No more evasion and prevarication – Britain's elite must be held to account |...
The blocking of the Chilcot report underlines how the powerful shield their activities from the publicIn The Gatekeepers, the documentary made about Israel's internal intelligence, Shin Bet, one of the...
View ArticleBritish society is bursting with creativity. Except at Westminster | Henry...
Politicians bemoan voter apathy, but many of us feel that the political process is both rotten and unrepresentativePolitical parties are in staggering decline. Politicians are almost universally...
View ArticleDeadly conformity is killing our creativity. Let's mess about more | Henry...
People's lives would be more fulfilling if they were given greater freedom in the workplaceI began to notice the creativity of the manager of the Pret a Manger coffee shop, close to where I live, after...
View ArticleThe Scots have a chance to change politics. Why don't the rest of us? | Henry...
As Scotland debates its political future, the English should use the anniversary of Magna Carta to do the sameThe independence movement, suggested my friend the Scottish writer Andrew Greig, has much...
View ArticleThe internet revolution versus the House of Lords | Henry Porter
The peers' debate about the internet revealed how little they understand of the way the web has infiltrated our mindsThose who have spent a good percentage of their working lives without the internet...
View ArticleThe police get the tools they want, Britain loses the liberties it holds dear...
Crime rates are down, yet the police create a fantasy world of chaos demanding ever greater control over a free peopleThere are two striking images of modern Britain in this week's news. The first is...
View ArticleClimate change: time for the sceptics to put up or shut up
If climate change sceptics have a coherent explanation for the events we are witnessing, it's time they held an international conference and told us what they believeSay I were to ask you to prove that...
View ArticlePO box justice: what secret Home Office court says about British openness |...
As the Guardian's revelations show, this tribunal's so-called scrutiny of the security services is a living shame to the UKFor 14 years the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) has operated from within...
View ArticleNo Place to Hide review – Glenn Greenwald's compelling account of NSA/GCHQ...
This powerful account of the Edward Snowden case reveals the threat posed by spyingBefore Glenn Greenwald appeared on Newsnight last October to argue the case for the Snowden revelations on a link from...
View ArticleHack Attack review – Nick Davies's gripping account of the hacking affair
Nick Davies lays bare the phone-hacking saga and the 'pitiless regime' headed by Rupert MurdochWhen Nick Davies watched Andy Coulson in the dock waiting to be sentenced last month, he felt a twinge of...
View ArticleCIA torture report: at least the Americans came clean. In Britain, no one is...
This is a cross-party conspiracy to hide the truth about British agents and tortureWe can be sure of one thing about the US Senate report into the torture of terror suspects by the CIA: it would not...
View ArticleWhy MI5 does not need more surveillance powers after the Paris attacks |...
The terrorists wanted to undermine liberty and openness. But spy agencies need more money, not more powersSoon after the attacks in Paris last week, the director general of MI5, Andrew Parker, said of...
View ArticleThe police need to be reminded of their place in a free society | Henry Porter
From monitoring sales of Charlie Hebdo to using facial recognition technology on innocent people, Britain’s police are showing a lack of respect for our freedomsOne of the few MPs who stand up for...
View ArticleProgress at last on surveillance. But we libertarians fight on | Henry Porter
David Anderson’s report on UK surveillance law attempts to balance the value of privacy with the state’s need to protect its citizensAs David Anderson QC’s report on the UK’s enormous body of...
View ArticleI saw the great work Kids Company did myself. That’s why I mourn its passing...
Camila Batmanghelidjh’s fall has been brutally swift. Her charity was not perfect, but it helped thousands of the most vulnerable, and it deserved a better fateAs I watched Camila Batmanghelidjh being...
View ArticleDon’t be fooled by spook propaganda: the state still wants more licence to...
Theresa May’s draft Investigatory Powers bill contains highly intrusive powersAn arresting image of GCHQ – the government’s communications headquarters in Cheltenham – occupied the front page of the...
View ArticleBrexit is the 'moment we are called to'. Now is not the time to shut down...
The Convention on Brexit and the Political Crash will help pave the way in understanding a new BritainHalf way through the American civil war, Abraham Lincoln wrote a mostly business-like letter to...
View ArticleMy friend David Davis once defended liberty. Now he has become its enemy |...
He used to champion parliament as a protector against authoritarianism. These days, he’s happy to subvert itPoliticians and journalists rarely make good friends, but David Davis and I got on pretty...
View ArticleIs the BBC abdicating its responsibilities over Brexit? | Henry Porter
Just when we need the broadcaster’s guidance, it seems unwilling to ask difficult questionsWhen the BBC is accused of bias, its reaction is always the same – executives and journalists protest that if...
View ArticleStephen Fay obituary
Veteran journalist, editor and author who wrote about finance, the arts and cricket In 1956, when the writer and journalist Stephen Fay was just 18 years old, he was invited, along with other...
View Article
