Brown bullish despite new poll low
Gordon Brown has brushed aside questions over his leadership, saying his relationship with "Dave" Miliband is "fine". Talking to reporters for the first time since Miliband’s article in the Guardian which was widely seen as a bid for the leadership, the Prime Minister said he would unveil next month plans... [continued]
The Mole: Poll not good for Brown - or Miliband 
153 die as Spanish jet crashes
Speculation is mounting as to the cause of yesterday's plane crash at Madrid's Barajas airport. The Spanair McDonnell Douglas MD-82, bound for the Canary Islands, was carrying 172 passengers when it took off, apparently with one engine on fire, overshot the runway and exploded in a field. Only 19 passengers... [continued]
Poll makes McCain frontrunner
John McCain has swept away Barack Obama's lead in the polls two months before polling day in the US presidential elections. A Reuters/Zogby poll, which a month ago gave Obama a seven-point lead, yesterday showed McCain ahead by 46 per cent to 41. In an LA Times/Bloomberg poll, the two... [continued]
US Election blog: Obama toughens up his campaign ads as McCain pulls ahead
Alexander Cockburn: return to the Cold War for McCain
Miliband backs Georgia for Nato
David Miliband has told the Guardian that Nato has set Georgia on the road to membership. The Foreign Secretary’s comments, during a visit to Tbilisi, are surprising since Nato secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Georgian membership had not been discussed at Tuesday’s meeting of Nato foreign secretaries. That meeting... [continued]
Robert Fox: After Georgia, Nato must rethink its purpose
In pictures: Russia-Georgia war
MI5 blows apart terror stereotypes
A classified MI5 document seen by the Guardian contradicts the commonly held view that potential terrorists can be easily identified. The internal research says that there is no single path to radicalisation and that extremists are as likely to be family men as loners. The document, based on the profiles... [continued]
How the war on terror backfired
Councils want to offer mortgages
Council chiefs are pressing to be given the power to offer competitive mortgages to first-time buyers and those at risk of repossession. In a letter to the Times, they propose borrowing £2bn from the public works loans board to fund the move, which they hope will rescue the housing market.... [continued]
Are paedophiles mad or bad?
If we accept that paedophilia is an illness, then, by definition, we accept it as being beyond the control of its sufferer in exactly the way that we accept schizophrenia, says Carol Sarler. Therefore, we should respond as such: if a man, for reasons not remotely his fault, is posing a risk to others, he should be subject to sectioning under the Mental Health Act, with all the appropriate regret, sympathy and kindness. If we accept that it is a crime, however, then it is something which the perpetrator can control. He may choose to offend or not, and if he chooses what is unacceptable, again we should respond as such. We catch the bastard, try him, lock him up by way of penalty and then - this is the crucial bit - once he has served his sentence we restore his liberty. In full. Carol Sarler The Times
Full article: Paedophiles may be mad or bad. But not both
Why airports had to be shared
At last, a bureaucratic body staffed by unknown and unelected members of the new Labour quangocracy, has done something absolutely right, says Anatole Kaletsky. The Competition Commission's proposal forcibly to split ownership of London's three main airports, all at present owned by BAA, was one of the bravest and most sensible decisions by an official body in living memory. That it will cause fury in the business Establishment, consternation in the City and confusion among ministers and their Tory shadows, shows just how wise and brave it was. The proposal to break up BAA is excellent for two broad reasons. First, competition generally yields better results. Secondly, this particular break-up will protect London from a big environmental blight and the British economy from a serious blunder, by negating one of Gordon Brown's oddest "long-term commitments" - his incomprehensible determination to expand Heathrow. Anatole Kaletsky The Times
Full article: Airport sell-off puts a spoke in Brown's wheel
We need the UN
The UN is too often used as a bright blue punch-bag for any old complaint about the state of the world, says Johann Hari. For example, the UN is routinely blamed for not intervening in Burma, or Zimbabwe, or Georgia – but the UN has no army of its own; it is only as good as its members. Blaming the UN for these failures is like blaming Wembley Stadium when your football team loses a match. The UN's positive achievements are almost never mentioned. It was the UN vaccination programme that abolished smallpox – an agonising disease that killed hundreds of millions of people – from the human condition. It was the UN that talked Kennedy and Khrushchev back from the brink when they were poised to incinerate the Earth. Johann Hari The Independent
Full article: John McCain and his secretive plot to 'kill the UN'
No new Cold war
Prime Minister Putin has no ideological motivation to remodel the world, unlike the Marxist leaders of the Soviet Union or the fervently Christian George W. Bush and Tony Blair, says Correlli Barnett. Instead, Putin is just an old-fashioned Russian autocrat and nationalist of the kind that would have been familiar enough to Bismarck, Palmerston and Disraeli. Even the trappings of the current Russian regime, such as the state coat of arms or the 19th-century uniforms of Kremlin guards of honour, are pure Czarist revival. Putin and Medvedev want Russia to profit politically as well as economically from her immense wealth in oil and gas, and will ruthlessly use the leverage which these resources give her over all the states dependent on her pipelines. But none of this amounts to a new ideological 'Cold War'. Correlli Barnett Daily Mail
Full article: World peace? Give me Putin anyday!
Britain's first atheist leader
It would be a great advantage to everyone to have an atheist prime minister, writes AC Grayling. Atheist leaders are not going to think they are getting messages from Beyond telling them to go to war. Atheist leaders will be sceptical about the claims of religious groups to be more important than other civil society organisations in doing good. Atheist leaders are more likely to take a literally down-to-earth view of the needs, interests and circumstances of people in the here and now, and will not be influenced by the belief that present sufferings and inequalities will be compensated in some posthumous dispensation. Best of all, if David Miliband becomes prime minister, the prospect of disestablishment of the Church of England will have come closer. A C Grayling The Guardian
Full article: The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister
In Brief
Braveheart Olympics?
The gold rush has left SNP leader Alex Salmond with an unanticipated difficulty: this wave of British success was not in the script. So he jarringly claims Chris Hoy's victory as a "Braveheart" moment and complains that the Chinese banned the Scottish Saltire, allowing teams to fly only the national flag. His parochial form of patriotism runs counter to the prevailing mood of straightforward pride in Great Britain. Iain Martin Daily Telegraph
Full article: The Olympics have shown that Great Britain is far from finished
Beijing Olympics latest: Brits fight back after French hurl drug insinuations
Beijingers' weary tolerance
I suggested to a local that the attitude of young educated people in Beijing to their Government was like young people still living with their parents, viewing them with a weary tolerance so long as they are allowed a great deal of their own way. "That's it. Just like that." Simon Barnes The Times
Full article: Beijing's cool youngsters enjoy a breath of fresh Olympic air
Tories attack the left
Yesterday, the shadow Chancellor George Osborne addressed the left-of-centre think-tank Demos on the theme of fairness. His counter-intuitive words and location took me back to the mid-1990s when Tony Blair and Gordon Brown headed for the CBI at every available opportunity to reassure audiences of traditional Tory voters that Labour was the party for business. Steve Richards The Independent
Full article: The Tories are learning from Blair
Iraq's border with Pakistan
John McCain recently talked at length about problems on the "Iraq/Pakistan border" – the countries are a thousand miles apart. Asked how to deal with Darfur, he mused about "bringing pressure on the government of Somalia". Uh – it's Sudan, Senator McCain. And he keeps expressing his desire to build up US relations with Czechoslovakia, a country that hasn't existed for 15 years. Johann Hari The Independent
Full article: John McCain and his secretive plot to 'kill the UN'
People: Barack Obama's lost brother appears
Growing old gracefully
Almost from the word go - from the moment when your voice breaks and your skin begins to grow stubble, to the first white hair - the signs of growing older for a man are more welcome than deplored. That includes hunched shoulders and a gammy leg which, when all else fails, can still arouse pity in a woman's heart.
Peregrine Worsthorne Daily Telegraph
Full article: My walking stick is a badge of honour
Peregrine Worsthorne: a return to superpower misbehaviour
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