Catherine Deveney: When you really want to understand what is wrong – write
It was not what he said, but the way he said it that interested me.
Catherine Deveney
Catherine Deveney: Showing journalism’s real purpose – holding power, privilege and the wealthy to account
It has been described widely as the PR car crash of the century – Prince Andrew’s out-of-control navigation of the communication highway.
Catherine Deveney: Women MPs’ femininity is invariably part of their aggressor’s problem. Why is that?
In the 1990s there was a kind of cheerful militancy about the unprecedented march of women into parliament.
Catherine Deveney: Lest we forget? I fear we have already
Memories. They swirl for me at this time of year, like fallen leaves.
Catherine Deveney: It’s not migrants who deserve to feel our anger, it’s those who are exploiting them
The mobile phone has changed life in so many ways but one of the most extraordinary is in the ability to communicate during the darkest of moments, as death approaches.
Catherine Deveney: Shamima Begum is only a threat to our democracy if we fail to look after her interests now
Of the many books piled in corners of my house as a child, there was one whose illustrations charmed and delighted me most. She may have died in the 1960s but even today, Mabel Lucie Attwell’s illustrations remain iconic.
Catherine Deveney: Have no doubt that a woman’s place is in the kitchen – the professional one
Oh, you’ve got to laugh. Celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal is causing a stir – see what I did there? – with his wacky views about why women aren’t making it as chefs.
Memories of his late mother drive Harry’s lawsuit just as much as his wife’s experience
The dichotomy of being a writer is that you need enough sensitivity to feel so deeply about the world around you that you want to write about it, and enough steel to tell the truth about it.
Catherine Deveney: Equal justice does not always mean equal punishments as Sally Challen case shows
Years ago, when writing about a high-profile Highland murder, I was shown wedding photographs of the female victim and the husband who was later convicted of killing her.
Catherine Deveney: Giving birth is only the first chapter of the story – not the epilogue
According to my daughter, she became my mother round about the age of 10.
Catherine Deveney: I’d love to take a wee holiday from being a feminist – but there is always too much still to say
Next week, around 400 people will gather in Piccadilly for the midnight launch of The Testaments, Margaret Atwood’s Booker nominated sequel to her dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale.
Catherine Deveney: Bravo to the female athletes who “just did it” to force action on sponsorship deals
The first time I saw the “Run Like a Girl” adverts for Always, I had a lump in my throat.
Catherine Deveney: In successful parenting, genetics is no surrogate for good relationships
For months before my third child was born, my son, then five, was adamant about his preferences.
Catherine Deveney: Addressing homelessness needs a change of heart as much as a change of policy
The girl’s face, I remember, seemed blanched and was framed with straggling waves of dark hair. She was young but her pale skin had the grey pallor of sickliness, her hooded eyes surrounded by dark circles.
Catherine Deveney: In modern America, Liberty’s light shivers precariously in the darkness.
The original copper of the Statue of Liberty is famously green now, tarnished with the vagaries of time, but the lamp of Libertas, of welcome, still supposedly gleaming and lifted to the world.
Catherine Deveney: Sergeant Rees-Mogg of the vocabulary constabulary is on a mission to use words to divide us
I always thought there must be some esoteric purpose to Jacob Rees-Mogg but for the life of me, could never work out what it was.
Catherine Deveney: Feeding prejudice – breast is best and should be celebrated not suppressed
We kept very still as the tiny bird fluttered above our table in the coffee shop courtyard yesterday, periodically swooping to peck up scattered cake crumbs.
Catherine Deveney: We have bequeathed young people plenty to fear – but there are many brave faces among them
What were you doing at 16, the age of Sweden’s teenage climate change activist, Greta Thurberg?
Catherine Deveney: This hideous hierarchy of human value and power must be torn apart and recast
It is always salutary to - metaphorically - walk in another person’s shoes, feel the ways the uppers chafe, or pebbles cut through thinning soles.
Catherine Deveney: Determination is a winning ticket in the lottery of life
My optimistic enthusiasm for lotteries died around the time that I was told my chances of winning were roughly equivalent to my chances of being murdered.
Catherine Deveney: There are bad people and people in bad situations and failing to see the difference is a tragedy
Old photographs are bitter sweet, a captured moment lost forever.
Catherine Deveney: Rejoice at 50 years of the Open University – but the fight to dismantle inequality goes on
Hearing about the egalitarianism of the Open University at a conference on life-long learning last week, the classics teacher of my all-girls convent school sprang to mind.
Catherine Deveney: Stone me, why can’t you see – these toking Tories are blind to injustice and hypocrisy
Given that a side effect of taking cocaine is losing touch with reality, it surely can’t just be Boris Johnson and Michael Gove who have indulged in the Hooray Henry party.
Catherine Deveney: What sort of father does Ivanka Trump see when she peers through the Palace curtains?
This year, my father will have been dead twenty years. I still feel shocked. The original explosion has long gone, but the aftershocks still reverberate through my life.
Catherine Deveney: The hidden treasures of the charity shop are a priceless treat
It is the lure of the serendipitous find that takes me to the charity shop at the end of the lane, an Aladdin's cave of "stuff" that I don't need when I walk in but can't walk out without.
Catherine Deveney: I can’t agree Benjamin’s misogyny is a joke but the law in its current form certainly is
It is always so disconcerting to see a man get on in life when his shoe size is bigger than his IQ.
Catherine Deveney: Harry has his human charms, but forgive me if I don’t bend the knee
If you were ever tempted to think that social class in Britain didn’t matter anymore, one mixed-race royal wedding (Quick! Smelling salts!), and the resulting royal baby, would quickly disabuse you of the notion.
Catherine Deveney: When it comes to big pharma and dementia, something really stinks
The yellow rose arrived from China in the 19th century, a delicate bloom characterised by a subtle scent of black tea.
Catherine Deveney: If you think something smells, make sure it isn’t you
Jeremy Kyle’s Britain is a surreal place to live. A big gladiatorial ring where Emperor Jeremy parades the underbelly of the nation’s great unwashed, dressed in trackies, for some tongue-lashing derision.
Catherine Deveney: It is not just Notre Dame that needs rebuilding, it is the Catholic church itself
There was something about the fact that the Notre Dame fire happened in Holy Week that made it seem all the more portentous; the soaring needle of the cathedral’s spire raging from within with livid flames, before falling through the Parisian sky like a giant firework, while locals gasped and wept below.
We closed the asylums and stopped talking about lunatics – but are we really much better at dealing with mental illness?
Isaac was almost 80 when he died, a tiny figure, wizened like an over-ripe apple.
Mothers and memories: Why this will be a weekend of very mixed emotions
My mother’s ghost whispers to me as I push the supermarket trolley past the Mother’s Day cards - no need for those now - hovers on my shoulder as I rummage for mushrooms in the fruit and veg.