Attacking our top universities for being elitist solves absolutely nothing

I do not usually speak or write about my days as a student at Cambridge university. For one thing, it all feels like a lifetime ago.

For another, I’m not likely to be the one who brings it up in conversation. People’s reactions to it make me feel awkward.

But there is a third reason: attendance at a top university is, perversely, becoming an increasingly maligned achievement, with the fine universities of Oxford and Cambridge, together with London’s finest universities and a handful of other Russell Group names frequently being blasted for elitism. Oxbridge gets it worst of all.

Social networking sites can't shoulder the responsibility for our kids' mental health

Social media companies have become the latest target of public hand-wringing, even prompting Instagram’s head to agree to meet the health secretary, signalling a greater willingness to engage than the platform’s owner Facebook has ever shown before to talk with politicians. Probably a smart move if your company’s products are to be scapegoated for all the ills of our young people.

A revenge porn crackdown is welcome, though it's founded on outdated ideas

New sentencing guidelines will call for jail sentences of up to 2 years for those who send ‘revenge porn’ images to victims’ families, today's Telegraph reports. IT signals a very clear message that this crime, which became a specific offence only in April 2015, will be taken very seriously and is a serious matter.

I'm a thoroughly modern brand of old-fashioned

Originally written for, and published on Dear Cupid – the free advice site.

I was particularly amused by a recent comment about my views. I was described as living in “the 1950s,” which I found highly amusing. But when I’d had my chuckle, I got to thinking: what would it be like to be stuck in the 50s? How does the experience of my generation compare to that of my grandparents’? Have things got better or worse, easier or harder?

Letter on Sunday: learning from an adulterous woman

This Sunday’s readings are:
Isaiah 43:16-21, Philippians 3:8-14, and the Gospel of John 8:1-11.

Dear Reader,
We all know the story in today's reading from John's gospel, of the woman caught committing adultery, in which Jesus invites whoever is without the first sin to cast the first stone, thereby setting the condemned woman free.