The Periscope Post

The best of the UK’s leading editorials, all in one place.

The Times today looked at yesterday’s parliamentary vote in Iraq, the Conservatives’ plan for education reform, and finally, dealt with so-called “spyclists”.

Yesterday’s parliamentary vote in Iraq, marred by violence that claimed the lives of at least 38 people at the polls, “reminds us how much democracy matters in Iraq,” The Time wrote today. Commending the Iraqi people “who risked their lives to vote,” the paper said there was much ground for optimism to be found in yesterday’s vote. Even so, “Iraq still has far to travel on the long road to normality.”

Michael Gove, the Conservative Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, wants to radically change the National Curriculum, itself introduced in 1988 by the Conservatives; the problem is, The Times said, is that his plan seems divided in two and neither are reconciled to the other. “First traditional reform, then radical change,” the paper wrote. “If Mr Gove does become Secretary of State for Schools, it seems an easy life is not on the agenda.”

Evidently, the Government released documents today revealing a slightly fantastic pre-World War II German espionage plot: Legions of young “tourists” taking bicycle tours of England’s many glorious landmarks, especially those in cities and towns. At night. With measuring equipment. MI5 wasn’t fooled and warned local police to keep an eye on the visitors. It’s the stuff of a spy thriller, a point not lost on The Times: “Not all sensational espionage stories are fiction.”

The Guardian editorialized on the virtues of working less and how this election seems to be focusing on personality much more than any has in the past.

The New Economics Foundation proposed last month to reduce the British working week from 37 to 21 hours, allowing employment to be more equitably split between people who have jobs, people who need jobs, and on the home front. The Guardian pointed out that a three-day work week proved disastrous when it was introduced in the 1970s, but added that recent philosopher types think that working less may the only viable long-term option in modern life: “Something cheery to think about on that commute today.”

“Even in a parliamentary system, every general election is always partly about leadership,” The Guardian opined. “Britain’s 2010 general election, though, will turn on the question of leadership to an unusual degree.” Personal leadership will define this election, in large part owing to circumstances – the times ahead will be rough – and to the fact that at the moment, Gordon Brown is less popular than his Labour Party, while David Cameron is more popular than his Conservative Party. Thus far, voters seem more willing to put up with Brown’s poor leadership than to give the Tories a chance, but these next few months will be important. Said the paper, “Mr Cameron has rebuilt the Conservative party’s position around his own credibility as a new sort of Tory leader. His relative success means he is held to a higher standard than Mr Brown. But it also means that more is at stake for his party if that credibility comes under threat. That is now the case with the Ashcroft affair. Mr Cameron has questions to answer and, even more important, actions to take. He has no choice but to rise to the challenge.”

The Telegraph called for a real debate on the NHS and also lauded the courageous voters in Iraq.

On the National Health Service, The Telegraph wrote today that no party seems to know what to do about it: The cost of the NHS has doubled – not a good thing as Britain’s debt promises to surpass that of embattled Greece – but quality certainly hasn’t. “Yet any party that so much as whispers about NHS cuts can wave goodbye to the marginal 
seats that will decide the result of the general election,” the paper wrote. The Telegraph wrote that “[o]nly radical measures can preserve good public health care”, but that no one in either party seems willing to address that. So, the paper said, over the next week it will publish its own special reports on health care. “That way, we hope to start a national discussion that is dangerously overdue.” Stay tuned.

“There is something moving about the sight of people queuing to vote in countries which have been racked by violence,” The Telegraph wrote about Iraq’s historic election yesterday. Now, the Iraqi government is tasked with forming a functioning body from the disparate, squabbling sects that make up the nation as the American forces prepare to leave.  “Responsibility is passing from occupier to indigenous authority. Iraq’s politicians now have to prove themselves worthy

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