In Brief
3-D chess
The current political battle is a bit like playing three-dimensional chess. Every problem has to be considered in several different ways, taking into account the pressing economic problems, the political narratives of the major parties, and the possibility of an imminent general election. Martin Kettle The Guardian
Full article: Genius, or an empty gesture by men groping in the dark? 
The Mole: MPs wonder what Plan B is
On the cards
Here, perhaps, is the most useful argument against ID cards, and the key to the fight to come - not elegant tributes to the glories of the Liberal inheritance, or invocations of the Big Brother state, or even warnings from the more enlightened end of the Groucho Club - but something altogether more blunt: we simply can't afford it. John Harris The Guardian
Full article: A way out of the ID folly
Weep for Woollies
You may start to feel a little guilty that you so seldom actually bought anything in your Woolies, or in any other of your high street shops, preferring instead the ease of online shopping or the swishly reassuring atmosphere of the mega-mall. Anne Ashworth The Times
Full article: There goes the high street - there goes the neighbourhood
A trillion reasons to be gloomy about the economy
Army’s shame
After Kerry Fletcher complained of sexual harrassment, her mental stability was questioned, her private life was trashed in public. Clearly there is still prejudice within the armed forces, yet the case received no more than a cool, formal apology from the MoD. Terence Blacker The Independent
Full article: The Army has lost the moral high ground
Commons still alive
MPs ended the current session of parliament on a high note this week with a boisterous emergency debate on Alistair Darling's PBR. It was quite like old times – a sign that parliament has life in it yet. Michael White The Guardian
Full article: The Commons finds its voice in the tearoom
India's 9/11
The attacks in Mumbai were as horrific in scale and as cold in execution as the bombings of Madrid or London. This was India's September 11. It was of a different order from other mass assaults on civilians that India has suffered - the attack on its parliament, the bombings of trains and crowded market places. The attackers arrived in commando boats from a mother ship: they shot up a crowded railway station and hospital, before targeting Americans, Britons and Jews. Military-style planning had gone into an operation designed to soak the glitziest haunts of India's richest city in pools of blood. Leader The Guardian
Full article: India's 9/11
In pictures: Terror in Mumbai
Jason Burke on the prime suspects behind the deadly Mumbai attacks
This was the first full-scale anti-Western attack and Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister, was quick to assert that it was the work of outsiders, writes Maria Misra. But unlike 9/11 there is evidence of an entirely domestic element at play. In recent months there has been a spate of bombings in Indian cities. Responsibility has been claimed by the Indian Mujahadin - one of several fronts for the Students Islamic Movement of India (Simi). However, terrorism in India is by no means an exclusively Muslim practice. Terrorist violence is, sadly, endemic. In the past four years India has suffered the highest rate of civilian death by political violence after Iraq. Maria Misra The Times
Full article: India cannot pin all the blame on outsiders
Robert Fox: al-Qaeda cannot be ruled out over the attacks on Mumbai
In pictures: terror in Mumbai
Careful of the banks
Forget VAT, says Camilla Cavendish. Forget the Pre-Budget Report and the gaping hole in the public finances. Why has no one noticed that the financial system is clinically dead? Without bank loans, credit lines and overdrafts, good businesses will go bust and repossessions soar. The Government is trying to jolt the banks into lending with threats. But could this kill the patient? Alistair Darling seems to be saying that the Government recapitalised the banks to get them lending again. That is not true. It recapitalised them to save them from bankruptcy. Too much lending, and we risk going straight back to that scenario. Camilla Cavendish The Times
Shock therapy won't cure the banks' ills
Business Pages: Asian stocks continue to advance
Richard Ehrman: Pre Budget Report was purely a political exercise
War-time politics?
Are we at war? asks Steve Richards. During this week's emergency debate in the Commons, several MPs cited wartime conditions in an attempt to make sense of the current economic crisis. The parliamentary conflict in itself shows that wartime conditions have not been reached. The Tories feel under no pressure to adopt a bi-partisan approach that normally applies in war. Instead, they are feeling optimistic again about the way the politics of the recession is playing out after a wobble in recent weeks. If there is the equivalent to a war time coalition it is suddenly more likely that it will be a partnership between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Steve Richards The Independent
Full article: What did you do in the war, Gordon?
The Mole: emergency debate scheduled
Clunking spender
Over the next few years, astonishing sums of taxpayers' money will be spent, says Jeff Randall. Budget deficits are no longer measured in tens of billions, but hundreds. The Chancellor claims it is to head off recession, but we know different. This is what Gordon Brown has always wanted. Having finally got rid of Tony Whatisname, the Prime Minister is dumping any pretence of New Labour discipline. He's heading back to the future like a man possessed. Don't talk to him about saving: the Government is on course for £1 trillion of debt by 2012. The Clunking Fist has grabbed the levers of power and will not let go until he's thrown out of office. Jeff Randall Daily Telegraph
Full article: Everyone except the Government knows we’re spending too much
Does bankruptcy beckon for not-so-great Britain?
British adultery
Shouldn't we acknowledge that the mistress is always with us, like the weather, asks Rowan Pelling. Whenever a man has an excess of fame, wealth or power, there will be women keen to divest him of a little of that magic in exchange for her lithesome form. So should we be more French about the whole business? Accept that a married man in possession of a good fortune – or high office – must be in want of a mistress? But I'm not sure we could follow this model. What goes on beneath the table, the unacknowledged footsie, is so much more appealing to our covert nature. Rowan Pelling The Independent
Full article: An old-style mistress would not recognise her successor
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