Leading Articles
Leading article: Save the children
Published: 18 February 2007
David Cameron has been given a rough time since our revelation last Sunday that he was disciplined for smoking cannabis at Eton College. But the criticisms have come from unexpected quarters, and have been for unexpected things. It has been encouraging that almost no one has said how terrible it was that he tried cannabis as a 15-year-old. It is the kind of thing that young people do, and always will, even now when we know more about the psychological dangers. Instead, Mr Cameron has been criticised for hypocrisy, for insisting that the law must be enforced when he got away with a telling off and copying out lines of Latin for what was, after all, a criminal offence.
Leading article: We can't blame popular culture for society's ills. Nor can we ignore it
Published: 17 February 2007
Leading article: Too little, too late
Published: 17 February 2007
There was certainly cause for encouragement from this week's informal Washington climate change conference. Delegates from G8 countries as well as China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa concluded with an agreement that man-made climate change is "beyond doubt". They agreed, too, that developing countries, as well as rich countries, must accept targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. There was also a consensus that a successor to the Kyoto protocol on climate change must be in place by 2009.
Leading article: These routes are made for walking
Published: 17 February 2007
Natural England, the Government's conservation advisory body, has recommended creating a statutory right of access to Britain's coast. This decision has been criticised by the National Farmers' Union as a recipe for confrontation. The NFU wants to increase access though local solutions and partnerships. But that will always result in landowners throwing their weight around.
Leading article: A swamp of alienation, deprivation and despair
Published: 16 February 2007
A spate of fatal shootings in south London has thrust the issue of gun crime back into the headlines
Leading article: Questions of competence
Published: 16 February 2007
Defying convention is one thing. Basic political competence is another. S�golène Royal's tribulations in the French presidential campaign could be attributed to many things
Leading article: A lesson that proves all the doubters wrong
Published: 15 February 2007
It is almost a case study for the social sciences faculty. The question to be answered is this: do top-up fees deter students from applying to university?
Leading article: In defence of our values
Published: 15 February 2007
When the European Parliament launched an investigation into claims that the CIA kidnapped terror suspects, flew them across European airspace and held them in secret prisons, few believed anything new would be uncovered
Leading article: Boldness abroad, but cowardice at home
Published: 14 February 2007
Tony Blair has entered his last season of international summitry and, unsurprisingly, wants to make the most of it
Leading article: Multilateralism makes a welcome return
Published: 14 February 2007
Much is still hazy about the agreement on North Korea's nuclear programme announced after this week's six-party talks in Beijing
ExxonMobil
Published: 14 February 2007
In Editorial and Opinion on Saturday (3 February) we wrote that 'ExxonMobil is attempting to bribe scientists to pick holes in the IPCC's assessment (on climate change)''. We now recognise that this statement is incorrect and we withdraw it.
Leading article: Accusations, denials and a weird form of diplomacy
Published: 13 February 2007
Given the complaisance with which almost every part of the US establishment accepted the official line on Saddam's non-existent weapons, it is gratifying to observe that this time around senior Democrats in Congress have declined to take the administration at its word.
Leading article: Stuck in the wrong gear
Published: 13 February 2007
Road charging has been government policy for quite some time now. But now ministers seem spooked by a popular online petition calling for the plan to be scrapped. So much for a Government with no reverse gear.
Leading article: Finally, a rational debate seems possible
Published: 12 February 2007
Leading article: Cash and consciousness
Published: 12 February 2007
There were faint-heart counsels from certain quarters when we launched our recent Christmas Appeal. It might be a bit of a flop, it was suggested, because we had decided to give it a more particular focus than in previous years. That focus was on the forgotten people of Gaza - forgotten because, in any conflict, there are innocent victims whose fate goes largely unremarked as the news spotlight sweeps across a landscape of violence and drama.
Leading article: Best for last
Published: 12 February 2007
When England finally beat Australia in a cricket match 10 days ago, Sydney's Daily Telegraph came up with the headline: "Worst team in the world beats best team in the world".
Leading article: That was then. This is now
Published: 11 February 2007
David Cameron, like every other public figure, is entitled to a past. When asked during the Conservative leadership campaign, he was entitled to refuse to answer questions about whether he had used illegal drugs as a young man
Leading article: Time to ruffle some feathers
Published: 11 February 2007
Eight days ago, tests revealed that the bird flu outbreak in Suffolk was the serious H5N1 strain. Seven days ago, this newspaper cast doubt on the Government's preferred explanation for the global spread of the virus
Leading article: The Case of the Literary Snobs
Published: 11 February 2007
Hark! Is that the sound of a dog not barking? A watchdog, in this case, called English Heritage. It did not bark, or bare its teeth. It just dribbled. It failed to support an application to upgrade the listing of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's house in Surrey. The creator of Sherlock Holmes, it drivelled, "cannot be said to be an author of the standing of... Charles Dickens or Jane Austen".
Leading article: A symbolic moment for America as Obama sets out for the White House
Published: 10 February 2007
Leading article: Flights of fancy?
Published: 10 February 2007
Despite paying lip service to the growing contribution made by aviation emissions to global warming, our Government has done little to curb the growth of the airline sector in the UK. Aviation fuel goes untaxed. Airport expansion plans are unchallenged. Passenger duty remains stubbornly low. It is therefore interesting to note that, in this context of government inaction, the pressure for change could be coming from passengers themselves.
Leading article: Wonder women
Published: 10 February 2007
As usual, the Women's Institute is leading from the front. In recent years, the institute has taken a strong stance on a range of issues ranging from climate change to healthy eating to fair trade. And, of course, packaging. Plans appear to be afoot for another "day of action" in which Women's Institute members will be encouraged to return excess packaging to the supermarkets.
Leading article: A flawed President prepares to bow out
Published: 09 February 2007
President Chirac has kept France guessing - something he has elevated to a personal art form - but seems finally to have accepted the inevitable
Leading article: An enduring Victorian value
Published: 09 February 2007
Stef Penney has just won the Costa Book of the Year prize for a first novel about Canada, having never visited the country. An agoraphobic, she did all her research, she said, in the British Library
Leading article: Any reform would improve on status quo
Published: 08 February 2007
Reform of the House of Lords has always been a quagmire. That is because a number of self-evident truths about the second chamber are in tension
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