Badly Spun
The Government has produced sensible economics this week, but incompetent politics, says Anatole Kaletsky. The Chancellor and Prime Minister have have allowed the confidence-building benefits of the fiscal stimulus in the PBR to be overwhelmed by an irrelevant argument over future tax policies and projections of public debt. The debate is irrelevant for a very simple reason: nobody has the faintest idea how big the public debt will be when the recession is over, still less whether taxes and public spending will need to rise, fall or remain the same. And the Government also fails to dispel hysterical claims that Britain is on the brink of "national bankruptcy". Anatole Kaletsky The Times
Full article: A week of stupid politics but good economics 
Does bankruptcy beckon for not-so-great Britain?
Gordon and the Queen
The PM has somehow to persuade citizens terrified about losing their jobs and homes to discover a feelgood factor, writes Mary Riddell. Fortunately the Queen is said to be keen to play an enhanced role in these testing times. Her wish to resurrect the Blitz spirit could not chime better with the mood at Number 10. While Mr Brown can fairly claim that the Tories are bereft of ideas on the economy, he is struggling to defuse their charge of a "Broken Britain". A royal seal of approval can benefit the leader of a party which harbours much republican sympathy. Crises produce strange alliances. Mary Riddell Daily Telegraph
Full article: Gordon Brown hopes the Queen will bring back the feelgood factor
What happens when a Western economy dies
Hillary stuck in past
The trouble with Hillary is that she comes with all the baggage of the Clinton era, says Adrian Hamilton - the reach to express US predominance in the post-Cold War, the reshaping of Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union, the re-ordering of alliances in Asia in favour of India against Pakistan and China against its neighbours and the attempt to reach a Middle East peace balanced in favour of Israel. None of them really worked and none of them are relevant to today's conditions. The only element that Hillary Clinton added in her time as New York Senator was a progressively more and more openly pro-Zionist stance. Adrian Hamilton The Independent
Full article:: Hillary would be Obama's first mistake
American Transition: Obama to keep Gates but how will he get on with Hillary?
Iraq is over
It's hard to believe, but the US has agreed to leave Iraq, says Jonathan Steele. From the American point of view, the main thing the pact does is to allow the US to withdraw with dignity. No hasty Vietnam-style humiliation, but an orderly retreat from an adventure which was illegal, unnecessary and a disaster from the moment of conception. American neo-conservatives will declare victory, but the fact is that Bush and his ideologues wanted to make Iraq a protectorate and stay indefinitely so as to intimidate Iran and Syria. Now they have been forced to give up. Jonathan Steele The Guardian
Full article: This is no sop. It is a vote to end the occupation of Iraq
Robert Fox: is America ready to dump President Karzai?
Obama and China
China is wary of Obama, says Timothy Garton Ash. Now that he promises to restore the US's moral authority and soft powers of attraction in the rest of the world, China will have to work harder to keep its post-Olympic shine. China and the US are likely to clash on trade. As American workers are being laid off, the cries for protectionism in the US are sure to get louder. Then there's Tibet, which is currently jeopardising China's relations with the EU. Obama needs to pioneer a new approach to China, by attempting to work with China from the outset to forge common strategic positions. Timothy Garton Ash The Guardian
Full article: Only a strategic partnership with China will keep this new dawn bright
American Transition: news, gossip and analysis in the weeks before Obama takes office
Local difficulty
Pubs are shutting fast, says Adam Edwards. More than half the villages of England are now "dry" for the first time since the Norman Conquest. This week's new tax on beer is the latest kick in the head for a glorious British institution considerably older and rather more respected than the House of Commons. Each pub is the centre of its local community in much the same way as the Anglican Church was 50 years ago. But while the church has faded from so many of our lives, the pub - in particular, the country pub - has not. Adam Edwards Daily Telegraph
Full article: Death of pubs will be death of UK
Wine: Don't toast Darling, says Esme Johnstone
In Brief
Emotion in court
Victim statements are essentially an American phenomenon, introduced to our system by Mr Blunkett, when the country was still vulnerable to public displays of emotion in the wake of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. They serve no practical legal purpose. George Pitcher Daily Telegraph
Full article: Hannah Foster murder case: Courts should dispense justice, not comfort
Thailand’s trouble
Thais tend not to respect violence. To avoid it in future, national tensions must be eased by the only player in the political game who commands widespread support but has not yet moved: the King. Leader The Independent
Full article: Leading article: Time for a royal intervention
The Thai airport occupation is part of a wider struggle
Sick Sun
The Sun's campaign on behalf of Baby P, demanding that "those who failed the tortured tot" be sacked, is all the more ghastly because people whipped up into backing this cause obviously do care. Julian Glover The Guardian
Full article: Most tabloid hysteria is fake. The Baby P coverage is ghastly because it manipulates genuine outrage
Lady MacBrown
Gordon Brown's behaviour becomes stranger by the day. He has taken to grunting: "It started in America" at regular intervals, sometimes in defiance of context - rather like Lady Macbeth's trance-like "out, out, damned spot". Matthew Parris The Times
Full article: The land of my African boyhood lives on
The Mole: nervous MPs ask 'What is Plan B?'
A very public poet
The office of Poet Laureate was magnified by New Labour. These reforms created the impression of a sort of secretary of state for stanzas - with all the public expectation and media scrutiny that brings. Mark Lawson The Guardian
Full article: Wanted: poet. Must not be shy, deviant or Pam Ayres
Empty boasts
Ramsay's infidelity proves my suspicion of couples who rave openly about their sex lives. Everyone knows one: the desperately sad duo who make laboured double entendres to each other within your earshot. Who flirt like dogs on heat but only when there's an audience. Carol Midgley The Times
Listen up, celebrities, we want rows, not raunch
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