Comment - Columnists - Minette Marin en-uk Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:37:29 GMT Copyright 2007 Times Newspapers Ltd. custserv@timesonline.co.uk http://www.timesonline.co.uk Sat, 11 Jul 2009 01:33:43 GMT Newspapers Comment - Columnists - Minette Marin 144 21 http://www.timesonline.co.uk http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,116979,00.gif Baby or career: young women cannot have it both ways Minette Marrin Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT 2009-06-20T09:59:11Z The idea that we can plan our lives is fairly new and very western. For thousands of years people assumed that their destinies were not in their own hands, but in the unpredictable grasp of gods or demons or chance or family history or destiny. Man proposes but God (or something ineffable) disposes – that was how everybody thought. A tax on junk food will help offset those looming NHS cuts Minette Marrin Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT 2009-06-13T10:16:11Z Debt means cuts. There is no way around this obvious fact of life. If you have run up serious debt on jam yesterday, there will be no jam today nor any jam tomorrow, for many tomorrows to come. You will have to spend more of your income on debt and less (if any at all) on jam. Vast public debt such as ours means huge public-services cuts. Sadistic Sonnex is the face of Labour’s greatest disgrace Minette Marrin Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT 2009-06-06T10:19:09Z When punishment comes - such is the arbitrary nature of things - it is often for the wrong offence. Gordon Brown and new Labour are being most terribly punished at the moment, but not for the crimes of omission and commission of which they are most guilty. No privacy and no power – there’s no way I’d be an MP Minette Marrin Sun, 31 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT 2009-05-30T08:27:12Z On the day of her well-deserved downfall last week, the MP Julie Kirkbride published an article attempting to explain herself and her expenses. It reminded me of Cherie Blair’s unfortunate comment to the cameras, when tearfully apologising for the episode of the Bristol flats and the conman, saying she had too many mumsy balls in the air to get everything right. One TV channel and three radio stations, that’s all the BBC needs Minette Marrin Sun, 24 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT 2009-05-23T10:59:46Z Few things in life are simple. That’s partly because humans are not just problem-solving but also problem-seeking creatures. We seem to be driven to make mountains out of molehills. However, there is one thing in our national life that is extremely simple, and that is what to do about the BBC.