Bradford and Bingley
The Bradford bard, Justin Sullivan, described London as "the land of gold and poison that beckons to us all", says a Guardian leader. Once that might have sounded like northern bigotry; this morning it resonates. For the fast-buck culture of the City of London is what brought Bradford & Bingley to its knees. Once a proud mutual, which brought together local savers and local homebuyers, it transformed itself into a bank and has now gone the same way as the other former building societies - all of which have either folded or been bought out. Their commercialisation once seemed to promise a more competitive mortgage market - and a chance for the regions to taste London's financial prosperity. But now market mayhem in the Square Mile is starting to translate into lost jobs in Halifax, in Newcastle and, indeed, in Bradford and in Bingley. Leader The Guardian
Full article: Home truths 
The Business Pages: Bradford and Bingley nationalised
How Republicans steal votes
A New York University study recently found that it "is more likely an individual will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls", writes Johann Hari. But in the name of this paltry risk, the Republicans are effectively stripping millions of people - overwhelmingly black and Democrats - of their vote. For example, in Indiana - a crucial swing state - Republicans have passed a law requiring voters to bring an official government document bearing their photograph to the polling station. But a study by the University of Wisconsin found that 53 per cent of black adults didn't have a passport or driving licence, compared to 15 per cent of white people. So they can't vote unless they travel for hours (often without a car) to a sparse government registry and queue for half a day to get the correct documentation. Johann Hari The Independent
Full article: Barack beware... they're out to get you
Will McCain use the economic crisis as an excuse to sack Sarah Palin?
America's bail-out
Americans are not prepared to take authority on trust, writes Simon Jenkins. They have not repeated the gullibility they showed towards Bush's scaremongering over Iraq. A crisis is no excuse for executive arrogance. America can be at its best with its back to the wall: argumentative, unpredictable, certainly not pretty, yet still the rock on which Western security - and financial credit - rests. This crisis is not passed. When it is, its immediate legacy will be a presidency from hell, George Bush's final poison pill to his successor. Yet the knowledge that all America has been involved in the rescue is a security rather than a shock. Whether Obama or McCain wins this election, he will endure agony paying for the crash of 2008. He should at least take strength from the manner of its rescue. It was executed by the mob, not the club. Simon Jenkins Sunday Times
Full article: America is lucky - it’s being saved by the mob
The Business Pages: US bail-out accord reached
Barroom brawler Brown
Macho Gordon Brown doesn't understand the shifting times and seems to think he is in a barroom brawl, writes Nick Cohen. If he can deliver a killer blow to his opponents, he will win. But the movement against him is not primarily composed of Charles Clarke and other old-fashioned street fighters. The opponents he needs to worry about are more often than not passive-aggressive spectators sitting on side tables and watching his behaviour with increasing abhorrence. The danger for Brown is not that Labour MPs will knock him down, but that they will follow Ruth Kelly and slip out of the door, one by one, until he is left punching the air in an empty room, exhausted and alone. Nick Cohen The Observer
Full article: Why Brown's bar-room brawlers won't win
Flashman and the Tories
So far, the Tories still seem more Flashman than Gladstone, says Jackie Ashley. You could sum up the policies: don't do much on the banking crisis, have a divisive referendum on Europe, plunge the schooling system into an expensive flurry of organisational change and promise to cut taxes for the well-off, but only some time in the future. Oh yes, and restore weekly rubbish collections. Many voters will barely notice, and Labour is too busy disembowelling itself to make these points; but it hardly looks like a shrewd plan for power. Jackie Ashley The Guardian
Full article: The Tories still seem more Flashman than Gladstone
People: Cameron piles into Alan Sugar
Silverbacked gorilla types
Many women will tell you that one of the most irritating things about life is that alpha males - great silverbacked gorilla types - strike us, maddeningly, as being rather more attractive than their kinder, gentler, more considerate dwarf-monkey counterparts. Sexist men, the scientists found, made an average of $8,500 (£4,600) a year more than men who viewed women as work-place equals. Meanwhile, feminists earned more than their more traditionally minded female colleagues.
India Knight Sunday Times
Full article: Be honest: we all love the sexist alpha male
Wrongful dismissal
Labour's doomed ministers should ensure that the Government sets an example on their employment regulations by suing Mr Brown for wrongful dismissal. The truth is that Browne, Murphy and Hoon - if they are sacked - will be carrying the can for an incompetent Prime Minister. It is rather like a regional sales manager summarily dismissing a faithful old lag to disguise the fact he has got his own figures wrong. Ross Clark The Times
Full article: Don't sacked ministers have rights too
Regions
One of the things that viewers and listeners most complain about is the insane vastness of "regions" - one ITV region stretches from Penzance to Tewkesbury, and people in Walsingham find it odd when the BBC news - patronisingly announced as "from where you live" - is all about Southend.
Libby Purves The Times
Full article: Is the BBC a rival or a resource?
Planet Equality
On Planet Equality, it seems it is racist to have an Army consisting of Britons committed to defending their own country. That's because multiculturalism holds that no one culture can lay claim to be the custodian of this nation's values. Mass immigration is regarded, instead, as the means to transform this green and pleasant land into the nursery of the brotherhood of man. Melanie Phillips Daily Mail
Full article: The police, the Crown, and now the army - who will the Planet Equality zealots target next?
Paul Newman
The art of dressing is to buy well-made clothes and then to wear them matter-of-factly, as if they just happened to be the first things that came to hand that morning. It's much the same with beauty and talent. Paul Newman had both in spades. Yet he wore them so lightly that he never let them weigh him down or crease his career. Leader The Times
Full article: Newman's Own Genius
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