Real security comes from having a secure base at home — Keir Starmer’s reckless and renegade decision to get Britain deeper into the proxy war against Russia is as dangerous as it is wasteful, writes SALLY SPIERS

NOVEMBER the ideal month for planting raspberries, if you don’t count the cold, the wet, the wind and the hard slog.
Rasps are worth the bother, though: they are one of the fruits in which the difference in quality between home-grown and shop-bought is most striking.
It’s also one that gives heavy crops early on in its life, unlike some others which can take years to get going.

MAT COWARD tells the story of Edward Maxted, whose preaching of socialism led to a ‘peasants’ revolt’ in the weeks running up to the first world war

Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz

Edinburgh can take great pride in an episode of its history where a murderous captain of the city guard was brought to justice by a righteous crowd — and nobody snitched to Westminster in the aftermath, writes MAT COWARD
