Leading Articles
Recent Leading Articles
Leading article: The electorate deserves a fairer voting system
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
For all its faults, the alternative vote is a step in the right direction
Leading article: An unjustified and disturbing arrest
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa has a reputation for toughness and decisiveness, and his latest actions only confirm it. By dissolving parliament yesterday, he has cleared the way for early elections, which his Sri Lanka Freedom Party is likely to win handsomely. The move will thus further strengthen his grip on the country after his clear-cut win in the presidential election last month. It is, however, perfectly legitimate.
Leading article: Fruitless
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Better suck in that stomach, because according to a new report by the Food Standards Agency, 10 years of government healthy eating campaigns have had depressingly little effect on what we eat. It turns out that our diets are more or less as unhealthy as they were a decade ago.
Leading article: The first real test of the new strategy in Afghanistan
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
General McChrystal's plan has logic, but success is far from assured
Leading article: The price of a healthier country
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
A diagnosis of cancer is traumatic. Speedy test results, a sympathetic doctor and rapid access to treatment all help to alleviate the anxiety. But one of the most persistent complaints among patients, with cancer and with other long-term conditions, is the ever changing panoply of health care staff. Labour's proposal to introduce dedicated cancer nurse specialists to provide one-to-one care for cancer sufferers at home, announced by Gordon Brown in a speech to the King's Fund yesterday, was instantly dismissed by Liberal Democrat health spokesman, Norman Lamb, as a "desperate, pre-election bribe".
Leading article: Bowled over
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
The Super Bowl has always been the quintessence of modern Americana: the glitz, the hype, the ludicrously expensive commercials, the half-time rock'n'roll and the strange sport which only North Americans take seriously.
Leading article: Diplomacy has not yet run its course with Iran
Monday, 8 February 2010
The world should tread carefully over Tehran's nuclear programme
Leading article: A new force in British banking?
Monday, 8 February 2010
In 2008 a Spanish armada succeeded where the first failed. At the height of the financial crisis, the Spanish banking giant Santander, which already owned Abbey, was strong enough to sail into British waters and snap up the stricken Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley. These opportunistic acquisitions doubled Santander's UK branch network.
Leading article: Island rivals
Monday, 8 February 2010
It is to be the cross of St George versus the Welsh Dragon once again. Fresh from the fierce encounter at Twickenham on Saturday in the Six Nations rugby tournament, England and Wales were drawn yesterday in the same qualifying group for the 2012 European football championships hosted by Poland and Ukraine.
Leading article: Sceptics have their uses
Sunday, 7 February 2010
The climate change sceptics have done us all a favour. This may seem a curious view for a newspaper so committed to the cause of environmental sustainability. But, by challenging the consensus view of global warming, the sceptics have tested the flabbier assumptions of that consensus and forced the proponents of the majority view to sharpen their arguments.
Eurozone faces its most difficult test yet
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Leading article: It is impossible to rule out a panic by investors in which they stop buying Greek debt altogether. That would plunge the country into a downward spiral and possibly even force it out of the eurozone.
Leading article: Parliamentarians on trial
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Hard on the heels of Sir Thomas Legg's final report on MPs' expenses came the announcement from the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, that three MPs and one member of the House of Lords were to be charged under the Theft Act. Cue, fierce objections from the Parliamentarians concerned and – we suspect – a rather unseemly sense of disappointment among the public at large.
Leading article: Football not behaving badly
Saturday, 6 February 2010
If every man who had an extramarital affair were dismissed from his job, Britain might well seize up the very next day. Nor is there any reason why personal morality should loom any larger in the world of football, even the world of the national team. In any collective, though, stability and cohesion must be paramount, which is why Fabio Capello took the decision he did, and why John Terry is no longer England captain.
MPs must not fight reform
Friday, 5 February 2010
Leading article: Most voters would agree with the conclusions of Sir Thomas Legg on expenses.
Leading article: Easing off – but only for now
Friday, 5 February 2010
Does the Bank of England's decision yesterday to end its £200bn quantitative easing programme (printing money in plain language) signal the end of the recession and the return to more normal monetary conditions? Or is it merely a pause?
Leading article: Fat chance
Friday, 5 February 2010
The sumo wrestler Asashoryu has quit the sport after being accused of drunkenly attacking a man outside a Tokyo nightclub. One must assume that Asashoryu is to blame since it would be a brave individual indeed who picked a fight with a sumo, not least one of the most successful wrestlers in the sport's history.
Leading article: A Green Paper that starts to ask the right questions
Thursday, 4 February 2010
Whoever forms the next government, defence will be in the firing line
Leading article: The prospect of a power cut
Thursday, 4 February 2010
When the energy regulator sounds the alarm over the risk of national power failure we should all listen. Yesterday Ofgem released a report warning of "reasonable doubt" over the security and sustainability of Britain's power supplies. It points to a combination of dwindling domestic gas reserves, a reliance on unstable foreign suppliers and a shortage of infrastructure investment. The regulator also reiterated a previous warning that without drastic action to expand supply many homes will soon find energy prices unaffordable.
Leading article: Hole hearted
Thursday, 4 February 2010
There were 4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. But how many are there around the UK's roads today? 1.6 million. And their number has increased by 700,000 in just two years.
Leading article: Two cheers for a little bit more democracy
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
If electoral reform is back on the agenda, that is a positive development
Leading article: Israel must investigate seriously
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
When a United Nations report by the South African judge Richard Goldstone accused the Israeli military of using disproportionate force in its December 2008 Gaza incursion, the Israeli government rejected the findings as "flawed from A to Z", "biased" and "ludicrous".
Leading article: Film festival
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Frank Capra once observed that: "The Oscar is the most valuable, but least expensive, item of world-wide public relations ever invented by any industry." A glance at this year's nominations suggests why the Academy Awards are still as alluring as ever. This year's ceremony will see fantasy extravaganzas such as Avatar and Inglourious Basterds go up against gritty, low-budget jewels like The Hurt Locker and Precious. There's also an animated film, Up, in the best film category. Hollywood's big awards will be a broad church.
Leading article: The political battle over the unkindest cuts
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
David Cameron is right to moderate his party's policy on the deficit
Leading article: An issue of power, not privacy
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
If it had not been for Mr Justice Tugendhat, you would not have been able to read in this newspaper or any other the story of the English football captain's misdeeds with a colleague's partner, let alone the ensuing furore over his right to stay on in the post. But then, of course, you certainly could have – and many would have – heard all about it on the internet and Twitter.
Leading article: Wing and a prayer
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
There are some places which seem destined to be fought over. And Pegasus Bridge is one of them. Since the great battle on 6 June 1944, when 181 men from the Sixth Airborne Division established a crucial bridgehead for the Allied troops which then swept into France, the location has been beset by squabbles between veterans groups and locals over who should be the custodian of the site.
Columnist Comments
• John Rentoul: Touchy-feely catchy voter
Gordon Brown's new willingness to indulge in public soul-baring is part of an elaborate triple bluff
• Editor-At-Large: Children should get to know the food on their plate
One in four kids under the age of 16 thinks that bacon comes from sheep
• Rupert Cornwell: Snow brings out best – and worst – in US
There's not much that American politics can't trivialise – even the worst blizzards for 110 years
Most popular in Opinion
Read
1 Robert Fisk’s World: Arieli is a man with a plan. The trouble is, it's a map of Israel
2 Leading article: Let this operation be the last
3 State of denial: Robert Fisk searches for peace in Israel
4 John Rentoul: Touchy-feely catchy voter
5 Amy Jenkins: Raunch or romance – the choice women have been given
6 Nigel Lawson: A climate change sceptic bites back
7 Joan Smith: McQueen had a sinister view of women's bodies
8 Clive Stafford Smith: A stuffed toy can't stop prisoner abuse, Mr Howells
10 Johann Hari: Obama's secret prisons in Afghanistan endanger us all
Emailed
2 Robert Fisk’s World: Arieli is a man with a plan. The trouble is, it's a map of Israel
3 Joan Smith: McQueen had a sinister view of women's bodies
4 Clive Stafford Smith: A stuffed toy can't stop prisoner abuse, Mr Howells
5 Joan Smith: Amnesty shouldn't support men like Moazzam Begg
6 John Rentoul: Touchy-feely catchy voter
7 Rhiannon Harries: 'OK, you want to prove your love. Just don't say it with toast
8 Rupert Cornwell: Snow brings out the best – and worst – in the US
Commented
1Christian BA worker loses cross appeal
2Alabama professor charged over shooting deaths of three colleagues
3How the RSPCA bites the hand that feeds it
4UK troops engaged in Operation Moshtarak
5Up to 40,000 civilians 'died in Sri Lanka offensive'
6Miliband prepares for post-Brown party
7Legal gloves come off in row over 'torture'
8Labour attacks Tories over 'pro-hunt donation'