Roy Hattersley ends opposition to proportional representation

Former Labour deputy leader backtracks on decades of political debate and calls for proportional representation

Historian Niall Ferguson warns of debt calamity threatening the west

Britain at risk of going bust, says the Harvard professor who scorns economists

Hay festival: Division between sciences and arts puts planet in peril, warns Richard Holmes

Biographer Richard Holmes has urged scientists and artists to work together in the face of global warming, speaking at the Hay festival today

Hay with a Welsh flavour

Hay festival: Simon Jenkins: Hay is half in Wales, but the local presence at the festival has seemed token until now. How about a Welsh day?

Britain failing to make Bashir’s arrest a priority, says ICC’s chief prosecutor

Luis Moreno-Campo singles out UK for criticism in failing to take tough line against Sudan

Liberal guilt that hurts Africa

Martin Kettle: Hay festival: Dambisa Moyo is the darling of the old right for her belief in stopping aid to Africa – but she is asking the right questions

UK children to name Maldives coral reef

Competition is part of campaign to draw attention to dangers posed by human activity to ocean ecosystems

Art of the state

John Vidal: Hay festival: Mexico's man in Paris is a poet, novelist, and pioneering green activist. Maybe we need our own artist-ambassadors too

Archbishop Desmond Tutu: The secrets of a peacemaker

Desmond Tutu is renowned as the voice of conscience, a scourge of the unjust - but, he confides to Gary Younge, it's a put on. The real Tutu is rather different

Heathrow third runway a mistake, says Lord Stern

Government adviser on economics of climate change suggests debate on the issue had been immature

Hay festival: The Wire and Greek tragedy

Charlotte Higgins: Powerless characters locked in destinies they can't escape - there are plenty of parallels between Baltimore and ancient Greece

The little town taking a leaf out of Hay’s book

As Britain's biggest literary festival kicks off in Wales, Stephen McClarence visits Sedbergh, which is busy reinventing itself as England's official Book Town