Leading Articles
Leading article: Uncertainty that threatens the legacy of Gordon Brown
Published: 10 May 2007
Interest rates will be on the rise again across the board if, as expected, the Bank of England announces an increase in the base rate today
Leading article: A question of priorities
Published: 10 May 2007
Last year, the Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, was proudly claiming that all of the mixed sex wards in our hospitals had been eliminated
Leading article: Holiday spirit
Published: 10 May 2007
Well, that must qualify as one of the shortest honeymoons in political history. Last week, Nicolas Sarkozy had let it be known that, if elected French President, he would prepare himself spiritually to assume the heavy burden of state. There was some suggestion of a monastic cloister, somewhere in the Mediterranean.
Leading article: So what is the point of this rushed reform?
Published: 09 May 2007
From today Britain has a slimmed-down Home Office and a brand new Ministry of Justice where the Department of Constitutional Affairs used to be
Leading article: The flight from reason
Published: 09 May 2007
Flying has never been so popular. According to figures released yesterday, a record number of flights will be taken around the world this month
Leading article: Dark arts
Published: 09 May 2007
We live in an age of ideological and political flux. So it is hardly surprising that the work of our artists tends to become entangled in the worlds of ideology and politics from time to time.
Leading article: An imperfect sort of peace, but peace nonetheless
Published: 08 May 2007
Storms undoubtedly lie ahead. Mr Paisley will not resist occasional histrionics, while Sinn Fein will seek to show it will play a major part in the government. Yet already a whole new tone has been set, with both sides demonstrating that they can act in alliance, and in a friendly manner.
Leading article: It's time to cut the knot over Kosovo
Published: 08 May 2007
Watch out, Europe - a new state is about to be born. Or perhaps not, for when the UN Security Council meets to decide whether to endorse the UN's plan for the independence of Kosovo, Russia may use its veto to stop it.
Leading article: Arts and crafts
Published: 08 May 2007
Is there a future in your arts degree? Not much of one, according to an organisation called High Fliers Research Ltd, whose findings, which we report on today, suggest students may be making a mistake by studying arts and humanities at university.
Leading article: M. Sarkozy - a divisive force whose task is to unite
Published: 07 May 2007
After a rip-roaring campaign, a sparkling television debate and two record turnouts, the voters of France have propelled to power the President they first thought of. Nicolas Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian immigrant who always wanted to be President, has achieved his ambition. It is up to him now to show what he can do.
Leading article: John Reid and a vanishing leadership contest
Published: 07 May 2007
A campaign for the leadership, with strong candidates from left, right and centre, would have been an opportunity for an open debate about the priorities for the next Labour government. The party has such politicians, and Mr Reid is one of them.
Leading article: 'Bleak House' meets the 21st century
Published: 07 May 2007
Compared with the United States, Britain has never been a litigious country, but this, it seems, is changing. It is not only that more of us are suing the council over injuries caused by cracked paving stones. Nor is it that the world's super-rich increasingly choose our courts for settling their business quarrels and divorces. It is that the law is being brought into walks of life where we used to be satisfied with internal procedures.
Leading article: From loyalty came tragedy
Published: 06 May 2007
More and more, it seems that Al Gore's failure to win a few hundred more votes in Florida in November 2000 was a fateful moment of world history. Indeed, it could be said that the opening of the 21st century was decided by a single vote. As Bill Clinton once said, George Bush won the 2000 election "fair and square, five to four at the Supreme Court".
Leading article: A messy election and a challenge for Gordon Brown
Published: 05 May 2007
Leading article: Act, don't despair, on climate change
Published: 05 May 2007
It is sometimes difficult to walk the tight-rope of climate change. Focusing on the dire scientific assessments of what could happen in an overheated world can send people tumbling into a pit of despair. Yet making light of the problems caused by rising greenhouse gases can equally generate a false sense of security.
Leading article: An epic fight that brought politics back into fashion
Published: 04 May 2007
France has now entered the final stage of what has been, by any definition, an epic election
Leading article: An unwanted education legacy: class divisions
Published: 04 May 2007
Asked to name the one thing that perpetuates the class divide in Britain, most people would say private schools
Leading article: Tehran holds key to Washington's exit from Iraq
Published: 03 May 2007
There are times, the US must reflect, when isolationism and unilateralism seem infinitely simpler guiding principles for foreign policy than engagement. Iran offers a prime example
Leading article: Some heartening news
Published: 03 May 2007
Good news on health is in short supply. In one area, however, the Government has claimed unmitigated success: deaths from cardiovascular disease are plummeting
Leading article: Indictment of a leader who rushed into a foolish war
Published: 02 May 2007
The first official verdict on Israel's decision to go to war in Lebanon amounts to a crushing indictment of the Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert
Leading article: Separatism and scare tactics
Published: 02 May 2007
"Within the next few weeks I won't be Prime Minister of this country. In all probability, a Scot will become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom." So said Tony Blair, speaking in Edinburgh on the tenth anniversary of the election that took him to Downing Street on a landslide
Leading article: Private lives
Published: 02 May 2007
Lord Browne, the now former chief executive of BP, was often said to be Tony Blair's favourite businessman, so it is perhaps poignant that the end of John Browne's career should coincide with the completion of Mr Blair's time in high office, and, indeed, after a similar length of time at the top. So close were the two men that when Mr Blair's former chief of staff and oldest confidante, Anji Hunter, left Downing Street and found herself in need of a job, she found herself working for Lord Browne.
Leading article: Torn between democracy, the military and Islam
Published: 01 May 2007
The political and economic meltdown in Turkey over the election of a new president has brought the generals out of the shadows and the voters on to the streets in their hundreds of thousands.
Leading article: Local initiatives of global significance
Published: 01 May 2007
It is easy to be paralysed by the scale of the environmental problems facing the earth. Easy, but profoundly misguided. We cannot afford to wait for international agreement between politicians.
Leading article: A crucial vote for Britain - and for Mr Brown
Published: 30 April 2007
There have been widespread reports that Mr Blair is preparing to formally endorse the Chancellor as his successor, but this is unlikely to calm frayed nerves in the Labour Party. Instead, the elections will almost certainly show a further fracturing of the progressive consensus that propelled Labour into power 10 years ago.
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