We still need the odious City
Rather as we must keep wanting to see Iraq stabilised, even if this might seem to vindicate George Bush, so we have to continue reminding ourselves that we need Wall Street and the City of London and some of their admittedly horrible people, says Max Hastings. There Is No Alternative, as Margaret Thatcher liked to say, sometimes rightly. There may be an important lesson in the experience of Goldman Sachs, the big house least tarnished by recent events. Commentators suggest that one reason for this is that Goldman's traders rely more heavily on their own funds, and less on other people's, to place big bets. Max Hastings The Guardian
Full article: Many of these bankers are horrible people, but we will still need them 
Business Pages: Nightmare on Wall Street for Merrill, AIG and co
Who's going to replace Brown?
There is no clear candidate to replace Gordon Brown, far less one whose name could appear on the 71 nomination papers needed to trigger a contest, says Jackie Ashley. The man who could win strong support is probably Jon Cruddas - the cheerful, self-confident leftwinger who scares the wits out of Blairites. One told me a postelection, defeated Labour party might choose Cruddas - "and then that's the end of Labour". Others talk of a Miliband-Cruddas dream ticket. Ah yes... David Miliband. What's happened to him since that forthright blast from the trumpet just before the summer recess? He seems to have pulled back, perhaps disconcerted by the lukewarm reception among his colleagues, perhaps realising how deeply unpopular he is among the unions. But his constant references to the need for "a new agenda" indicate that he's still up for it. Jackie Ashley The Guardian
Full article: The Labour party could be on the verge of destruction
The Mole: Why it pays backbenchers to let Gordon Brown continue in office
Brown's thugs
In March Ivan Lewis wrote that Labour needed 'national renewal and a new generation of political leadership'. You did not need to be a code-breaker to know he meant that Brown was yesterday's man, says Nick Cohen. Last Sunday the News of the World and Mail on Sunday had a story about Lewis sending pestering text messages to a young civil servant in 2006 all over their front pages. A Mafia hit, muttered Labour MPs. And although some defended him, not one said: 'Come off it, Nick, Brown may be rough but he'd never allow his aides to stitch-up a colleague in the Tory tabloids.' I don't want to be too prissy. All Prime Ministers need their thugs. The trouble with the Brown administration is that increasingly its thuggish face is the only face on show. Nick Cohen The Observer
Full article: Call off your mafioso aides, Mr Brown
Little Russia regrets its war
Russia's stock market has been battered, its currency has sunk, foreign investment has dried up, writes Fareed Zakaria. There are already signs that some in Russia's ruling elite are wondering whether 70,000 South Ossetians have been worth all this. We are not entering a new cold war. And if we do, the second time will be farce. Russia is a much smaller part of the world than it was when it launched the first one. In the late 1940s, the Soviet Union had the world's largest army and comprised between 15% and 20% of global GDP. Today Russia has a much smaller armed force and makes up a bit more than 2 per cent of global GDP. If there is to be a period of tension between Russia and the West, the outcome is predetermined. Fareed Zakaria The Guardian
Full article: This is not a cold war
How the West will win
People: John le Carre came close to defecting to Russia
The jury's out
Why is it considered an ancient liberty that must be defended at all costs, asks Sean O'Neill, to have guilt or innocence decided by a dozen people who would rather be anywhere else than stuck in a stuffy courtroom being in turn bored and bamboozled by barristers? Who says that those 12 jury members - open to intimidation, vulnerable to romance and faction fighting, susceptible to corruption or simply to listening to their iPods under their hijabs - can guarantee that justice will be done. Most big cases begin with a parade of potential jurors queueing up to tell the judge why they should be excused because of holiday, work, illness or some other reason. The remnants - usually those not bright enough to come up with a half-decent excuse - are left to try some of the most complicated cases.
Sean O’Neill The Times
Full article: Trial by jury no longer guarantees justice
Labour treat the poor like patients
There is about Labour's social policy more than a whiff of the omnipresent Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, with the poor forced into the role of the mental patients, writes Jenny McCartney. They are there to be sedated, patronised, managed and - when unruly - contained within enormous state institutions. Constant meetings are conducted about them, at which they are seldom present. I have never understood why hard-working people on low incomes, for example, can't simply be taxed less. Instead, they are compelled to scrabble to get their own money back from the state, by means of Gordon Brown's laborious and expensive working tax credits scheme.
Jenny McCartney Sunday Telegraph
Class structure is no excuse
In Brief
Put up or shut up
Siobhain McDonagh. Joan Ryan. Fiona Mactaggart. These are not the names of towering political figures. It would be understandable if Gordon Brown's more senior colleagues judged that a few unimpressive junior politicians should not be allowed to force their hand and that they need more time to make up their mind. Understandable, but wrong.
Leader The Times
Full article: Put up or Shut Up
Books should be banned
As for banning books, anyone who has recently browsed across the political shelves of an American bookstore will understand Sarah Palin’s feelings. Volume after volume alleging that George Bush is the worst schmuck in recorded history: authors who make Michael Moore seem like a serious intellect: there are plenty of books which would be infinitely more useful as cat litter. Bruce Anderson The Independent
Full article: It's not heresy to teach creationism
Alexander Cockburn: Democrats panic in the face of Palin mania
Don't bail out stranded tourists
A while ago, I had a puncture. I was on my way home and suddenly I was stranded. For some reason it never occurred to me that I could hail a taxi to take me home and expect you to pay for it. But, according to reports at the weekend, taxpayers - you and me, in other words - will be stiffed to the tune of £20 million to pay for the flights home of some people - too stupid or too cheapskate to take out holiday insurance - caught out by the collapse of XL. Stephen Pollard The Times
Full article: Good luck is ours. But bad luck is everyone else's
Substitute national service
Tony Blair, an ardent supporter of selection by ability in secondary schools, curiously believed that universities should somehow correct the outcome of that selection in their admission policies. They should take 50 per cent of each age group irrespective of ability. The majority of universities duly became little more than a substitute national service. As a result, most are pretty rum places, their inmates half-stoned and half-plastered, and their staff teaching for barely half of each year. Simon Jenkins Sunday Times
Full article: Raise your student fees, vice-chancellor
Get rid of Khomeini
CIA officials have become used to being dumped with insoluble problems, with peremptory orders to "Get rid of Khomeini" or "Eliminate Saddam." Plots to do just that are the common theme of a thousand Hollywood movies, which revolve around the dispatch of elite forces into enemy territory, where they successfully dispatch some local demon. In reality, covert warfare seldom works.
Patrick Cockburn The Independent
Full article: The US strategy for Afghanistan won't work
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