently more capable of soft power than men? With soft power increasingly becoming the 'weapon of choice' for international as well as...

When I heard that on-line magazine Slate was blessing its female writers with (what Virginia Woolf might call) a blog of their own, part of me felt that it was a backwards step. How different is this development from the establishment of women's pages in all our regular papers decades...

Barack and Michelle Obama are home after a breathtaking tour which took in the G20 summit, the Nato gathering, a symbolic meeting with the Islamic world in Turkey and an unscheduled popping in to see the troops in Iraq since they were en route.

I'm going to miss them...

Hillary Clinton's forthcoming trip to Asia will be the first test of 'smart power' -- America's new comprehensive tool box for international relations. For those who don't keep up with the jargon, smart power is a balance between what Joseph Nye termed 'soft power' (getting results without the use...

London, UK. With less than 24 hours to go before the inauguration, I'm somewhat lost in the Presidential foreplay. From seductive portrait exhibitions of his new eclectic team of advisers to celebrity videos calling us to community action on his behalf. Plus an abundance of messages from

When I decided to fulfill an overdue business trip to the States in the week of the elections, I had one thought in mind: I want to be there when history is made. I swear that on arriving back in London at the end of the week, that I was...

It's Thanksgiving and my gratitude prize immediately goes to President-Elect Obama for his economic team. Not because it was the first team he had pulled together, nor for the accumulated talent therein. I'm grateful for the sheer symbolic power of his choice of team members: alongside the two obvious...