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The Times today dealt with David Cameron’s recent interview with Alan Titshmarsh; the public interest in the case of Jon Venables; and the Prime Minister’s plan to tackle banking reform.

David Cameron eschewed the tell-all Piers Morgan interview, opting instead for a grilling from “TV’s favourite gardener” Alan Titchmarsh. How’d he prepare? With help from his aides, The Times says:

Michael Gove: If I can ask you something personal, do you have a favourite gardening implement?

Cameron: I did have, Alan. A fine hoe. Unfortunately, it is currently broken; like so much else in the country. And I feel that it’s my patriotic duty to mend it. Why? Because we cannot hoe on like this.

On the case of Jon Venables, who was convicted of the brutal murder of 2-year-old James Bulger when he was just 11 years old, The Times contended that there is a legitimate public interest in workings of the system that rehabilitated and released Venables. Especially, the paper wrote, as Venables has been recalled to prison for some as-yet unknown alleged criminal conduct.

The Times wrote that Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who gave his speech on the economy yesterday, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling “deserve credit for their navigation through the storm” of the economic crisis, but that’s not a reason to vote for him again. “The banking rescue showed Mr Brown at his decisive best, but no sooner was the package in place than he returned to his dissimulating worst,” the paper wrote. Brown needs to come up with – and quick – a cogent plan for economic recovery.

The Guardian also took a look at Gordon Brown’s economic forecast and write that the conditions exist for a settlement with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Though Brown warned of “choppy waters” ahead for the British economy yesterday, The Guardian claimed today that he might not have been “gloomy enough.” This recent spurt of relatively good news may quickly turn to bad, and The Guardian, like The Times, wrote that Brown needs a plan: “[H]is best chance of winning the election is to keep warning that the Tories would rein in spending too soon and too unfairly and hurt the worst-off. That is broadly true, but Labour should lighten the gloom with some proposals for how it will rebuild a shattered manufacturing base and an economy still too dependent on the City.”

The war in Afghanistan is not working and cannot be won militarily; NATO and the Afghan government need to engage diplomatically with the Taliban and consider compromise, The Guardian wrote. “The conditions exist for a settlement. It would limit Taliban influence to the south, preserve advances such as female education, cut corruption and the number of foreign troops.”

The Telegraph issued a bit of a backhanded compliment to Gordon Brown and wrote that Israel must “not exasperate its friends.”

Acknowledging that it is no fan of Gordon Brown, The Telegraph nonetheless contended that one has to admire the PM’s “resilience.” Even so, “Mr Brown is anxious to avoid an election based on his record because it is hard to defend. In particular, he blames global events for Britain’s economic woes, when his own failures as Chancellor to keep some of the revenues from the good times to help us through the bad reflect his hubristic belief that boom and bust had been abolished, a claim he is no longer in a position to make,” said The Telegraph. “[Voters] are also entitled to ask whether the party that has brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy deserves yet another chance.”

“Sometimes, it is hard for even the most ardent of Israel’s friends not to feel irritated beyond measure at the activities of its government,” The Telegraph wrote on the country’s recent announcement that it will build 1,600 new buildings in East Jerusalem, hours after US Vice President Joe Biden optimistically claimed that peace could be just around the corner. That’s no way to repay one’s friends, the paper contended.

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