Leading Articles
Leading article: The cracks behind this facade of unity
Published: 29 September 2006
On the face of it, Labour's five days in Manchester will go down in the annals as a successful conference. The delegates dispersed yesterday in better heart than when they assembled. The Chancellor delivered a decent speech that did nothing to damage his prospects of succeeding Tony Blair. The Prime Minister gave a scintillating performance, setting in train his long goodbye while still at the top of his game. And John Prescott's "Sorry" at the start of his closing address was capped only by his footnote that this would be his last conference in his present capacity, too.
Leading article: A need to tread carefully
Published: 29 September 2006
The President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, finds himself under an unprecedented degree of scrutiny. He stands accused by the President of neighbouring Afghanistan of turning a blind eye while his security services aid the Taliban, and of ignoring the fact that many Pakistani clerics preach violent extremism. Similar charges are contained in a leaked report prepared for our own Ministry of Defence. There are also growing suspicions in the West that the locations of Osama bin Laden and other al-Qai'da leaders are being kept secret by the Pakistani authorities. Some are beginning to argue that, far from being a key ally of the West in the Muslim world, Pakistan is actually the fountainhead of Islamist extremism.
Leading article: Let the praise wait until real progress has been made
Published: 28 September 2006
No Labour conference these days seems complete without a distinguished guest speaker from abroad delivering a rousing speech
Leading article: Mr Ahern must practise what he preached
Published: 28 September 2006
In some ways, the careers of Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern display an unusual symmetry
Leading article: A tour de force from a leader with awkward months ahead
Published: 27 September 2006
Tony Blair's final conference speech as Labour's leader was a memorable tour de force delivered in the most extraordinary circumstances
Leading article: Enlargement: the latest, but not the last enlargement
Published: 27 September 2006
Bulgaria and Romania will be admitted as full members of the European Union in January, the European Commission announced yesterday
Leading article: Currying flavour
Published: 27 September 2006
Mushrooms, so it is said, were so prized in ancient Egypt they were reserved for the pharaohs and their families. They've had their ups and downs since, but the current British mushroom renaissance is surely one of the more impressive in fungal history. Pop into any supermarket or, better still, farmers' market, and the variety and spectacle of the specimens on display will not fail to delight. (We will leave at the side of our plate for these purposes the mind-altering varieties).
Leading article: Mr Brown submits his application for No 10
Published: 26 September 2006
Gordon Brown's speech to the Labour Party conference was not, despite all the advance billing, the speech of his life: it was nothing like the prime-ministerial tour de force he had delivered the year before
Leading article: The murderous fruits of neglect
Published: 26 September 2006
Safia Amajan was attempting to build a new, civilised Afghanistan as the director of the Ministry of Women's Affairs in Kandahar
Leading article: The political theatre transfers to Manchester
Published: 25 September 2006
Step back from the destructively febrile atmosphere of recent weeks and Labour should be staging the party's annual conference in reasonably good shape
Leading article: Union of unequals
Published: 25 September 2006
If all goes well, on 1 January Romania and Bulgaria will become the twenty fifth and twenty sixth members of the European Union, sooner than expected
Leading article: No! Sushi
Published: 25 September 2006
Hold those chopsticks! Put the soy sauce down. Move away from the sushi bar. For while you may think that your sushi lunch is just another toothsome example of modern Britain's culinary cultural revolution, others might well see you as an enemy of the planet.
Leading article: The tipping point
Published: 24 September 2006
Maybe, just maybe, we are about to reach the most crucial tipping point in the fight against global warming. Not the scientific one, where climate change escalates irreversibly out of control; with luck, we have some 10 years in which to avoid that, though - as Sir Richard Branson points out on page 13 today - we should all pray that we have not passed it already. But the political one where, at long last, the world wakes up to the unprecedented dangers we face and belatedly begins to take action.
Leading article: Ill-conceived adventures abroad that cost governments dear at home
Published: 23 September 2006
Leading article: Juvenile crime and punishment
Published: 23 September 2006
You can tell a lot about a society by the way it treats its children. In England and Wales the law says that a child is not capable of committing a criminal offence until they reach the age of 10. Before Labour came to power in 1997, there was a long-established legal presumption that a child under the age of 14 did not know the difference between right and wrong. This kept the prosecution of young people within sensible bounds, because a court had to be satisfied that it was in the interests of justice to convict the child.
Leading article: Freedom for the fries
Published: 23 September 2006
Having fully supported Jamie Oliver and his campaign to improve the school dinner, it is with great sadness that we must now sound a note of caution, doubt even. Not with the campaign itself. Who could doubt the efficacy of something that would have our little darlings tucking into green vegetables and fresh fruit in place of buns and fizzy drinks.
Leading article: A party learns to respect, if not love, its leader
Published: 22 September 2006
This was a good week for the Liberal Democrats; a better week, we venture to suggest, than either the leaders or delegates probably expected
Leading article: Money alone will not reduce truancy
Published: 22 September 2006
Truancy figures published yesterday show a rise in the rate of unauthorised absences, even though the Government has thrown more than £1bn at the problem
Leading article: Give women their rights - and raise a continent
Published: 21 September 2006
What's black and white and (RED) all over? We live in a world of increasing sophistication and interconnectedness in which the issues of international politics can seem dauntingly complex
Leading article: Damaging proof of instability
Published: 21 September 2006
The deposed Prime Minister of Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra, arrived in London last night, the latest in a long line of enforced exiles to find at least a temporary haven in Britain
Leading article: A rude shock for a nation resting on its laurels
Published: 20 September 2006
Until approximately 48 hours ago, we had been accustomed to regarding Hungary as a well-organised small country with an exotic language, neatly tucked away in central Europe
Leading article: Better weather in Brighton
Published: 20 September 2006
The Liberal Democrats have not had a great deal to cheer about this year. But at their conference yesterday they moved forward on two fronts, adopting credible economic proposals and cheering a dignified Charles Kennedy
Leading article: Misplaced nostalgia for a more innocent age
Published: 19 September 2006
In recent days we have heard anxieties aired about the state of modern childhood. A sinister cocktail of junk food, marketing, over-competitive schooling and electronic entertainment is poisoning that most innocent of ages, a powerful lobby of experts said.
Leading article: Time for a thaw in the frozen conflicts
Published: 19 September 2006
Compared with the murderous conflicts being waged elsewhere in the world, the simmering dispute between Moldova and its breakaway region of Trans-Dniester might seem a mere note in the margin.
Leading article: Innovative policies in search of a leader
Published: 18 September 2006
The Liberal Democrats meet this week at a potentially decisive point in their history as the third force in British politics. Their conference sets key tests, both for the party itself and - critically - for its new leader, Sir Menzies Campbell.
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