Six cultural events to check out in April

From April new fathers will be entitled to take up to six months’ paternity leave. The coalition’s family-friendly rhetoric is appealing, but how many men will actually take more time off?

Ed Miliband’s slow start as Labour leader was clever. Now he needs to speak, writes Roy Hattersley

The Tories will have to go back to setting targets, as Blair did. This gives Ed Miliband a chance to redraw the battleground

A new People's Republic established in Bristol, social democracy in America and taboos broken in Germany

As Mandelson publishes his take on Labour’s election loss, what effect are these snap memoirs having on the political system?

Free museums, GPs in charge, and Simone de Beauvoir's bottom

Liberal over-reaction makes it harder to have a rational debate about the database state