Four arrested in plot to kill Obama
Three men and one woman have been arrested for plotting to assassinate Barack Obama on Thursday, the day that he is set to take the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado and accept the nomination as the Democratic Party's presidential candidate. One of the male suspects told... [continued]
Alexander Cockburn: Obama loses momentum in awful August 
US Election: Hillary holds the key as Dems meet in Denver
Team GB touch down to heroes’ welcome
Britain's victorious Olympic squad were greeted with a heroes' welcome as they arrived at Heathrow Airport in their gold-nosed British Airways plane yesterday afternoon. Team GB, which took Britain's biggest haul at the games for 100 years, were met by Prime Minister Gordon Brown against a backdrop of British flags... [continued]
In pictures: Beijing 2008 highlights
Olympic handover: Boris ploughs into the throng
Beijing Olympics 2008: the sport and drama in words and pictures
PM faces revolt over oil tax
The Prime Minister faces mounting pressure from Labour MPs to impose a windfall tax on oil and energy companies' profits. More than 80 Labour MPs, including several ministerial aides, have signed the petition calling for a one-off tax on the profits of those companies which have posted huge profits. Shell,... [continued]
The Mole: latest news from Downing Street
Pakistan coalition collapses
Pakistan has been thrown into further political turmoil as its ruling coalition collapsed in acrimony yesterday. The country's hopes for political stability following the resignation last week of President Pervez Musharraf faltered after one of the leading members of the alliance stormed out. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's... [continued]
Musharraf’s going leaves West a bleak option
MDC wins Zimbabwe speaker role
President Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF party were stunned yesterday when an opposition candidate was elected speaker of the new coalition partliament in a dramatic first sitting of the Zimbabwean Parliament since the election five months ago. Lovemore Moyo of Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won the... [continued]
Zimbabwe Today: exclusive reports from Moses Moyo in Harare
Russia votes to back independence
The United States and European Union have promptly denounced a move by Russia to back independence for Georgia's two breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russian MPs voted unanimously to support independence for the two regions - giving Moscow a strong domestic legal mandate to take control of the... [continued]
A symphony for Tskhinvali
Cyber attack casts new light on Georgia invasion
In pictures: the Russian-Georgian war
Ryanair plane drops 8,000m
Terrified passengers have told how they feared for their lives as their Ryanair aircraft fell 8,000 metres following a loss of cabin pressure and oxygen masks dropped down. Twenty-six people were hospitalised with minor eardrum problems after the Boeing 737 they were travelling on from Britain to Spain made an... [continued]
Is society broken?
It seems impossible to counter the triumphal gloominess of the old Right with anything as feeble, as unconvincing, as facts, writes David Aaronovitch. The best figures available show crime has gone down, but we know, we know, we know it has gone up! The best figures available suggest improving performance at GCSE and A levels, but we know, we know, we know that this is because of a dilution in standards! Our Olympic success makes it clear, to me and to Boris Johnson, that we hardly live in some kind of brutalised, boneless pre-dystopia. The analysis of Britain as being a broken society manages simultaneously to be wrong, irritating and - worst of all - suggestive of a whole series of wrong and irritating policies to come. Britain is demonstrably less "broken" than it was in the late 70s and at the height of the Thatcher era in the mid and late 80s. David Aaronovitch The Times
Full article: If things are so bad, why are they so good?
Osborne's Unfair Britain document, published last week, lists glaring social injustices but offers no useful remedies, says Polly Toynbee. If Britain is broken, who broke it - and who has tried hardest to fix it? But Labour responds bloodlessly with press releases complaining that Tory "sums don't add up", hopelessly missing the point. Who cares when nobody's sums look too good right now? On tax, the government is forever on the back foot, apologetic about the tax "burden". A Labour government should be the strong voice of the ordinary citizen, reminding people why cheating and avoidance by the undertaxed rich is despicable. But where are the voices to make that case? It's time for a fair tax campaign to fight off this dangerous anti-tax assault. Polly Toynbee The Guardian
Full article: Feeble Labour folds in the face of anti-tax paranoia
Chinese conundrum
Never in the millennia of the great city's history has the Chinese capital been so open to foreign influence, for good or ill, and never has there been so dizzying a rate of change, says Boris Johnson. On my supposedly censored hotel television, I had watched, the previous evening, an excellent BBC documentary about the massacre in this same Tiananmen Square. Would the Chinese have allowed that to be shown five years ago, in their own city? On the other hand, the bourgeoisie of China shows plenty of interest in money, but not much in multi-party democracy and the joys of a free press. China is changing, but in some ways there are still walls against the influence of the West, ancient walls that seem to stretch on forever. Boris Johnson Daily Telegraph
Full article: China is changing, but the walls against the West are still there
Finding the plot
It was a bad start to the great adventure of the London Olympics when, last year, plot-holders at the Manor Gardens allotments in Hackney Wick were told that their gardens were inappropriate to the Olympic vision, writes Terence Blacker. Now, thanks to Boris Johnson's new appointment Rosie Boycott, allotments are no longer a joke; part of a dying heritage. Belatedly, it has been been recognised that, at the most basic level, they provide much-needed organic, healthy food; an escape from the tyranny of the supermarket. Beyond that, more importantly, they offer the chance to ordinary people from any background to express themselves through growing things. Allotments are fundamentally democratic and that can represent a threat to the privileged. Terence Blacker The Independent
Full article: Never mind the Olympics, let's hear it for the allotment
The bus is back
It was good to see a London bus honoured in the closing ceremony of the Olympics, says Lynsey Hanley. We need a bus revival. The idea that owning a car is liberating has to be one of the biggest myths cooked up in industrial-era history. Bus travel is like a Victoria Wood sketch on wheels. You see extremes of human kindness and meanness on buses, but the former outweighs the latter both in frequency and intensity. You are exposed every day to the young, the old, the smart, the scruffy, the daft, the warmhearted, the grumpy, the patient, the sunny in outlook. You never have a chance to forget what other people - people whom you don't know and who are different to you - are like. Avoiding other people by driving only turns you into Jeremy Clarkson. Lynsey Hanley The Guardian
Full article: That big red bus? It's the ideal symbol for a healthy future
Social mobility matters
It will take a brave political leader to take on the evil of low relative mobility. This is treacherous terrain. Dedicated middle-class parents, in particular, would need convincing that they would not be unfairly penalised for supporting their children in the education race. They must be persuaded that flatlining social mobility afflicts us all - even if we individually have prospered in life. Any true party of social mobility will have to confront these challenges head on, not least by working out how to deploy government resources efficiently to unlock the talent currently wasted, but also convincing a sceptical public that targeting the underprivileged is the only way ahead. Failure to act now will store up even greater problems for the future. Lee Elliot Major Daily Telegraph
Full article: Britain is the unfairest country in the world
In Brief
Sporting convert
The Prime Minister's conversion to competitive sport in schools comes a decade too late. For his Government has presided over the erosion of competitive school sports, not by some act of malevolence but through thoughtless neglect. It pledged in its 1997 election manifesto to halt the sale of school playing fields. Since then, more than 2,500 school and community playing fields have been sold for development. Leader Daily Telegraph
Full article: Sporting chances
Politics thrilling
Voters say they find politics "boring". But scratch beneath the surface and there is as much interest as there has ever been, not surprisingly when politics is a great soap opera where no one, including the leading players, knows what will happen next. It is also a unique drama in that what happens touches our lives. Steve Richards The Independent
Full article: Lessons from the focus group on the ocean waves
Dumb men
Pleas for the return of real men always blame castrating, omnipotent feminists who have brainwashed society with their nefarious demands for equal pay and physical safety. In such arguments, heterosexuality is a zero-sum game, in which any gain made by women entails a loss to men (a loss always located around their testicles, for some reason), instead of just, well, happier women. Sarah Churchwell The Independent
Full article: How to be a real man – and a jerk
Debt and morals
Yes, it's true that debt has a moral dimension. But it's not a simple matter of "saving good, borrowing bad". Without loans, owning your home would be a privilege restricted primarily to those with inherited wealth. Julian Baggini The Guardian
Full article: We need to talk about lending
Paxo wrong
Jeremy Paxman's moan that middle-class white males have a hard time in the television industry is nonsense. The Sutton Trust's report found that 86 per cent of leading newspaper and TV journalists were educated at those well known working-class havens, independent and grammar schools. Glenda Cooper Daily Telegraph
Full article: ‘The hell of being white, middle-class and male’
People: Paxman's protest
Biden a bore
There is something about Mr Biden's rhetorical aggression that jars with the more lofty political style and discourse that the Obama campaign strove to embody. He talks too much, too sharply and too often without any wise restraint. He will have to learn to crave the limelight a little less. Leader The Times
Full article: Uninspiring Insider
Analysis: Hillary holds key in Denver
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