Village Fete

A broad church with narrow attitudes

The visible loathing of some Anglicans for gays and women is indefensible

• Simon Jenkins

Our leaders go after some Obama magic

In London our insular political class is tarnished by sleaze and appears deeply distant from the electorate: Obama famously connects

• Martin Ivens

Deliver us, minister, from your dreadful incompetence

The Sats fiasco is just one of many eye-stretching recent examples of government incompetence

• Minette Marrin

Trust me, Trevor, Dibley doesn’t really do black people

Television is run by white, middle-class men (in the main) who have bought into the very worst kind of multicultural tokenism

• Rod Liddle

Darling needs the Sisters of Mercy to save Labour

Even the chancellor is in despair over the economy

Economic gloom could reverse crime trend

Almost two thirds of people thought that crime was rising - most blamed drugs and lack of parental discipline

NHS ordered to revolutionise care for the dying

Terminally ill patients are to be given more choice over where they die and encouraged to make their wishes known

Islam and the great headscarf war

Turkey's increasingly Islamic Government wants to relax a ban on the Muslim headscarf as secularists fight to maintain it

British citizenship lessons for young Muslims

The Government will train mosque elders to teach Muslim children citizenship lessons to keep them away from extremism

Jo Stafford

Beguiling and versatile jazz singer who topped the charts with a stream of exhilarating anthems and comic cover versions

Ed Arno

Cartoonist whose first-class draughtsmanship and economical humour enhanced The New Yorker’s well-known single-panel slots