Commentators
Adrian Hamilton: Politics has become a sport – and Brown must show that his team can handle the pressure
Published: 11 October 2007
"Isn't it wonderful?" said a friend at the weekend. "Sport and politics providing such excitement at the same time." But, of course. Politics has become a sporting event. How else to explain a public appetite that veers from a 10 per cent majority in favour of Labour to a 4 per cent majority in favour of the Conservatives within the space of a week? What else accounts for the extraordinary fervour which has gripped the players and their supporters over the last week?
Jeremy MacClancy: Look at those hillbillies! Dressing in grass skirts!
Published: 11 October 2007
Anthropology is the flavour of the moment on British TV right now, with shows like The Insect Tribe, Tribal Wives, and Return of the Tribe. So why the sudden popularity? What, exactly, are we being sold on these shows? And why do so many of them leave a bittersweet taste?
Johann Hari: Gay-bashing should not be a hate crime
Published: 11 October 2007
It's always strange and sad when you have to disagree with people who have purely good motives and purely good goals. Over the past week, I have smacked into disagreement twice with friends and allies in the fight for equality for gay people. Both times, the rows have boiled down to one core question: should the people who hate and detest us just because of a trivial and irreversible biological fact – homosexuality – be subject to extra criminal sanctions?
Mary Dejevsky: Do these headscarves signal a retreat from Europe?
Published: 11 October 2007
In 2003 I revisited Istanbul after a gap of 10 years. The transformation was extraordinary. From a chaotic mega-city in which hawkers and battered buses vied for street space, and horns blared day and night, a recognisably first-world urban civilisation had emerged – exotic, to a Briton, only in the minarets punctuating the skyline, the calls to prayer and the now orderly bazaars.
The Sketch: PM's image is falling to pieces before our eyes
Published: 11 October 2007
The first image that came to mind was of old Bruin, the big brown bear tied to a stake for dogs to snap at. The Prime Minister's bloody week is starting to haemorrhage.
Jeremy Laurance: Managers must always act in interests of patient care
Published: 11 October 2007
Patients going into hospital put their trust in medical staff to make them better. They know that there are no guarantees, that treatment carries risks and that there are limits to what medicine can achieve. What they do not expect is to be made worse.
Michael McCarthy: We need every megawatt the sea breeze has to offer
Published: 11 October 2007
A new British seascape is on the way, because of the fight against climate change. Once it was ships' sails we saw on Britain's maritime horizon. Then, for a century or so, it was the funnels of steamships. But, in the century to come, it will be windmills.
The Third Leader: Whose practices?
Published: 11 October 2007
Iberian dismay, we note, over use of the phrase, "Spanish Practices", to describe the serpentine arrangements enjoyed by postal workers which, depending on view, suggest either a proper insistence on proper remuneration, or not so much as can do as can't do without large amounts of extra dosh, squire.
Terence Blacker: Mr Makeover proves a hit with the Misters and Misses
Published: 11 October 2007
Hullo, children. Today we're going to meet one of the happiest families that has ever wobbled, hopped skipped or fallen flat on their faces in a children's book! How do I know they are happy? Because a little bird tells me that their little stories and characters were once sold for £28m.
Deborah Orr: All the familiar buzzwords - and the gaping holes
Published: 10 October 2007
There are various reasons why Alistair Darling's first big set piece looked like the action of a government that is becalmed, and one of them is that we have become used to budget statements being made by a man who has always been keen to emphasise that he is the power behind the throne. It is good that this Chancellor is less inclined to view the second most important job in government as some sort of slight and injustice than his predecessor. But it is not such a good thing that Darling seems happy to press on with the delivery of Brown's obsessions quite so slavishly.
Steve Richards: There may be no election for two years, but the Chancellor just launched the campaign
Published: 10 October 2007
Alistair Darling has delivered a pre-Budget report closer in spirit to one of the panic-stricken mini-budgets that punctuated the 1970s. This time the panic was political rather than economic. The Chancellor made announcements aimed at reshaping the political landscape with immediate effect. It was almost as if general election fever was raging still. In one way it was. Mr Darling launched the start of the campaign even if an election is not held until 2009.
Mark Steel: However debased the image, Che's legend lives on
Published: 10 October 2007
The image of Che Guevara is perfect for the modern world, not just a revolutionary but a celebrity revolutionary. Posh Spice probably sees his picture everywhere and screams "Why can't my agent get me on that many magazines and baseball caps?" Even if she's read this week's commemorations of his death as a guerilla 40 years ago, she'll imagine he spent his days running through a Cuban swamp with Churchill Insurance on his combat fatigues.
Christina Patterson: Funding doesn't guarantee excellence in art
Published: 10 October 2007
James Purnell, the youthful Secretary for Culture, Media and Sport is an extremely busy man. So busy, in fact, that the photographic evidence of his recent trip to a hospital had to be creatively enhanced. So busy, too, that he yesterday had to pull out of a "political speed-dating" event designed to get young people enthused about "the benefits of democratic engagement".
John Rentoul: In the battle of political ideas, Brown has ceded his predecessor's advantage
Published: 10 October 2007
Four weeks ago, David Cameron was discussing the coming political season on the sofa under the turret windows of his Westminster office. He had scored some success with an aggressive and early return to the fray from his holiday, but was now facing a big choice as the most important of his party's policy reviews was about to be published. Should he start to lay out policies, knowing that if he came up with any good ones, Gordon Brown would steal them? Or should he continue to play for time and keep the good ideas that his team were working on for later?
Michael Brown: It's time for Cameron to challenge Labour orthodoxy
Published: 10 October 2007
Alistair Darling delivered his pre-Budget report and Comprehensive Spending Review on ground set by the shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, at the Tory conference last week. Mr Osborne struck a political blow when he claimed that this statement was not leadership but "followship". This was a pre-election announcement without the election.
The Third Leader: Mistaken identity
Published: 10 October 2007
Our watchword in this space is sympathy, not condemnation. Others have been giving the Prime Minister rather a tough time over his dithering, prevaricating and general thrashing about in the matter of whether to call a general election.
Terence Blacker: Booker Prize scandals we have loved (and imagined...)
Published: 10 October 2007
Deliberations surrounding this year's Man Booker Prize have gone ominously quiet. Normally by this time, there should have been leaks, threats of walk-outs, and at least one revelation that a judge has been sleeping with a long-listed author. It is almost as if the team this year have simply been reading the novels in anticipation of a civilised discussion to be followed by the announcement of what will inevitably be called a "worthy winner".
Johann Hari: Why is Labour selling its soul to right-wing myths?
Published: 10 October 2007
A right-wing campaign to strangle one of the most progressive forms of taxation has just hopped, skipped and jumped to the victory post – in a Labour Comprehensive Spending Review.
The Sketch: One man's smile is another's smirk
Published: 10 October 2007
There was much in Darling's Comprehensive Spending Thing yesterday, in the same way there's much in the Littlewoods catalogue. Others will analyse its prudence, providence and profligacy of the Government's spending plans, but for a sketchwriter, there was no need to go past the smirk.
The Sketch: Lying is OK. But believing your lies makes you mad
Published: 09 October 2007
It wouldn't have been true either but the correct answer was: "The polls were actually the reason I didn't call the election. They showed us we'd come in with a majority very similar to what we've got now. And I thought, 'why put the country through a general election to achieve what we already have?'."
Sean O'Grady: It's the Lib Dems who are the real casualties
Published: 09 October 2007
Steve Richards: Can Gordon Brown learn from his mistakes?
Published: 09 October 2007
Philip Hensher: Amis was neither a misogynist nor a homophobe
Published: 09 October 2007
Dominic Lawson: Mess with family ties at your peril
Published: 09 October 2007
Thomas Sutcliffe: How can we justify doing this to children?
Published: 09 October 2007
Experimenting on children and babies has, for very good reasons, traditionally been frowned upon. At its worst, the phrase summons the memory of Josef Mengele, and, at its best, raises tricky questions about informed consent.
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