Alan Sillitoe rose from abject poverty to become one of our best novelists. At the age of 80, he is still writing and free from miserable fatalism.

The rapid growth in support at the ballot box for a nationalist party of the right has gone hand in hand with voter cynicism and disillusion with the main parties

Most migrant women, including those in the sex industry, have made a clear decision, says a new study, to leave home and take their chances abroad. They are not "passive victims" in need of "saving" or sending back by western campaigners.

Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry

Laura María Agustín Zed Books, 224pp, £16.99

Observations on postal strike