Leading Articles

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

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

Recent Leading Articles

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.