December 2015

December 2015 issue

Past issues

Essays

Refugee Crisis: compassion is not enough

Why Brexit could be Britain's biggest diplomatic disaster

Anatole Kaletsky

Eu referendum: could Britain vote to leave?

Who is the real David Cameron?

Workers on the production line at a Honda plant in Ozu. Japan has already undergone changes that are now happening elsewhere. © Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Workers vs pensioners: the battle of our time

Pratyancha Pardeshi & Manoj Pradhan & Charles Goodhart

© Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Ben Bernanke's reasons to be cheerful

Anne-Marie Slaughter found juggling a high-level government job with family life impossible. © REUTERS/Ruben Sprich

Cathy Newman: why women can have it all

The perils of political speechwriting

The Eccles Building in Washington, D.C., which serves as the Federal Reserve System's headquarters. © Jbarta

Ben Bernanke interview: full transcript

Sameer Rahim & Bronwen Maddox & Jonathan Derbyshire

Saudi new King Salman (C), Crown Prince Moqren bin Abdul Aziz (3L) and deputy Crown Prince and Interior Minister Mohammed bin Nayef (L) walk to greet US President Barack Obama (unseen) and First Lady Michelle Obama (unseen) at King Khalid International Ai

Saudi Arabia: Is the House of Saud about to fall?

Regulars

Duel: Should the government rethink its policy on tax credits?

Ken Clarke & Kate Andrews

© PatrickMcMullan.com via AP Images

Erica Jong: we need to get over our embarrassment about sex

Serena Kutchinsky

The way we were: misbehaviour at work

Opinions

©Niall Carson/PA Wire/Press Association Images

Cruel and unusual times for Labour

Hillary Clinton: the true outsider

Redwood trees in a forest grove. © Michael Schweppe

Is the UN capable of tackling climate change?

© Lewis Stickley/EMPICS Entertainment

The problem with the EU Debate? The "In" campaign... and the "out" campaign

Finding God in China

Spectre: why the James Bond myth is important to Britain

Arts & Books

A Little Life

Catherine Scott

If the Oceans were Ink

A Manual for Cleaning Women

Charlotte Runcie

British author David Cornwell, also known as John le Carre, poses for photographers following a ceremony at Oxford University. © AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis

John Le Carre's double life

1916: A Global History

The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin

Phishing for Phools: The economics of Manipulation and Deception

We British: The Poetry of a People

Thatcher: mistress of all she surveyed

Jesse Norman MP

Power of Reading: From Socrates to Twitter

Serena Kutchinsky

Ben Bernanke: the Buddha of banking

The Book of Memory

A Brief History of Seven Killings

Jaques-Louis David's The Oath of the Horatii (1784) portrays the Roman ideal of loyalty and self-sacrifice. © Warburg.edu/Wikimedia Commons

What the Romans really did

Noonday

Project Fear: How an Unlikely Alliance Left a Kingdom United but a Country Divided

Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left

Jonathan Derbyshire

Golden Age

Anthony Cummins

Sweet Caress

High Dive

A migrant adjusts her scarf as she tries to access the train tracks which lead to the Channel Tunnel in Calais © AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti

A year of migrants in fiction

Short story: Hammer and Sickle

Society and Culture

What can children's homework teach us about investing?

What silence tells you about your mental health

Carmine Rojas, David Bowie, and Nile Rodgers in Aschaffenburg, 1983. © Mark Vitullo

Is anything still cool?

The hidden edge to Californian wines

Andoni Luis Aduriz: "the worst thing to provoke is indifference"

Wendell Steavenson