Leading Articles

Recent Leading Articles

Leading article: The electorate deserves a fairer voting system

Wednesday, 10 February 2010

For all its faults, the alternative vote is a step in the right direction

Leading article: An unjustified and disturbing arrest

Wednesday, 10 February 2010

Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa has a reputation for toughness and decisiveness, and his latest actions only confirm it. By dissolving parliament yesterday, he has cleared the way for early elections, which his Sri Lanka Freedom Party is likely to win handsomely. The move will thus further strengthen his grip on the country after his clear-cut win in the presidential election last month. It is, however, perfectly legitimate.

Leading article: Fruitless

Wednesday, 10 February 2010

Better suck in that stomach, because according to a new report by the Food Standards Agency, 10 years of government healthy eating campaigns have had depressingly little effect on what we eat. It turns out that our diets are more or less as unhealthy as they were a decade ago.

Leading article: The first real test of the new strategy in Afghanistan

Tuesday, 9 February 2010

General McChrystal's plan has logic, but success is far from assured

Leading article: The price of a healthier country

Tuesday, 9 February 2010

A diagnosis of cancer is traumatic. Speedy test results, a sympathetic doctor and rapid access to treatment all help to alleviate the anxiety. But one of the most persistent complaints among patients, with cancer and with other long-term conditions, is the ever changing panoply of health care staff. Labour's proposal to introduce dedicated cancer nurse specialists to provide one-to-one care for cancer sufferers at home, announced by Gordon Brown in a speech to the King's Fund yesterday, was instantly dismissed by Liberal Democrat health spokesman, Norman Lamb, as a "desperate, pre-election bribe".

Leading article: Bowled over

Tuesday, 9 February 2010

The Super Bowl has always been the quintessence of modern Americana: the glitz, the hype, the ludicrously expensive commercials, the half-time rock'n'roll and the strange sport which only North Americans take seriously.

Leading article: Diplomacy has not yet run its course with Iran

Monday, 8 February 2010

The world should tread carefully over Tehran's nuclear programme

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

Leading article: The prospect of a power cut

Thursday, 4 February 2010

When the energy regulator sounds the alarm over the risk of national power failure we should all listen. Yesterday Ofgem released a report warning of "reasonable doubt" over the security and sustainability of Britain's power supplies. It points to a combination of dwindling domestic gas reserves, a reliance on unstable foreign suppliers and a shortage of infrastructure investment. The regulator also reiterated a previous warning that without drastic action to expand supply many homes will soon find energy prices unaffordable.

Leading article: Hole hearted

Thursday, 4 February 2010

There were 4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. But how many are there around the UK's roads today? 1.6 million. And their number has increased by 700,000 in just two years.

Leading article: Two cheers for a little bit more democracy

Wednesday, 3 February 2010

If electoral reform is back on the agenda, that is a positive development

Leading article: Israel must investigate seriously

Wednesday, 3 February 2010

When a United Nations report by the South African judge Richard Goldstone accused the Israeli military of using disproportionate force in its December 2008 Gaza incursion, the Israeli government rejected the findings as "flawed from A to Z", "biased" and "ludicrous".

Leading article: Film festival

Wednesday, 3 February 2010

Frank Capra once observed that: "The Oscar is the most valuable, but least expensive, item of world-wide public relations ever invented by any industry." A glance at this year's nominations suggests why the Academy Awards are still as alluring as ever. This year's ceremony will see fantasy extravaganzas such as Avatar and Inglourious Basterds go up against gritty, low-budget jewels like The Hurt Locker and Precious. There's also an animated film, Up, in the best film category. Hollywood's big awards will be a broad church.

Leading article: The political battle over the unkindest cuts

Tuesday, 2 February 2010

David Cameron is right to moderate his party's policy on the deficit

Leading article: An issue of power, not privacy

Tuesday, 2 February 2010

If it had not been for Mr Justice Tugendhat, you would not have been able to read in this newspaper or any other the story of the English football captain's misdeeds with a colleague's partner, let alone the ensuing furore over his right to stay on in the post. But then, of course, you certainly could have – and many would have – heard all about it on the internet and Twitter.

Leading article: Wing and a prayer

Tuesday, 2 February 2010

There are some places which seem destined to be fought over. And Pegasus Bridge is one of them. Since the great battle on 6 June 1944, when 181 men from the Sixth Airborne Division established a crucial bridgehead for the Allied troops which then swept into France, the location has been beset by squabbles between veterans groups and locals over who should be the custodian of the site.