Leading Articles
Leading article: A major assault on our freedom
Published: 10 December 2005
It is 15 February 2003. One million people or more are pouring on to the streets of London in a last effort to avert the imminent invasion of Iraq. The Prime Minister is addressing the Labour Party's spring conference in Glasgow. Alluding to the huge protest, Mr Blair said this: "I rejoice that we live in a country where peaceful protest is a natural part of our democratic process."
Leading article: From blue to green
Published: 10 December 2005
David Cameron's passionate espousal of the environmental cause may strike some as opportunistic. But whatever his motivation - and it is an issue which he been promoting for some time - it can only be for the good that the Conservative Party is now developing its own ideas on the subject.
Leading article: What's big, red and out of date?
Published: 10 December 2005
London pulled out all the stops to say good-bye to the Routemaster - the distinctive red bus that was such a trademark of the capital. The gods laid on an approximation of a foggy morning; shoppers applauded; enthusiasts jogged alongside.
Leading Article: Once more, the judiciary safeguards our values
Published: 09 December 2005
In delivering their judgment, the law lords said that using any evidence derived from torture was incompatible with British traditions and our international obligation to shun torture "and its fruits".
Leading Article: Rising to an unfamiliar challenge
Published: 09 December 2005
Few would deny that the election of David Cameron as Conservative Party leader has changed the political landscape in Britain. And one group now under pressure is the Liberal Democrat party.
Leading Article: Britain's four decades of progress and imperfection
Published: 08 December 2005
This day, 40 years ago, saw the introduction of the Race Relations Act, which made discrimination on the basis of skin colour or ethnicity illegal in Britain for the first time. Four decades on, we have largely stamped out such obvious injustices, but the debate about race in modern Britain is far from over.
Leading Article: Portrait of the artist as activist
Published: 08 December 2005
It is a matter for great regret that Harold Pinter was not well enough to travel to Stockholm to receive his Nobel Prize in person. Above all, it was sad for Pinter himself who, scourge of the establishment that he is, would surely have relished the distinctive and distinguished public forum the week of the Nobel prize ceremony affords.
Leading article: A mandate for change that must not be squandered
Published: 07 December 2005
Britain has been without a serious party of opposition for the best part of a decade now. David Cameron's election as Tory leader gives us hope that we may, finally, get one back. As Mr Cameron demonstrated in his victory speech, he is eloquent and telegenic and appears to belong to the real world. It is now up to the new leader to extend his appeal to a wider electorate, which will require more than smiling at cameras and being personable in television studios. He must forge the Conservatives into a party fit to govern in the 21st century.
Leading article: Cash reunited
Published: 07 December 2005
Envy is not an attractive trait, so I hope you will dismiss any hint of it when I consider the continuing success of Friends Reunited, bought by ITV yesterday for just the initial £120m. No, we leader writers long ago cheerfully forsook any hopes of material gain, preferring to sacrifice such passing trifles in the cause of proffering disinterested advice and sage counsel untainted by baser instinct.
Leading article: The forfeiting of goodwill
Published: 07 December 2005
If the test of an effective compromise is that all the parties hate it, then Tony Blair is off to a good start with his proposed EU budget agreement. Almost everybody from "old" to "new" Europe has come out to say how completely they reject it.
Leading article: A glimpse of the new political battleground
Published: 06 December 2005
The surreptitious way that the Chancellor of the Exchequer slipped out the bad news in his pre-budget report yesterday was almost comic.
Leading article: Please stop hectoring us
Published: 06 December 2005
Since becoming Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice has been a rare star in a Bush administration that has otherwise stumbled from one mess to another.
Leading article: A bright day for equality
Published: 05 December 2005
This is an historic moment. From today, homosexual couples across Britain will be able to inform their local register offices of their intention to enter into a civil partnership. The first registration ceremonies will follow in just over two weeks. Committed gay and lesbian couples will henceforth have access to the same legal rights as married couples with respect to inheritance tax, pensions and a range of other matters. For the first time, gay relationships will be recognised in the eyes of the law.
Leading article: Kingdom come
Published: 05 December 2005
Is this the equivalent of the "October surprise", that astonishing revelation that always seems to get leaked in the closing stages of American presidential elections? Is this the damaging piece of information, held back until the moment of maximum impact, to scupper a candidate's chances? Probably not. This time almost all of the votes are already in.
Leading article: The road to destruction
Published: 04 December 2005
It is as if we were living on two planets. Here, in the real world, the evidence that global warming is already doing immense damage to the earth is mounting with terrifying speed
Leading article: Keep torturers out of UK airspace
Published: 04 December 2005
Nothing destroyed the moral case for the US war in Vietnam quite so effectively as the complicity of American forces in the use of torture
Leading article: Normal failure resumed. Phew!
Published: 04 December 2005
It is not quite the relief of Mafeking, but it is quite a relief for all that. And relief, in these stressful times, is as much a cause for celebration as the military triumphs of yesteryear. We refer, of course, to the heart-warming performance of the England cricket team. A resolute team effort has restored our faith, not only that night will follow day, but that the batting will collapse just when other outcomes seemed possible. This is reassuring. Not least because it forms part of a pattern of excitements that have calmed.
Leading article: Global warming and the need for all of us to act now to avoid catastrophe
Published: 03 December 2005
Leading article: The business of books
Published: 03 December 2005
Almost anything to do with books - but especially publishing and selling them - raises furious passions. We recall the epic battle over the Net Book Agreement before its eventual demise eight years ago. Cassandras, in the shape of small bookshops, forecast the end of books and book-selling as we knew them. In fact, the opposite happened.
Leading article: Britain and Europe must stand by their principles
Published: 02 December 2005
The British political establishment has been demonstrating a disgracefully equivocal attitude on the subject of torture for some time
Leading article: A teaching method that works
Published: 02 December 2005
Things have reached a pretty pass when something as basic and necessary as learning to read becomes politicised
Leading article: Preparing the ground for unpalatable measures
Published: 01 December 2005
The long anticipated report of Lord Turner of Ecchinswell's Pensions Commission contained no great surprises
Leading article: The beginning of the end
Published: 01 December 2005
Mr Bush's speech on Iraq yesterday was entirely for domestic consumption, an attempt to convince an American public that has plainly turned against the war, that his administration has a strategy to win it
Leading article: Some light is thrown on a shadowy and malign force
Published: 30 November 2005
Colin Powell may have vanished from the scene; not so Lawrence Wilkerson. The man who was chief of staff to the former Secretary of State has now become the most vocal critic of Iraq policy from within the US administration.
Leading article: Drive this idea forward - and fast
Published: 30 November 2005
Anyone who has used Britain's motorways in recent years, or spent time in a city centre at rush hour, will know that traffic congestion is a growing problem in this country
