Putin's Russia in the dock during Pussy Riot trial

Look to your right in room number seven at Moscow's Khamovnichesky Court and you could be in a family living room. Beige walls, a row of pot plants standing on four window-sills bathed in sunlight. But turn your gaze to the left and an altogether different scene meets the eye: a man in camouflage fatigues holding an Alsatian on a leash, two black-clad men cradling assault rifles and, between them, three well-groomed young women sitting in a glass and steel box. The women, casually dressed, are Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Maria Alekhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29: feminist activists from the group called Pussy Riot, who face up to seven years in jail if convicted for staging a peaceful protest in an Orthodox church. Their trial, which began last week and will continue on Monday, has focused worldwide attention on the growing crackdown in Russia since Vladimir Putin returned to the presidency in May. A raft of repressive laws approved in parliament, the dubious criminal prosecution of a prominent opposition leader and a series of raids on activists' homes have, for many Russians, eclipsed the hopes of democratic progress they indulged during the one-term presidency of Dmitry Medvedev, Mr Putin's predecessor and ally. The fate of the women from Pussy Riot, a group of about 10 members who stage anarchic protests dressed in bright clothes and balaclavas and pay tribute to US punk rockers like Bikini Kill, is emblematic of the crackdown. The trial of the trio - a philosophy student, a journalism graduate and a computer programming graduate - provides a daily dose of drama that sends shock waves through Twitter and other social media, where Russia's opposition movement shares information and draws its strength. The three, who have been in custody for five months, are brought handcuffed each morning to the steel and glass dock, known as "the aquarium", where they sit on a bench, sometimes laughing and chatting. Their alleged crime is "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred". Along with two other members of Pussy Riot who were not detained, they rushed into Moscow's main church, the Christ the Saviour Cathedral, on Feb 21 and shouted a few words as they danced manically, then knelt in front of the iconostasis, the screen bearing religious icons that divides the nave from the sanctuary. This "punk prayer" - embellished with guitar riffs and screeched lyrics, including the line, "Mother of God, drive out Putin!" – was uploaded to YouTube and went viral. In court, church attendants who witnessed the "action" and a similar protest a few days earlier have taken the stand. At one session attended by The Sunday Telegraph, Yelena Zhukova, a janitor in her 50s described how she saw three women in yellow and purple masks dancing wildly beneath three icons to loud music. "It was an insult to Orthodox believers," she said. Pussy Riot's supporters say that at most the women deserve a fine and a telling off. The trio themselves claim they did not intend to upset Christians, but wanted to denounce Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Orthodox Church, for publicly supporting Mr Putin's re-election. "It's all about Putin taking personal offence," said Nikolai Polozov, one of their lawyers. "He ordered this because you can't insult the tsar." Mr Polozov and two colleagues have repeatedly clashed with the presiding judge, Marina Syrova, a stern bespectacled woman whom they view as a tool of the Kremlin. A growing list of international stars such as Sting and the Red Hot Chili Peppers have expressed support for Pussy Riot. Mr Putin was dogged by the controversy on a visit to the London Olympics last week, and was forced to opine that their punishment "shouldn't be too severe." In Moscow, no one is relaxing just yet. On the benches in room number seven, Petr Verzilov, 25, a slender, kinetic figure, mixes with the reporters and western diplomats keeping close tabs on the trial. An artist, Mr Verzilov is Miss Tolokonnikova's husband and the group's unofficial spokesman. The couple's four-year-old daughter, Gera, has been prevented from seeing her mother since she was arrested in March. "Gera thinks it's like a Russian fairy tale: her mother is a princess who has been captured by an evil villain and put in a cage," Mr Verzilov said. "Which, of course, is basically true." "This punk prayer," he added, "was in no way anti-Christian; it was anti-Patriarch Kirill, anti-Putin. But the decision was taken to portray it as some brutal desecration of Russia's most holy place. "So this trial is to show that no loud protest will be tolerated and to divide liberal intellectuals from less-educated people, to make out that it's only the cultural elite against Putin and that true Russians, patriots and believers are for him." Masha Gessen, columnist and author of The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, thinks it was less calculated. "This is a show trial," she said. "All such prosecutions originate from the executive branch. But it's difficult to talk about a strategic decision. Putin is a vengeful person, that's the overriding factor." Political turbulence returned to Russia last winter when tens of thousands of people attended street protests – the largest since the fall of the Soviet Union – over elections rigged in favour of pro-Kremlin parties. In response, Mr Putin made soothing speeches about consolidating society. "I never believed those words," said Ms Gessen. Mr Putin was sworn in on May 7, having easily beaten four weak challengers in an unfair campaign. The one fresh face among them, Mikhail Prokhorov, a billionaire metals tycoon, has since faded from view. Since then the pro-Putin United Russia party has rushed through parliament a raft of harsh new legislation aimed at dampening dissent and chilling civil society: a more than 100-fold increase in fines for unsanctioned protests, new restrictions on foreign-funded non-governmental organisations, limits on the internet and a bill to criminalise libel. The new measures were unveiled just as 12 demonstrators were arrested and detained for public order offences. Armed officers also raided the homes of opposition figures on the eve of a protest in June. Kseniya Sobchak, a celebrity television presenter, was woken in her nightgown, taunted, and had the equivalent of more than £1m in cash removed from her safe. Last week matters escalated as Alexei Navalny, 36, the most popular protest leader, was formally accused of embezzling £320,000 from a state timber firm, a charge that carries a 10-year jail sentence. He describes the accusation as absurd. Also under investigation is Gennady Gudkov, 55, an opposition MP with the Fair Russia party and a prominent organiser of the winter and spring demonstrations. Mr Gudkov says that days after Mr Putin started his third term officials arrived at Oskord, the security company his family owns in Moscow, and warned that its weapons licences, which it had renewed every three months for 20 years, were invalid. At least 1,500 employees lost their jobs as the business was paralysed and clients abandoned it. On Friday, Mr Gudkov says, he was forced to give away most of the business - worth £10m, he estimates - to its managers, after security officers scared off a potential buyer. That came two days after a fresh assault on his reputation: state investigators allege he broke parliamentary rules by hiding profit from a construction project in Bulgaria called English Village, a business he says he never owned. "Our authorities are afraid of the street because it's the only place left where people can take part in politics," said Mr Gudkov, in an interview at his Moscow offices. "They think, 'These scoundrels come out and what's more start shouting 'Sack Putin!' Well, then, draw up a list, and let's have 'em.' "Every protest leader who enjoys some respect on the streets is now becoming a victim of repression. They want to destroy us. Fortunately, there's no torture yet but the way they tailor these cases is like the NKVD in 1937." Mr Gudkov believes the Kremlin's failure to engage may yet lead to disaster. "The dissenting part of society is becoming radicalised. If there's no negotiation process and genuine political concessions it could end in slaughter," he said. Ordinary Russians who spilled on to the streets to join the recent protests are similarly perturbed. Maria Baronova, 28, a chemist, said: "With Putin's return we can see our social institutions crumbling. "The Pussy Riot trial is like the Inquisition; it would look savage even in the most reactionary Islamic state. It's lamentable when repressions like this begin. Who knows what will happen next."

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Facebook has more than 80m 'fake' users

In a quarterly filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Facebook said that about five per cent of its 955 million members have duplicate accounts and around 83 million accounts could be fake.

The news sent shares in Facebook below $20 for the first time, though the price climbed back to $20.04 by the end of trading. The social network floated in May at $38 per share.

Facebook is currently valued at around $58 billion, close to half the $104 billion that it briefly reached on the day shares went on sale.

In its SEC filing Facebook said: "While these numbers are based on what we believe to be reasonable estimates of our user base for the applicable period of measurement, there are inherent challenges in measuring usage of our products across large online and mobile populations around the world."

Facebook estimates that 8.7 per cent of accounts - around 83 million - are fake or duplicate accounts. That means Facebook's fake users outnumber the total users for Instagram, the picture sharing site Facebook bought earlier this year. Instagram has 80 million members.

In March, Facebook said it estimated that up to six per cent of user accounts were fakes or duplicates. The increase has come because Facebook is now also counting mis-classified accounts (2.4 per cent) and undesirable accounts (1.5 per cent) in its total.

Facebook also confirmed that users would be forced to adopt the new Timeline layout for their accounts by next week. The change in design has been voluntary until now.

Users across the site were annoyed about the forced change, which was announced earlier this year and significantly alters the way each member displays their personal information.

One user wrote: “I’m sorry but this is rubbish. I’m surprised Facebook hasn’t included a compulsory DNA profile section (default to public obviously).”

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David Lammy: My fatherless childhood helps me to understand London's rioters

We don’t yet televise courtrooms in Britain, so we know little about the details of the proceedings that brought 2011’s class of rioters to justice. But as the parliamentary session petered out in Westminster last month, I finally had the chance to visit the trial of a rioter at Wood Green Crown Court in north London. In those eerie minutes before the judge came back, the defendant’s barrister and solicitor were deep in conversation. I seized the opportunity to speak to him. He was well dressed for his day in court but his slouched demeanour vanquished any impression that he might be making an effort. He was belligerent. His raspy voice crackled as he desperately tried to come across as brave. I learnt that he was from Bermondsey, had left school with just three GCSEs and had been trying to get work as a labourer. This wasn’t the first time he’d found himself in the dock. I gestured to the empty benches behind him and asked where his family were. There the last piece of this social jigsaw fell into place: he lived alone, he rarely sees his mother and his father left home years ago.

By then, the clerk had taken his seat and was politely gesturing to me that the judge’s arrival was imminent. I turned back to the defendant and, without really thinking, wished him luck. Moments later, the doors at the other end of the court swung open. The court-weary barrister rose while the defendant had sprung up. The aggression on show just seconds earlier had vanished. His already pale skin had now turned a sickly, milky white. He was being tried for affray and for assaulting a police officer last August during the five tumultuous days of unbridled nihilism and hedonism that shocked our nation. If found guilty, he faced spending the next two years of his life in prison.

The defendant’s involvement in the riots was his own moral choice and he was rightly being held to account that day. I had been shocked by the cruelty and calculation displayed by the rioters, and chilled by the obvious enjoyment on the faces of those caught on the police footage I’d seen. One only has to meet the victims of the riots – the shopkeepers who lost livelihoods, the officers who put their lives at risk – to understand the importance of a punishment that fits the crime. But what was also painfully clear about this young man was how the circumstances of his life had been shaped by the choices of others. A succession of schools and referral units had failed him. Successive governments have failed to tame surging levels of youth unemployment that condemned thousands like him to the scrap heap the minute they left the school gate. An unreformed and underfunded criminal justice system failed on several occasions to modify his behaviour. Perhaps the most important choice of all, though, was the one made by his father to walk out of his life. Standing in court that day was a boy trapped in an adult’s body – no one had taught him how to be a man.

Today, one in four children is brought up by a single parent, compared with one in 14 in 1972, the year I was born. Overwhelmingly, it is the father who is absent. Many single mothers do a heroic job looking after their families, as mine did with her five children growing up in the shadow of the Broadwater Farm Estate in Tottenham; but as she found, it becomes twice as hard to set boundaries with half the number of parents.

My father was a taxidermist, not a run-of-the-mill profession for a West Indian immigrant. Having given up on becoming a vet, he settled for working with dead animals rather than live ones. Dad was a true craftsman, an artist. At his workshop in north Tottenham, wooden cupboards filled with meticulously catalogued animal parts and tanning oils sat beside a safari of finished figurines. I remember watching his hands bring this menagerie to life, and his broad, bright-white-toothed smile when customers walked out wearing satisfied expressions.

But as the Eighties loomed, the recession meant there was less money in those customers’ pockets. With a new agenda of animal rights, wildlife protection and licensing and export controls, Dad struggled to make a living. He started drinking heavily. As his business lost its way, so did he.

My most enduring memory was of being pulled towards him as we stood on platform five at King’s Cross station. Just two years earlier, on the very same platform, he had told me how proud he was of me for having won a choral scholarship to boarding school in Peterborough. This time was different. Hugging me close, he whispered, “Take care of Mum, OK?” He was leaving the next day for the United States. Aged 12, I was returning to school. For my father, America held out the promise of a fresh start. He had always been someone I looked up to when he lived with us. He became unimaginably more important the day he left.

Mum worked non-stop, doing two, sometimes three jobs, throughout the Eighties. As commentators and politicians lambasted the assumed moral failings of single mothers, I came to appreciate the voices who wanted to stand up for people such as my mother – smart, dedicated and deserted by her husband. That defence came overwhelmingly from liberals, in the Labour Party and elsewhere, who realised that these women were performing heroics and needed help, not insults. The danger now, however, is that those same liberals who fought so hard for single mothers now give the impression that fatherlessness does not matter at all. They insist that it is the quality of parenting that matters, that the loss of a father matters only if it means a loss of income.

That’s not how I remember it. Although I made friends and found kind and generous teachers, there were many moments when I struggled to cope with what felt like a betrayal by my father. My initial anxieties were predictable: when the first hint of stubble appeared on my face, who would teach me to shave? More problematic was what was going on back in Tottenham. I was 13 in 1985 when Broadwater Farm erupted and PC Keith Blakelock was savagely murdered by a mob. My greatest fear growing up was that I would end up in prison. I would exchange stories with black friends who had been turned down for jobs because of their skin colour or postcode. The anger, the sense of injustice and the temptation to lash out would grow – and I missed out on having a father who would set me straight. My mother fought desperately to hold her family together, reaching deep into a formative black cultural experience that relied heavily on faith and self-help. My siblings and I would be at church on a Sunday whether we liked it or not. Mum believed in God but, like many folk in Tottenham, she also took solace in the sense of fellowship surrounding our church.

Growing up without a father didn’t mean I had to lower my sights. It just meant that I had to work harder so that his choice didn’t define my life. I was lucky. I had an older brother who looked after me. Teachers, priests and youth workers all helped fill the great father-shaped hole in my life. The choir – as corny as it sounds – provided me with a diversionary activity that gave me a goal: to fulfil my mother’s wish for me to be the “black Aled Jones”. It also taught me the pursuit of excellence and the hard work necessary that set me on course for university and Harvard Law School.

But since my youth, many of the social structures that provide boundaries and direction for teenagers have disappeared. Our neighbourhoods have become more atomised – we are less likely to know our neighbours or live near our relatives. Churches have less reach into communities than they once did. As for schools, one in four primaries has no male teacher (and 80 per cent have fewer than three male teachers), meaning children with absent fathers can go many years without sustained interaction with a male in work.

Meanwhile, the subversive forces that make easy prey of impressionable teenagers are as strong as ever. They are buttressed by a consumer culture where identity and self-esteem can be purchased (or looted, as we saw a year ago) from your local Foot Locker and, in the worst instances, a gang culture which dictates that power and respect can be won through being feared. For boys with little else to teach them how to express their masculinity, the result can be toxic.

Nine in 10 of the August rioters were male. It is time for masculinity to be looked at seriously: how many of those male rioters would have benefited from learning about what it means to be a man from someone they can sit down and talk to, rather than from rap music and video games?

The state cannot replace a father. Fatherhood cannot be nationalised or mutualised, nor can it be outsourced to G4S. What government can do is reinforce the responsibilities of fathers from birth. Making it standard practice to register the names of fathers on birth certificates would be a good place to start. Currently, 45,000 children every year do not have their father’s name on the register. When parents are unmarried, the mother’s name is placed on the certificate but a father’s name is recorded only if the mother agrees to it.

To ensure that men stay involved in their children’s lives we must ensure that fathers have the same access to services and parental leave that mothers have. Parental leave is still too skewed towards mothers. It means that women are often discriminated against by employers nervous that they may have children, while men go back to work having spent barely a couple of weeks with their children. Couple this with low wages and the culture of long hours in Britain, and even those fathers who want to do the right thing can become strangers to their children. We need to value the father-child bond more than this.

If a relationship is stable, having two parents living under the same roof is an advantage for a child. But what also matters is whether fathers continue to play a role in their children’s lives when relationships between parents break down. At the most basic level this means paying their way. The Government’s plans for the Child Support Agency to charge commission on every maintenance payment that is made or received is an error that must be reversed. Much better would be for fathers to register their National Insurance numbers as well as names on birth certificates so the money could be taken at source.

Beyond these questions of maintenance are the relationships that cannot be so easily replaced without a concerted effort. The Government’s “Big Society” initiative is woefully lacking in substance, but increasing the presence of positive male role models in our inner cities would be a good place to start.

Our vision of philanthropy has to be broadened out from just the chequebook – it is time that our boys need. City firms send armies of successful adult men to schools to paint fences and tend to gardens as part of their corporate social responsibility initiatives, so why not bring them into the classroom? Countless benefits would come from inner-city boys meeting and building a relationship with successful men not much older than themselves as part of a mentoring programme.

Maybe none of this would have helped the young man I spoke to in court that day – perhaps he would have made the same choices had a father been around for him to learn from as he grew up. But unless you have lost a father from your life, it is difficult to comprehend the void this can leave – and the risk that darker elements of modern culture can easily fill it. For too long we have let fathers become absent, disengaged and disempowered when it comes to their children’s lives. The riots that took place a year ago were a wake-up call – we must act before a culture of violence robs more young men of their future.

My own father never found a way to be part of my day-to-day life again. Only when I became an MP in 2000 did we speak briefly on the phone. I’d tracked him down to Texas. I’d learnt he was poor and drinking heavily, but I savoured his words: “I knew you’d do it; I knew you’d do it.” Three years later, he suddenly fell seriously ill. I went back and forth over whether I should visit him in his last months. I wasn’t ready to open the Pandora’s box I’d kept closed for 18 years. A few months later he died.

It wasn’t until 18 months had passed that I felt ready. On a visit to the States, I decided to head to my father’s grave. A vast plain, the cemetery backed on to a teeming freeway. At one end was a gas station; at the other a tawdry hardware store. Endless tombstones lay higgledy-piggledy across the expanse. I struggled for about half an hour to find Dad’s grave. All that differentiated it from a mound of dirt was a small plaque marked “No. 224313”. Dad had died a pauper, penniless and broken. Tears welled in my eyes but I was unable to cry, unable to realise any attachment to the moment. What’s in a life, I thought, staring at the dusty grass beneath my feet. I knelt down and whispered, “I forgive you.” What more could I say?

In a daze, I wandered to the nearby gas station and bought some plastic flowers. I plonked them in the ground in front of my father’s plot. It was nothing much, but it was some sort of marker – not just for my father, but also for me. I had long before decided there was no point in bearing a grudge against my dad.

I like to think of him not as an inherently bad man, but as someone who lost his confidence, his self-respect and his way. He is a constant reminder to me of the sad spiral of destruction that can occur when a man loses sight of his purpose in life, and the fallout borne by the family he leaves behind.

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British success at the Olympics is a nightmare for Alex Salmond and the SNP

Sitting here looking out at a magnificent view over Loch Fyne, with the sun breaking through the clouds and the prospect of some local produce for dinner, I am reminded just how glorious Scotland in its element can be. I'm here for a lightning visit to my homeland for a family wedding taking place just across the Loch, near one of of my favourite spots in Scotland.

But love Scotland as I do, it is Britain I'm cheering on. Olympic cycling is showing on television and the excited commentary is booming in the background. In the velodrome, more of our magnificent athletes are banishing memories of the petulant prima-donnas who dominate Premier League football.

One of the most powerful and pleasing images of the last week has been the omnipresence of the Union flag. Winners have wrapped themselves in it and spectators have waved it proudly. For those of us who want the United Kingdom to survive the SNP's wrecking crew, this is a great sight.

I'm equally British and Scottish. Like many Scots I am  comfortable with the concept of dual identity. On both sides of the border there are people who have a problem with this. There are some English people who are angry at the way in which devolution has skewed the constitution in favour of the UK's smaller nations and are resentful about the unbelievably boring and self-indulgent whinging from some of my countrymen. A few discontented English readers may even choose to leave comments below this post: "Stay in Scotland", "I hope it rains at the wedding", "you subsidy junkie Jocko socialist scumbag". Jocular, friendly comments like that.

Not all Nationalists in Scotland are consumed with a hatred of Britain, but quite a few are. Alex Salmond himself protests that he likes England and its culture. I've always believed that he is entirely sincere in that regard. But Britishness as opposed to Englishness is a definite difficulty for Salmond, despite all the efforts made by the SNP's spindoctors in recent years to soften the party's image and suggest that after independence the so-called "social union", with its cultural and family ties, would survive. Salmond gets on with the Queen; they exchange horse-racing gossip and tips.

What is happening at the Olympics is a nightmare for Alex Salmond and the SNP. Britain is doing well; its athletes are charging up the medal table. As Alan Cochrane has already noted, the First Minister's attempts to hail the "Scolympians" (the Scots in British team) were embarrassing. As the week has gone on the Nats have started to mention "Team GB" by name, presumably realising that continuing to pretend that Team GB does not exist risked making the SNP look completely ridiculous.

Of course this is mainly about sport. A successful British showing at the Olympics doesn't automatically mean that the Unionists will win an independence referendum in 2014 (that's if Salmond holds a vote, which he may well try to find an excuse not to). But the contrast between Nationalist peevishness and the generous, optimistic, outward-looking spirit of the British effort at London 2012 will boost Unionist morale and add to the sense that the game is drifting away from Salmond.

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Women's judo: it's disturbing to watch these girls beat each other up

Watching Gemma Gibbons gaining Britain’s first judo medal in 12 years, I found myself wondering: is women fighting each other violently a perfectly wholesome spectator sport? This wasn't a bit of pretend wrestling. Gemma and her American opponent, Kayla Harrison, were properly grappling with each other, throwing each other with full force onto the mat. They both showed pure, naked, fierce, animalistic aggression of a sort that one doesn't naturally associate with women – or girls for that matter. Quite honestly my initial reaction was one of shock. I felt rather as I would if I'd bumped into two drunken women bashing ten bells out of each other outside a Yates Wine Lodge on a Friday night – a bit unsettled. The photographs of the judo women will be all over the papers tomorrow, because they're dramatic and sensational.

With those judo contestants – and I realise this will probably sound appallingly sexist – I couldn't help wondering about their soft limbs battered black and blue with bruises. Would it bother me to see one of my own daughters savagely attacking another woman on a judo mat for people's entertainment? I'm really not sure. Possibly. On the other hand I might be proud of her skill. I know full well that, as a bloke, it's none of my business, but it's what I thought and felt. After a few minutes I'd got used to it. But, then, you can get used to anything, can't you?

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English history was so much more fun when we were ruled by psychopaths

It's been a fantastic year for fans of the Middle Ages. What with the Hollow Crown series and an excellent season of Shakespeare at the Globe, medieval English history has never been more popular.

No wonder: this is a period rich in personality, and especially the dynamics of family, an aspect of history that has been sucked out of the subject in schools. I recently read Dan Jones's fantastic The Plantagenets, a thrilling account of the family that ruled England for so many years, rather like, as medieval kings were, warlords or crime bosses. The review can be found here.

The story begins with the White Ship tragedy of 1120 and ends with the overthrow of Richard II in 1399, although the age of the Plantagenets traditionally closes with Richard III a century later, and the name would not be used until the 15th century. 

The story begins with Henry I (1100-1135), whose reign was overshadowed by the death of his only son William in the tragedy, and who himself died 15 years later – his corpse, according to Henry of Huntingdon, with such a "strong pervasive stench, which was already causing the deaths of those who watched over it. It even killed the man who had had been hired for a great fee to cut off the head with an axe and extract the stinking brain, although he had wrapped his face in linen cloths."

Henry’s death would lead to the Anarchy, a civil war between his daughter and nephew, which would end with the succession of Henry’s grandson Henry II, whose father Geoffrey of Anjou wore on his lapel a small sprig – a planta genista – earning himself and his line a nickname. Henry was a forceful and powerful individual who helped revolutionise law – it was during his reign that the jury system was introduced – for which he was rewarded in 2002 by being voted 90th greatest ever Briton, three places below the lead singer of the Sex Pistols and four below Bono (who, like Henry, isn't British).

His reign was dominated by the conflict with the Church, which was resolved in the latter’s favour when some hungover knights took Henry’s rages literally and confronted Archbishop Thomas Beckett, and a row developed that had got slightly out of hand by the time one of the knights had lobbed off the archbishop's head. (Beckett became a martyr, and Canterbury a tourist trap.)

This conflict, though a central political issue for centuries, was far less hateful than Henry's fights with his four surviving sons, the most famous of whom was his eventual successor Richard II, celebrated solely (although justifiably) because of his incredible ability to inflict violence. The Lionheart spent many years on crusade and endured and saw torture, terror, siege machines, burnings, starving soldiers, trench diggers working to death and pestilential air. Richard loved it, but his escapades bankrupted the country and he died of infection after showing off while besieging a castle in southern France.

He was succeeded by his brother John, whose reign was marked by miserable failure, and who would die somewhere in the Wash, worn out by a war with his own barons. Unlike the duplicitous, impious John, his son Henry III (1216-1272) was a religious fanatic, draining the treasury with architectural projects, art and jewels, his personal chambers decked out in religious icons of pure gold. On a trip to Paris in 1258 Henry stopped at every church he found in order to hear Mass, and was taking so long that King Louis ordered the closure of all the churches on the route.

But, short of money, Henry had begun to meet the great subjects in order to ask them for cash, and they began to ask for things in return. The meetings got a formal name of "parliament" in 1236. But conflicts over power would lead to a Second Barons' War, and the Provisions of Oxford, a constitutional change almost as important as the Magna Carta that had been conceded by Henry's father.

The second war would only end when Henry’s son Edward, named after Edward the Confessor, with whom he had an obsession, came of age. The Lord Edward defeated the barons with the help of, among others, a female transvestite spy called Margoth, although rebellion continued for many years; such was the paranoia that in 1267 the Sheriff of Essex was accused of having plotted to released flying cockerels carrying incendiary bombs over London. (I’m not even sure we could manage that today.)

Edward I, as he became in 1272, was perhaps the most terrifying of all the Plantagenets, launching wars on both Wales and Scotland and having the Welsh leader Dafydd ap Gruffydd hanged, although before he was dead he got to see his intestines slashed from his body and burned in front of him. His body was then hacked in four and sent to various English cities, and his head was put on spike at Tower of London. A liberal Edward was not.

But then these were violent times, and became more so during the reign of weak kings. Edward's surviving son Edward II was one such man. According to Walter of Guisborough, Edward I once said to his son: “You bastard son of a bitch! As the Lord lives, were it not for fear of breaking up the kingdom, you should never enjoy your inheritance.”

As it was, almost all the leading figures of the kingdom were to die violently in the next 20 years, as well as many humble subjects, such as a lunatic called John Powderham, who turned up at court from Exeter claiming to be the rightful son of Edward I. Although the king thought of keeping him as a fool, such was the public discontent with the monarch that people began to believe this outlandish tale. So the king hanged him, but during his trial Powderham claimed his pet cat was possessed and so incited him. So they hanged the cat too.

Edward’s problem was that he spent too much time with his favourite, Piers Gaveston, and the creation of Stonewall being some time away at this point, this did not impress many of his subjects, not the least his new queen, especially when Edward gave the best of the Queen’s jewels and wedding presents to his “minion”.

Gaveston was murdered in 1312, as was the king’s other favourite, Hugh Despenser, whose genitals, intestines and heart were thrown into the fire while his neck from a nose, the crowd whooping as his head was finally cut off. The reign ended in 1327 with the king deposed by his wife and her lover, and eventually murdered, although not, Jones says, with a poker in the anus. That was a later fabrication.

His son, Edward III, is rated as the peak of medieval kingship, although to modern sensibilities his main achievement seems to have been to wreck half of France in an unprovoked war of aggression started on spurious grounds, bankrupting England in the meantime. The war started, according to one account, because Robert of Artois brought to the banquet a roast heron, known as the most cowardly of birds. According to a contemporary account Robert said: “I believe I have caught the most cowardly bird. When it sees its shadow it is terrified. It cries out and screams as if being put to death… it is my intention to give the heron to the most cowardly one who lives or has ever lived: That is Edward III, disinherited of the noble land of France for which he was the rightful heir; but his heart fails him and because of his cowardice he will die without it.”

Edward’s response in the poem is to swear an oath to “cross the sea, my subjects with me… set the country ablaze and… await my mortal enemy, Philip of Valois, who wear the fleur-de-lis… I renounce him, you can be sure of that, for I will make war on him by word and deed.”

All of which makes Edward sound incredibly dim.

The war was marked by some fantastic English victories, at Sluys, Crécy and Poitiers, and the king was a military genius, but it took its toll on the economy, as the king raised tax after tax. However his reputation was cemented by his creation of the Order of the Garter, which according to Jones began as a sort of old lads joke, Edward and his old companions, now in their late 30s, paying tribute to their early years (a garter being an intimate female item of clothing). The banter levels must have been very high.

The story ends with Richard II, the first king to be called "Your Majesty" in the new French style (previously it was "My Lord") but also “most high and puissant prince” and “your high royal majesty”. In many ways he resembled a mad dictator from the 20th century, characterised by extreme paranoia, delusions of God-like grandure, and unpredictability.

As Jones writes: “On solemn occasions when, by custom, he performed kingly rituals, he would order a throne to be prepared for him in his chamber on which he liked to sit ostentatiously from after dinner until vespers, talking to no one but watching everyone; and when his eye fell on anyone regardless of rank, that person had to bend his knee towards the king”. Must have been fun.

His paranoia and irrationality would grow worse after his wife’s death, and he would make the fatal error of having his cousin Henry of Bolingbroke unfairly exiled. Richard, though a monster, ends as a poignant figure, the wheels of fate turning dramatically for him, imprisoned and surely aware that the new king will not allow him to live.

It’s a wonderfully told book, and like all good history reads almost like fiction, although of course these formative years of England’s history have been passed down to us by the greatest storyteller of all. Which is why we'll always want to sit down and tell sad stories of the death of kings.

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When Muslim parents kill a beautiful 17-year-old out of religious conviction, I feel intolerant

Shafilea Ahmed's parents have been found guilty of her murder. The beautiful 17-year-old Cheshire schoolgirl was killed by her own mother and father in a brutal honour killing they kept hidden for nine years.

Even though I'd suspected, like everyone else who's been following the tragic case, that Iftikhar Ahmed and his wife Farzana were responsible for their daughter's murder, I'm desperately sad. Can religion really lead a mother and father to kill their own child? It is clear that in the Ahmeds' case, this was so: Alesha, the victim's surviving sister, testified in court that her parents openly acknowledged that they must do away with the rebellious teenager. She had adopted "western ways" , and brought shame on their family.

It is a terrible tragedy – even more so because although the Home Office statistics claim that there are 12 honour killings a year in Britain, the truth is far more alarming. As Ann Cryer, the former Keighley MP who campaigned tirelessly against honour killings and arranged marriages pointed out to me when I was researching faith schools, teachers in predominantly Muslim areas complain regularly of  "disappearances".

Once a Muslim girl hits puberty, the most conservative parents will pluck her out of school where she risks contamination from western peers, and if she is lucky they continue her lessons at home. If she is unlucky, they send her back to Pakistan, in an arranged marriage usually to a much older man. I see this as a very strong argument in favour of more Muslim faith schools: only when they feel their daughters are in a safe Muslim school will parents allow them to continue their education past puberty.

But it is also a very serious indictment of an intolerant immigrant culture. When Muslim parents hate their host culture so much that they will kill a child who seems to embrace it, then they are guilty of intolerance – the kind that non-Muslims are wary of showing, lest they be branded racist, or bigoted. A tragedy like Shafilea's makes me feel intolerant.

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