Chime Communications, the firm behind the CompareTheMarket meerkat advertising campaign, announces a 14% jump in pre-tax profits to £18.8 million... more
City Comment: It is more than 30 years since a government sought to lay down how much people could earn, but a leading fund manager says that unless institutional shareholders show they can control executive pay, the state will seek to do it for them... more
Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall is a worthy winner of the Booker Prize but qualms have already been raised by some critics over the novel’s disservice to history... more
NEW: Illegal torture by British soldiers in Iraq was carried out not by just 'a few bad apples' but the whole barrel was rotten, public inquiry hears... more
Last week a convicted rapist from south London was freed for the second time. A mother who accused him of one attack describes her despair at the legal system... more
Every conversation about the recession I have with friends these days ends up with someone expressing not just helpless fury against the bankers who have damaged the world's financial system so much in such a short time but a vehement wish to see them made to pay for what they have done... more
Millionaire amateur conductor Gilbert E Kaplan satisfied his lifelong obsession with one symphony when he led the New York Phil in a passionate performance this week.... more
The subject of young gay Tories in Westminster isn't new but James Graham goes at it with fizz, flair and no small degree of humour in Tory Boyz. ... more
Well, what a U-turn. The BBC, having twittered and tutted about Margaret Thatcher for 30 years, has made a feature film depicting her as a firebrand and sex bomblet. ... more
A feminist firebrand. A sex bomb who flirted with Ted Heath. QUENTIN LETTS has a sneak preview of the BBC's controversial new film about the young Mrs T
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Mika landed three years ago, a fully formed psychedelic pop sensation with a sound that crosses Freddie Mercury with Mozart. Hermione Eyre meets a charming misfit who refuses to be ordinary
Could we soon see a Baroness Widdecombe of Battleaxe? I hear moves are afoot to secure veteran Conservative MP and darling of the Tory grassroots, Ann Widdecombe, a peerage following the general election