The Tory conference was a pseudo-sacred affair, with devotees paying homage in front of Thatcher’s old shrouds — and your reporter, initially barred, only need mention he’d once met her to gain access. But would she consider what was on offer a worthy legacy, asks ANDREW MURRAY

VERY soon we will be observing the return of swallows to our shores. These are iconic birds, symbolising the arrival of summer and idyllic sunny days to come.
Sadly, the numbers of these birds have been declining over recent decades as a direct result of the calamitous decline of insects, their sole food source.
In my childhood I remember having to regularly clean the car’s windscreen on long journeys because it became caked with the bloody and sticky corpses of insects.

JOHN GREEN has doubts about the efficacy of the Freedom of Information Act, once trumpeted by Tony Blair

JOHN GREEN is enchanted by the story of women’s farm work, both now and the the 1940s, that brims with political and social insight

JOHN GREEN welcomes a remarkable study of Mozambique’s most renowned contemporary artist

Despite the primitive means the director was forced to use, this is an incredibly moving film from Gaza and you should see it, urges JOHN GREEN