Osborne should go
In Tory circles, the question is everywhere, says Iain Martin: what is to be done about George? The shadow chancellor is failing to hammer home the Tory message, that Labour is leaving a mess and that the Conservatives will fix it by taking tough choices to shrink the size of the state and leave Britons and their families substantially better off. Instead, the sense is that the Tories are failing to fulfil their historic duty and find themselves in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong approach to the nation's economic troubles. He should be replaced by either William Hague or Ken Clarke. Iain Martin Daily Telegraph
Full article: Tories face tough choices - and moving George Osborne is one of them 
The Mole: Cameron picks the wrong fight at PMQs
The hole we're in
The global economy and financial system are in crisis, but the prospects for Britain are distinctively grim, says a Times Leader. And international investors are passing judgment. Yesterday the pound fell to a record low against the euro. The weakness of sterling reflects specific British failings. The economy relies excessively on the financial services sector; and household wealth is dominated by property investment. The economy has thus proved vulnerable to bad practice in the City, and to bad policy that failed to constrain an unsustainable bubble in house prices. This need not have happened. Our predicament is not just a reflection of external economic turmoil. It is a home-grown recession. Leader The Times
Full article: A Very British Crisis
The Business Pages: Global market rout continues
The tax cuts can be financed by asking the Bank of England to offer an overdraft to the government, which is a polite way of saying by printing money, writes Gavyn Davies. If you think about this as a process in which the central bank prints bank notes (essentially at zero cost) and gives them to the government to hand out in tax reductions, you would not be wrong in any meaningful way. This is a crazy and dangerous procedure when inflation is threatened - but it is the most powerful way of fighting deflation that economists have invented. I recognise that this seems dangerously profligate. Surely the very same tactic, so beloved of countless South American dictators, cannot be the right solution for a sophisticated and stable western democracy in 2008? Gavyn Davies The Guardian
Full article: We must start thinking like South American dictators
Renaissance Prince
The Prince of Wales is the most important British public intellectual of the present day. We British have never been at ease with intellectuals. Charles has not always found it easy to command respect. Then again, it is hardly uncommon for intellectuals to have complicated private lives. "Public intellectual" is a modern way of saying Renaissance man. Charles fits that description. He paints more than competent watercolours. He is a cellist (no easy instrument), and an outstanding devotee of the noblest of sports: deer-stalking. He is a man of insatiable intellectual curiosity who is incapable of intellectual complacency. Furthermore this is a man who tries to put his ideas into practice. Bruce Anderson The Independent
Full article: In praise of a Renaissance Prince
Obama and nuclear weapons
One strategic goal President-elect Barack Obama should embrace on his inauguration day is that of a world freed from the threat of nuclear weapons, says Timothy Garton-Ash. To do this you have to persuade the states who already have nuclear weapons to commit themselves to reduce, rapidly and radically, and eventually to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. Zero is the goal. And you have to create an international regime ensuring no nuclear fuel gets into the wrong hands. Each of these is, on its own, a tall order. But you have to do both. Yes, this is trying to close Pandora's box, and no one has done it before. But there's a first time for everything. Timothy Garton-Ash The Guardian
Full article: Obama must show the way to a goal set by Russell, Einstein - and Reagan
Obama must scrap Star Wars, says Johann Hari. In 1983 Reagan got the idea from a science fiction film he had acted in. By the time he left office, there was a vast industry dedicated to chasing this will-o'-the-wisp. Spending has continued, and it still doesn't work. America's strategic opponents are preparing bigger and more nukes, to preserve their ability to punch through the non-existent shield. The US has spent $160bn, only to increase the nuclear danger to itself and the rest of us. Of course, if Obama ditches Star Wars, the neoconservatives will accuse him of "backing down" and "showing weakness". But is it really sensible to keep spending $10bn a year on an act of self-harm just to save face? Johann Hari The Independent
Full article: Obama's chance to end the fantasy that is Star Wars
In Brief
Double whammy
The cure for the post-Lehman collapse is totally different from the prescription for the credit and property boom. Instead of restraining lending, punishing banks and encouraging saving, policymakers have to do the opposite: support - and if necessary - subsidise banks, to create conditions for easier lending. Anatole Kaletsky The Times
Full article: It's an emergency. Long-term cures must wait
Brown’s fault
Mr Brown is posing as economic czar to the wider world. But come the next general election the public will not be so easily fooled, or forgiving. As with every Labour Government we have known, its legacy will be a wrecked economy that - yet again - will take years to mend. John Major The Times
Full article: Who's to blame? Look in the mirror, Mr Brown
At risk?
Children are said to be "at risk" of teenage pregnancy or becoming criminals. Welfare is becoming confused with protection. That means that social workers are going into the worst homes as supportive friends, rather than as hard-nosed detectives intent on sleuthing out evidence for child abuse. Mary Riddell Daily Telegraph
Full article: Why Baby P was doomed to die
Better placed?
Gordon Brown claims Britain is "better placed" than other countries to cope with the financial storm. Australia has built up a $44bn surplus, to see it through. So "better placed" than whom? Where are all these other countries worse placed than Britain? Just Iceland? Matthew Parris The Times
Full article: So there I was, sitting on a bull's neck...
Putin’s ambition
Mr Putin has all but announced his intention to use the change to stage a spectacular return for a further 12 years. Russia is slipping back into Third World habits, joining Algeria, which scrapped the two-term limit for the president yesterday. Leader The Times
Full article: The end of the enigma
Unreformable profession
There is no way of rehabilitating prostituion for the modern sensibility. It will always contain a lot of nasty people, and no amount of high-class hookers will change that. In the end, I don't think we should be fawning over "tart-lit" and making cute names for it. There are good grounds for moral censure, which we are mad to forget. Zoe Williams The Guardian
Full article: Turned off by tart-lit
People: Greer says paying for sex is OK
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