25 years after giving up Greek, ANDREW CALCUTT explains why he is now a Latin lover

Nationialism was the politics of empowerment in the nineteenth century – but it’s now 2010, says ANDREW GALLAGHER

Michael Foot wasn’t a hero of the left, he was the last in a long line of Labour losers, says JASON WALSH

Is Britain headed for a hung parliament, asks JASON WALSH – and does it matter?

The UK government’s science policy isn’t just contradictory, it’s used a stand-in for politics, says science journalist TIMANDRA HARKNESS

Hillary Clinton’s unsolicited offer to mediate between Britain and Argentina should remind us that you don’t need a history degree to know the Falklands don’t belong to Britain. All you need is a map

They may offend liberal opinion but tabloid newspapers are the first line of defence for a free press, says JASON WALSH

ANNA MORVERN says the alleged Mossad assassination should not be allowed to force biometric identity documents on us

Official censorship pales in comparison to unofficial censureship, says BRENDAN O’NEILL

forth reader MICHAEL GILLESPIE gives his view on the proposed bill of rights for the North

The authorities have given over authority to children, argues DENNIS HAYES, and it is tantamount to child abuse.

In the first of a series of articles before the Belfast Salon debate OWEN POLLEY argues for a modern Britishness against ‘Ulster’ identity

The lesbian, the Pope and the right to free speech

The Republic of Ireland has a lower population than major cities – the only reason anyone cares about Ireland is because of the conflict

The shine has come off the Conservatives’ alliance with unionists as sectarian politics reasserts itself in Northern Ireland, says forth editor JASON WALSH, writing in the Guardian

forth editor JASON WALSH reporting for the CS Monitor

Why personal communication should be personal, in Global Comment

Paul Chambers arrested under controversial law and banned from airport for obvious joke, report forth editor JASON WALSH and MARK HUGHES in the Independent of London

Despite sounding like a German discount retailer, Rod Liddle is the Waitrose of boring, right-wing ‘controversialists’, says PADDY HOEY

The Northern Assembly is too important for grandstanding – unless it’s officially sanctioned grandstanding, says JASON WALSH

Despite BA’s High Court injunction to block a 12-day Christmas strike, it was a fitting end to the Year of Surreal Industrial Relations that it took airline cabin crew to stand up for workers, says TIM BLACK

Having spent three decades predicting the collapse of capitalism real soon now the left has been blindsided by the global recession. Here’s why:

Both boosters and critics of capitalism should so a little more (free) market research. JASON WALSH crunches the numbers.

RICHARD DWYER says that lurking behind our supposedly ‘democratic’ culture old-fashioned snobbery exists in spades

In light of the cod conflict between the private and public sectors in Ireland, forth reprints this article by James Heartfield which shows that business and the state are intertwined

With identity cards being launched in Manchester STEPHEN GINN asks why Labour is persisting with this unpopular, unworkable and failed idea

With Dublin City Council going cycling crazy, Londoner Stephen Ginn offers a cautionary tale about the dangers – of politicised transport

So-called ‘East-West’ links between Britain and Ireland created as part of the peace process are a waste of time, says Jason Walsh

Marking the recent visit of Arthur Scargill to Ireland, former Yorkshire miner Edward Devoy compares the era of the miners’ strike to today

People have the right to do stupid things – even to commit ‘medi-sins’

Protesting the BNP’s appearance on Question Time wasn’t about debating immigration policy, it was about protestors wanting to feel good about themselves, says Stephen McGlennon

If we denied a platform to every political party that espoused idiotic views there would be no politics on television at all

The Twitter-led virtual lynching of Jan Moir is a sad indictment of what passes for politics in these atomised times, says Jason Walsh

Ludovic Henry Coverley Kennedy, renowned British journalist, broadcaster and author has died.

This obituary comes courtesy of the British Humanist Association.

Morons are entitled to free speech too, says Jason Walsh. Even morons using Twitter

The only thing more predictable and irritating than the Daily Mail is the ‘offencearati’ of people outraged by it, says Brendan O’Neill

Ukip and Sinn Féin share a common gene-pool, says Patrick West

Stephen McGlennon recounts just how many pennies made their way into the hands of the North’s politicians.

If Robert Ramsay has his way unionists will continue continue to slide into cultural politics after republicans, threatening to undermine their entire project and show up their leaders as ‘wee dafties’.

Review by Jason Walsh

Jason Walsh reports from Dublin where it seems neither the Yes camp nor the No camp voted with much enthusiasm.

Henry Porter wants the Labour party to support individual freedom, but the British left has always been addicted to the state.

By Jason Walsh