Daily News
Half billion loss for Northern Rock
Northern Rock is expected to announce today that is lost £585.4m in the first six months of this year - higher than analysts had feared. The bank, nationalised last year after its collapse signalled the first wave of the global credit crisis hitting the UK, suffered from a rise in... [continued]
The West will rise from the financial ashes 
Portuguese police lied to McCanns
The Portuguese police have made public the 11,000-page file on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann last year, and a friend of the missing child's father says Gerry McCann was lied to in an attempt to trick him into a 'confession'. Portuguese officers had been told by a Birmingham lab that... [continued]
Beijing: games safe from terror
China says it is confident the Olympic games will be secure, despite an attack which killed 16 policemen in the north west of the country yesterday, blamed on Muslim militants. And the ICC said it believed the authorities had done "everything possible to ensure the security and safety of everyone... [continued]
Beijing 2008: speedy analysis, strong comment, enduring photographs
Seven ways it could still go wrong for China
Man who killed wife gets pub ban
A judge has spared a man who strangled his wife from jail, but banned him from his local pub. Seventy-four-year-old Edward Flaherty has dementia and claimed not to remember killing his wife of 52 years last year. The judge decided he was too ill to go to prison, but instead... [continued]
US and Iraq slam Army’s Basra deal
Senior Iraqi and US military figures have criticised the British Army's refusal to participate in an offensive in Basra because of a secret deal they had made with the Mahdi army. The Daily Telegraph quotes Colonel Imad of the Iraqi army as saying: "Without the support of the Americans we... [continued]
Crude drops below $120 a barrel
The price of crude has fallen below $120 a barrrel for the first time in three months, amid speculation that the world financial crisis will reduce demand for oil. Earlier this summer the price soared to unprecedented highs of $147 per barrel. Today's three per cent drop in price was... [continued]
The West will rise from the financial ashes
Freddie and Fannie: an American racket
Barclays sells life unit to Swiss Re
Swiss Re is to buy Barclays' life assurance arm for £753m. The cash sale, of policies representing around £6.8bn in invested assets, will give the UK firm a post-tax profit of £330m. Barclays currently holds 760,000 life insurance and pension policies and annuity contracts. Swiss Re's chief executive, Jacques... [continued]
China crisis
For Beijing, the real danger never came from the distant and sparse Tibetan plateau but from a lesser known but far more disaffected region: China's restive Muslim provinces, says a Daily Telegraph Leader. The Uighurs of Xinjiang in the far north west have long complained of religious and political oppression under nearly six decades of Chinese Communist rule. Numbering around eight million, they have recently been the target of infiltration and agitation by al-Qaeda and extremist groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir. The latest attack has put Beijing on full alert. The Olympics will go ahead with panache. But beneath the glitter lurk ingredients all too common nowadays: worry, a security alert and overreaction. Leader Daily Telegraph
Full article: Delicate China
Joseph Mackertich: Seven ways it could still go wrong for China
We all knew that Beijing was going to go big on the Olympic Games, writes Jim White. But no one can have expected this, the manner in which a gigantic city of some 17 million inhabitants has given itself over so completely to a sporting event. This is about commerce, not nationalism. There is nothing Chinese detectable anywhere. The place has been transformed from the capital of the world's most populous country into the epicentre of Olympic World, another planet entirely. Until you come here and experience this monolith in action, you have no idea how all-consuming the Olympic Games are. They cast a shadow so long it blanks out all available light. For those of us visiting from Britain, this comes with a tinge of alarm. It is, after all, our turn next. Jim White Daily Telegraph
Full article: The Games: Beijing's on another planet
David who?
It seems that the Blairites have decided that they have had enough of Gordon Brown and are planning a leadership challenge led by the young David Miliband, says Clare Short. They have obviously lost control of their senses. The first problem is that most normal people have never heard of David Miliband. Those who want to save Labour from a dreadful result in 2010 need to look at the reality rather than their own propaganda. Blairism was a failure. Brown's problem is that he doesn't have the guts to return to his social democratic roots. David Miliband will not become the leader. The system makes a challenge almost impossible. The Blairites have learned no lessons from Blair's failure and have made no policy proposals. They are simply creating division and bitterness that will make the Labour defeat even worse. Clare Short The Independent
Full article: How can Miliband be the answer to Labour’s ills?
Greed is no good
The public mood is changing, writes Polly Toynbee: the greed-is-good, bonus-or-bust decade is over. The super-rich have been adept at frightening the Treasury, and the Treasury often retreats. Questions will be asked about who ruled Britain in this decade, just as in the worst days of over-mighty trade unions. Inequality fuels its own repulsive culture, celebrating wealth and despising the ordinary, let alone the poor. To spend £200,000 on a wristwatch is a defiant spit in the face of those whose lives would be transformed by such a sum. This return to vulgar Edwardian extravagance lacks even the token nods of noblesse oblige. Polly Toynbee The Guardian
Full article: Greed has brought us here, fairness must lead us out
Tory family trouble
The Tory leader and the Shadow Chancellor are friends and political soul mates but when it comes to policy on marriage they could be heading for a messy divorce, says Rachel Sylvester. Cameron wants to create a new version of the married couples allowance that Labour scrapped. Mr Osborne disagrees. For him, it is not the State's job to tell people how to live their lives. He is concerned that the Tories will alienate voters if they appear to stigmatise single mothers and cohabiting couples. This is partly to do with their backgrounds: Mr Cameron's mother was a magistrate in rural Berkshire and a traditional Tory, Mr Osborne's mother ran a deli in West London and went on protest marches. The Conservative leader is also a regular churchgoer. Rachel Sylvester The Times
Full article: Marriage is a divorcing issue for the Tories
A Russian sage
Solzhenitsyn was among those cultural luminaries who helped Russia re-emerge as a state from the ruins of the Soviet Union, says Mary Dejevsky. His work fostered not only a sense of continuity, but a sense of conscience. It supplied many of the less edifying chapters edited out of the country's fractured past. Today's Russia is sceptical of the very 19th-century brand of Russian exceptionalism that distinguished his thinking. To this extent, Solzhenitsyn had outlived his age. When he died, on his estate outside Moscow, Solzhenitsyn was culturally back on his country's margins - probably where he would most like to be. Mary Dejevsky The Independent
Full article: Farewell to the keeper of Russia’s conscience
In Brief
Beware the hype
"Overblown" describes the almost universal judgment that the Miliband article in The Guardian was nothing but a blatant challenge for Mr Brown's job. This is an over-interpretation, based on the current rules of media-political debate, which demand that anything other than nothing must be everything.
David Aaronovitch The Times
Full article: David Miliband sees to the heart of Labour’s problems
Bankers’ hubris
Bank bosses and board members failed to admit that the new, risky financial products gave them a bit of a headache. They lacked both the wisdom and humility of investor Warren Buffett, who has rarely owned a technology stock, on the grounds that he doesn't understand the business. Tracy Corrigan Daily Telegraph
Full article: Never trust the banks when they say 'Don't worry, we'll be careful'
Edward Luttwak: Europe and US can rise from ashes
No to coal
Whether we prevent runaway climate change largely depends on whether we keep using coal - the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. Unless we either leave it - or the carbon dioxide it produces - in the ground, human development will start spiralling backwards. The more coal is burnt, the smaller are our chances of future comfort and prosperity. The industrial revolution has gone into reverse. George Monbiot The Guardian
Full article: The stakes could not be higher: everything hinges on stopping coal
Women’s magazines worse
Mr Gove should not limit his censure to just the one shelf of the newsagents. Lads' mags may be pernicious destroyers of family values, but at least they, like their models, are upfront about their raison d'etre. For an unmitigated torrent of cringe-inducing, angst-ridden, self-contradictory codswallop, you need only rifle through the women's section. Ceri Radford Daily Telegraph
Full article: Look at women’s magazines first
Nudge fudge
The Tories' new big idea book, Nudge, is of little use. The reason why quietly nudging things in a favourable direction seems such a good idea to those in authority is that it promises a magic bullet for social problems - at the margins and on the cheap. The tragedy is while they have been busy doing many little things in the hope that some of them might make a difference, they could just as well have been rolling up their sleeves and doing something big. James Harkin The Guardian
Full article: This nudging stuff is nothing new
Briefing: the nudge-nudge approach to policy
Men are fine
The presentation of men as victims is going the same way as other gender stereotypes, from pre-feminist, anti-woman sexism to post-feminist, anti-male mockery. The moment has come for men to reject navel-gazing and walk tall, walk straight and look the world in the eye. We are not disposable, nor in decline and – thanks for offering – can certainly do without saving. Terence Blacker The Independent
Full article: Men, victims? We’re doing just fine, thanks
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