Leading Articles
Leading article: The world's leaders must deliver more than hot air
Published: 03 February 2007
Leading article: A sign of rising confidence
Published: 03 February 2007
Political progress in Northern Ireland has tended to be fitful and slow. The decision by Sinn Fein last weekend to recognise the police was a significant step. But it does not mean that agreement on power-sharing is just around the corner. There will be more opportunities for brinkmanship on either side.
Leadinga article: In a league of his own
Published: 03 February 2007
What a privilege is in store for the 82,000 spectators who will crowd into Twickenham Stadium today for England's match against Scotland, both teams' first in the 2007 Six Nations competition.
Leading article: A chance for peace that must not be spurned
Published: 02 February 2007
While the tensions between the US and Iran are building, the signals for Syria have become more ambivalent
Leading article: Politics of fear
Published: 02 February 2007
When Parliament voted to increase the detention period without charge for terrorist suspects, from 14 days to 28, they imposed a dangerous curb on our civil liberties
Leading article: Today's lesson
Published: 02 February 2007
For the first time, the science of global warming and sustainable development is to make its way on to the national curriculum in secondary schools. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which advises the Government on what should be on the curriculum, proposes that climate change should be taught as part of geography lessons, which are compulsory up to age 14. And the Education Secretary, Alan Johnson, today throws his weight behind the idea, ensuring that it will actually happen.
Leading article: Nods, winks and a lesson for the media worldwide
Published: 01 February 2007
As legal theatre, the drama being played out in Courtroom 16 of the federal district courthouse in Washington DC this week takes some beating
Leading article: A question of leadership
Published: 01 February 2007
The most alarming outcome of the latest Ofsted report is the 25 per cent rise in the number of primary schools being put on "special measures"
Leading article: Every little helps
Published: 01 February 2007
This newspaper's campaign against excess packaging has prompted a response from one of the largest retailers in the world. According to Sir Terry Leahy, the chief executive of Tesco, it is impossible to "force the pace of change, even if it is for sound environmental reasons. Customers have to want to change, and that can take time." He goes on to cite an instance where Tesco dispensed with the cardboard sleeve wrapping on a ready meal in its Value range. Customers apparently liked the product but hated the packaging, and opted instead for products that retained a cardboard sleeve.
Leading article: Prejudice, myth, and a system that fails the victim
Published: 31 January 2007
There has been some discussion in the House of Lords of late over what should be done about women who falsely accuse men of rape
Leading article: Location, location, location
Published: 31 January 2007
Like two unlucky punters watching as their "dead cert" nags are overtaken in the last furlong by an unfancied 16-to-1 shot, Greenwich and Blackpool had to concede victory to Manchester in the race for Britain's first "supercasino"
Leading article: New morality? If only...
Published: 31 January 2007
The political tussle over gay adoption and the incoming Equality Act has shone a rather revealing light on modern Britain. Its political consequences have been stark, demonstrating Tony Blair's waning power. Half of the Cabinet felt able to shoot down the Prime Minister's plan to grant an exemption to Catholic adoption agencies from the Act. The compromise, allowing the agencies time to adapt to the new rules, represents a palpable defeat for Mr Blair.
Leading article: The African Union needs outside help to succeed
Published: 30 January 2007
Good news out of Africa is not as rare as is often supposed, but yesterday's headline was especially heartening. The continent's 53 leaders refused to bow to the insistence of Sudan's ruthless President, Omar al-Bashir, that it was his turn to be chairman of the African Union.
Leading article: The 'hobbit' and the search for truth
Published: 30 January 2007
The latest salvo in the continuing row over the remains of the "hobbit" found on the island of Flores, Indonesia, raises intriguing questions about the nature of scientific discovery.
Leading article: Stubbed out
Published: 30 January 2007
Like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, many smokers probably imagined that they'd always have Paris. No longer. France is to ban smoking in public spaces in offices, schools and shopping malls from next month. Restaurants, bars and cafes follow next January.
Leading article: Sinn Fein takes a key step towards shared power
Published: 29 January 2007
The most direct and succinct explanation of the current state of Irish republicanism was this week delivered in a draughty Falls Road monastery by IRA icon Gerry Kelly. Conflicts, he said, ended either with a clear victory or in negotiations, often protracted ones. "It has been accepted by republicans," he declared flatly, "that they cannot push the British out into the sea."
Leading article: Wars and rhetoric about wars
Published: 29 January 2007
We share the fury and frustration of those who marched against the Iraq war in Washington this weekend. US voters brought about one of the greatest electoral upsets of recent years when they gave the Democrats a majority in both Houses of Congress last November. The deciding issue was, by common acknowledgement, disillusionment with the failing war in Iraq.
Leading article: The final whistle
Published: 29 January 2007
The nostalgia that has attended the passing of the BBC's Grandstand is understandable. And it is perhaps a pity that it did not quite reach its half-century. But for any programme to have survived almost 50 years in a media and sporting climate that has changed out of all recognition is a singular feat.
Leading article: Criminal negligence
Published: 28 January 2007
It is not as if they could not see it coming. The prison population in this country has been expanding since 1993
Leading article: The minister of inequality
Published: 28 January 2007
Perhaps it was a sign of prime-ministerial weakness. We prefer to think that it was a measure of the strength of the argument for equality before the law
Leading article: Of hacks and hacking
Published: 28 January 2007
The News of the World's former royal reporter Clive Goodman and its former editor Andy Coulson have managed to bring newspaper journalism even further into disrepute. What did they think they were doing? They presumably imagined that they would never get caught. Yet the risks they took made no sense. Mr Goodman paid a denizen of the dark underbelly of journalism's dark underbelly to help intercept the voice messages of royal staff. He is now paying the personal price of a four-month jail sentence.
Leading article: The travails of a Prime Minister whose authority is ebbing away
Published: 27 January 2007
Leading article: Welcome to an independent Kosovo
Published: 27 January 2007
The plan presented by the UN special envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, yesterday stops short of full and immediate independence for the province of Kosovo, but only just. Kosovo would be able to operate like a state, but its last formal ties with Serbia would not be finally severed. The embryonic state would remain a de facto UN protectorate for at least another year.
Leading article: An indispensable lord
Published: 27 January 2007
You can say what you like about Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor, and we frequently do. It was not until last autumn, for instance, on the opposite side of the globe, that he finally condemned Guantanamo as a "shocking affront to the principles of democracy". What took him, we asked, so long. Stamina, however, is one quality the noble lord has in spades. Yesterday, after a lengthy interview on the BBC Today programme, he went on at once to BBC Breakfast, and from there to Radio Five Live - and all in defence of the Government's indefensible record on prisons and John Reid's little "reminder" to judges.
Leading article: Citizenship, schools and the imposition of national values
Published: 26 January 2007
How come such an ugly and ill-defined word as Britishness has come to occupy such a central place in ministerial thinking?
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