Leading Articles
Leading article: Diplomacy has not yet run its course with Iran
The world should tread carefully over Tehran's nuclear programme
Recent Leading Articles
Leading article: A new force in British banking?
Monday, 8 February 2010
In 2008 a Spanish armada succeeded where the first failed. At the height of the financial crisis, the Spanish banking giant Santander, which already owned Abbey, was strong enough to sail into British waters and snap up the stricken Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley. These opportunistic acquisitions doubled Santander's UK branch network.
Leading article: Island rivals
Monday, 8 February 2010
It is to be the cross of St George versus the Welsh Dragon once again. Fresh from the fierce encounter at Twickenham on Saturday in the Six Nations rugby tournament, England and Wales were drawn yesterday in the same qualifying group for the 2012 European football championships hosted by Poland and Ukraine.
Leading article: Sceptics have their uses
Sunday, 7 February 2010
The climate change sceptics have done us all a favour. This may seem a curious view for a newspaper so committed to the cause of environmental sustainability. But, by challenging the consensus view of global warming, the sceptics have tested the flabbier assumptions of that consensus and forced the proponents of the majority view to sharpen their arguments.
Eurozone faces its most difficult test yet
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Leading article: It is impossible to rule out a panic by investors in which they stop buying Greek debt altogether. That would plunge the country into a downward spiral and possibly even force it out of the eurozone.
Leading article: Parliamentarians on trial
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Hard on the heels of Sir Thomas Legg's final report on MPs' expenses came the announcement from the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, that three MPs and one member of the House of Lords were to be charged under the Theft Act. Cue, fierce objections from the Parliamentarians concerned and – we suspect – a rather unseemly sense of disappointment among the public at large.
Leading article: Football not behaving badly
Saturday, 6 February 2010
If every man who had an extramarital affair were dismissed from his job, Britain might well seize up the very next day. Nor is there any reason why personal morality should loom any larger in the world of football, even the world of the national team. In any collective, though, stability and cohesion must be paramount, which is why Fabio Capello took the decision he did, and why John Terry is no longer England captain.
MPs must not fight reform
Friday, 5 February 2010
Leading article: Most voters would agree with the conclusions of Sir Thomas Legg on expenses.
Leading article: Easing off – but only for now
Friday, 5 February 2010
Does the Bank of England's decision yesterday to end its £200bn quantitative easing programme (printing money in plain language) signal the end of the recession and the return to more normal monetary conditions? Or is it merely a pause?
Leading article: Fat chance
Friday, 5 February 2010
The sumo wrestler Asashoryu has quit the sport after being accused of drunkenly attacking a man outside a Tokyo nightclub. One must assume that Asashoryu is to blame since it would be a brave individual indeed who picked a fight with a sumo, not least one of the most successful wrestlers in the sport's history.
Leading article: A Green Paper that starts to ask the right questions
Thursday, 4 February 2010
Whoever forms the next government, defence will be in the firing line
Columnist Comments
• Bruce Anderson: Brown remains Tories' strongest asset
The party needs an attack dog to take on Mandelson
• Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: No hope of common sense in war against anti-Semitism
They knowingly mix politics and race
• Philip Hensher: Polite guests always eat the weirdest meat
Unlike the Chancellor, I'd have leapt at the chance of eating seal
Most popular in Opinion
Read
1 Bruce Anderson: Tories may wobble but Brown remains their strongest asset
2 Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Still no hope of common sense in the war against anti-Semitism
3 Anne Karpf: Anti-Semitism is at the limits of irony
4 Sean O'Grady: The mess the Pigs are in will affect us all
5 Philip Hensher: Polite guests always eat the weirdest meat
6 Letters: Climate change and trust
7 Dom Joly: Make England captains live like monks
8 Robert Fisk’s World: The presence of the Palestinian in the Israeli painter's eye
Emailed
1 Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Still no hope of common sense in the war against anti-Semitism
2 Robert Fisk: Israel feels under siege. Like a victim. An underdog
3 Robert Fisk’s World: The presence of the Palestinian in the Israeli painter's eye
4 Leading Article: Neglected home truths about poverty in Britain
5 Dom Joly: Make England captains live like monks
6 Charles Crawford: Language is a tool which must be kept well-honed to do its job
7 Johann Hari: You are being lied to about pirates
8 John Walsh: Tales of the City
Commented
1Hitchens attacks Gore Vidal for being a 'crackpot'
2Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers
3Campbell defends Blair in emotional interview
4Britain to slash number of foreign student visas
5Leading article: Diplomacy has not yet run its course with Iran
6Michael Sfard: Laws of conflict do not allow for killing civilians in this way
7Campbell at loggerheads with BBC for grilling over Iraq Inquiry
8Cameron: we need to get a grip