Commentators

Steve Richards: It's the crisis of identity that needs to be addressed – not a change of leadership

At different times, Gordon Brown and David Cameron have claimed ownership of the most potent word in British politics: they seek to be agents of "change". Brown spoke of change repeatedly during his brief honeymoon, a distant fuzzy era that seems to have taken place at least a century ago. After the Conservative Party's triumph in last week's Crewe and Nantwich by-election, Cameron declared with a showman's flourish that the spectacular result was a vote for change.

Inside Commentators

Dominic Lawson: We're hiding from the truth: eugenics lives on

Tuesday, 27 May 2008

There's some good news and some bad news for 92-year old Dr Hans-Joachim Sewering. The good news is that he has just been awarded a medal for "unequalled services in the cause of the independence of the medical profession" by the German Federation of Internal Medicine (BDI). The bad news is that Der Spiegel magazine has not forgotten what it published 30 years ago about Dr Sewering: documents testifying that under the Nazis he had sent children with disabilities to a facility where they were killed as part of a systematic programme of exterminating the mentally and physically handicapped.

Jon Cruddas: We're talking a language that's failing to resonate

Tuesday, 27 May 2008

You don't need to have read too many of the headlines over the past few days to get a sense of the febrile mood that is sweeping through the political class. The papers are full of plots against the leader – within and beyond the Cabinet. Yet in stark contrast to this media frenzy, the mainstream within the Labour Party recognises that there is no on-off switch that we can hit to redress our political problems; they are deeper than issues of mere personality. We are going to sink or swim together.

Terence Blacker: What exactly has Cherie done wrong to be so reviled?

Tuesday, 27 May 2008

The French have become unhealthily obsessed by the personality and private life of their President, Nicolas Sarkozy. The media are fascinated by him. He is the subject of more than 100 books. A psychiatrist, Dr Serge Hefez, has given this condition of extreme fascination-repulsion a medical name: "Sarkosis". The French, according to Dr Hefez, have come to see the grinning little chap in platform shoes as some sort of reflection of themselves. Not surprisingly, the idea troubles them deeply.

Bruce Anderson: Gordon Brown is doomed to rank for eternity among the prime ministerial nonentities

Monday, 26 May 2008

History is lived forwards but written backwards. This leads historians into temptation. From the armchairs of hindsight, it is easy to believe that what actually happened was inevitable – when at the time, the course of events was beset by uncertainty.

Johann Hari: This is the chance to go down with all guns blazing

Monday, 26 May 2008

This is a great week for Gordon Brown. You've lost. It's over. The next general election will result in a Conservative victory. So you have two years now – two liberated years – to be the Prime Minister you always wanted to be.

Mary Dejevsky: A Eurovision win that is not 'mere' politics

Monday, 26 May 2008

Don't knock the Eurovision Song Contest. It is the perfect accompaniment to a rain-threatened, narrow-lanes plagued drive, such as the one we were engaged in at the time. It makes no demands; it presents no risks; it does not distract from the task in hand.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: From the right to free expression to a duty to offend

Monday, 26 May 2008

Settle down with a cup of cocoa on Wednesday and watch a BBC film about Mary Whitehouse, the woman who railed against art, drama, popular culture, TV sex, spontaneity, equality, homosexuality, joy and freedom.

Philip Hensher: Britain, 2008... it's our statues that will tell all

Monday, 26 May 2008

As artistic projects go, this one falls squarely into the category of the bizarre. Does it really need to be made? Perhaps the mere proposal, in an age of the conceptual, is enough to constitute a work of art. Anyway, after the Angel of the North and the proposed Giant White Horse for Kent, this one might have been foreseen. Be afraid: here comes the Colossal Naomi Campbell.

John Rentoul: Brown isn't working – and Labour has itself to blame

Sunday, 25 May 2008

I would name the guilty men and women, but there are rather a lot of them. It would take up most of this column. One year ago, 313 Labour MPs nominated Gordon Brown to be leader of the Labour Party. Tony Blair, John Reid, Alan Milburn and Tessa Jowell are all to blame for the crisis in which the Government now finds itself. In fact, they are more to blame than those MPs who nominated Brown sincerely believing that he would be a good Prime Minister.