Will Michael Gove's education reforms lead to the 'privatisation' of state education, as Left-wing critics claim? Unfortunately not

Defending Fred Goodwin on Newsnight

Facebook IPO will make Bono a billionaire. Wonder if he'll pay any tax on that?

The decision to strip Fred Goodwin of his knighthood is a capitulation to mob rule

David Cameron's U-turn will advance the Eurosceptic cause

Congratulations to Ed Miliband and Chuka Umunna on forcing Stephen Hester to forego his bonus – you just cost the British taxpayer £329m

Guardian attacks Michael Gove again – and scores spectacular own goal

The BBC's next director-general should be a Tory

The Observer's attack on Katharine Birbalsingh's school

The Tories' poll lead is bad news for Cameron because it may seal Miliband's fate

The Observer uncritically regurgitates Trotskyist smears against Katharine Birbalsingh

Will bringing back grammar schools boost social mobility?

My hamster shame

It wasn't 'ageist' of David Cameron to call Dennis Skinner a 'dinosaur'

If the captain of the Costa Concordia had been British, would he have abandoned ship?

Ricky Gervais bombs at the Globes

Free the press!

Looming decrepitude

Ed Balls's extraordinary volte-face

Five book recommendations for the Browser

At last, Michael Gove is going to make it possible to sack bad teachers

Free the press!

BBC News online publishes grossly misleading, anti-free schools piece

Here endeth the lesson

Was Diane Abbott's tweet racist?

Get ready for a rocky year

Michael Gove is right: Academies are raising standards

Labour luvvie gives The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe the politically correct treatment

Today's front-page story about "NHS cuts" reveals the Guardian to be an upmarket version of the Sunday Sport

Should Alan Hansen apologise for using the word "coloured" on Match of the Day?

If exam boards feel it necessary to spoon feed children the answers to GCSE ICT questions there really is no hope left for this country

In memoriam: Kim Jong-Il

RIP Christopher Hitchens, the Cicero of the saloon bar

I long to be a chav this Christmas

The world according to the Guardian

The markets are about to make a monkey out of Sarkozy

Hamleys sexism: There's no point in pretending kids are 'gender neutral'

Should David Cameron call a snap election?

The European project is in its death throes

Well done David Cameron

The scandal of Britain's corrupt examination boards

Defending Jeremy Clarkson on the Today programme

Will Cameron's tough talk be enough to quell a backbench rebellion?

How to set up a free school

The teachers who didn't strike

Jeremy Paxman bagged a tiger last night: Danny Alexander

£600 million extra for free schools is a well-deserved reward for Michael Gove

The forecasts of the OECD and the OBR are so consistently wrong we might as well ask Michael Fish for his GDP growth forecasts

Ed Balls's figures don't add up

If the Euro collapses, Britain will have to limit immigration from the Continent

Fame as a side effect

Brighton flak

Handing in my homework

Bangs and whistles

I've got a cyber-stalker

How to Set Up a Free School

New Statesman's political editor is wrong about the debt crisis

The best way to save the NHS is to vote Tory

It's arrogant and naive of Hugh Grant to claim he has the same right to privacy as the Dowler family

Retaining the confidence of the bond markets is the key to Britain's success in the EU treaty renegotiations

As host of the Golden Globes, Ricky Gervais will skewer the egos of all the pampered celebrities in the room – apart from his own

How can teachers show their 'commitment' to 'the vitally important job they do' by going on strike?

Cameron is right about middle-class schools 'coasting'. The solution is to allow free schools to be set up in affluent, rural areas

Will the Italians and the Greeks stand passively by while their governments become puppets of the ECB, IMF and the EU? I doubt it

Student protestors are living in cloud cuckoo land

Back in your box, Bish. Leave the banker-bashing to the revolutionary socialists camped out at St Paul's

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Just Boris by Sonia Purnell

The World According to Joan by Joan Collins

Aleister Crowley: The Biography by Tobias Churton

And God Created Burton by Tom Rubython

Poisoned Pens: Literary Invective from Amis to Zola by Gary Dexter

St Paul's protestors should stop bullying the Church of England and go home

The Steve Jobs biography is my book of the year

Should private schools be abolished?

Canon Giles Fraser resigns from St Paul's Cathedral on Twitter, having single-handedly cost the Cathedral hundreds of thousands in lost revenue

The European project was doomed from the start

No points for being right

Ricky Gervais is a loathsome twit, but he's entitled to make jokes about whomever he likes

Has Labour done another u-turn on Free Schools?

It's official: Labour now supports Free Schools

Weekend in Charge

Arab Spring turns into Arab Winter

Labour's U-turn on Free Schools

Michael Gove visits the West London Free School

Nothing to write about

Independent schools are becoming increasingly enthusiastic about setting up free schools and academies

The Wigtown Book Festival

Plan B for Boris

Plan B for Boris

Could Boris be the next Tory leader?

Exam board's proposal to penalise private school pupils is a politically correct gimmick

Poll humiliation for Ed Miliband on eve of conference speech

Mrs Cameron's Diary by Catherine Bennett

My wife is one tough cookie

Sophie Dahl is a saint

Is the Prime Minister's 'Great Britain' campaign doomed to failure?

Boris Johnson opens the West London Free School

Fisking Johann Hari's 'apology' in today's Independent

Loathsome though they are, Internet 'trolls' should not be sent to prison