Zimbabwe is inconsequential
Seldom has so much time, space and hot air been devoted to a country that is so inconsequential to British interests, says Michael Holman. Unlike Iraq or Afghanistan, where oil, narcotics or terrorism are deemed grounds enough to warrant British troops, no soldier will die on African soil. No British jobs are at stake, no significant investment in jeopardy, no pension fund risks taking a knock. Tourism has been reduced to a trickle, trade is negligible. Tibet and Burma surge briefly and fall away, leaving few if any marks on the national psyche. But Zimbabwe endures, as emotive as Suez but without the import. Michael Holman The Times
Zimbabwe Today: More African states protest against Mugabe 
Sanctions are counterproductive
Subjecting a political economy to siege leads to consequences, says Simon Jenkins. It enforces a command economy, in which the rulers keep what they want for themselves, skimming every deal and corrupting every transaction. It made Saddam Hussein the sixth richest man in the world, as it enriched the Taliban warlords, the Burmese generals and Robert Mugabe. Sanctions over time destroy the mercantile, managerial and professional classes, the rootstock of opposition to totalitarian government. They push power into the hands of brute force. The withdrawal of trade closes factories, farms and mines, and debilitates the political effectiveness of those dependent on them. More people must rely on state handouts - that is, on the regime. Disinvestment transfers local assets to the ruler's cronies and prevents foreign traders ameliorating the condition of the people. Simon Jenkins The Guardian
The latest from Zimbabwe
What the NHS constitution forgot
We all, deep down, know the score, don't we? A technological revolution in medical services is under way, says Daniel Finkelstein. It means that we are going to reach the point, are already reaching the point, when the range of services we could, in theory, obtain is so great that it tests our willingness to pay for it all for everyone. There are more than 40 new cancer drugs in the final stages of development - the products of the molecular revolution triggered by the discovery of the structure of DNA. These work. They extend lives. But they are expensive - the cost of getting a single drug to market now exceeds $1 billion. So, many of them will not be available on the NHS. How could the NHS constitution pass over this in silence?
Daniel Finkelstein The Times
Obama's shift to the centre
Presidential candidates always have to shift towards the centre after a primary campaign, writes Jonathan Freedland. But Obama is not just any candidate. "You can't do it if you've run as Gandhi," says Leon Wieseltier. He contrasts Obama with the Bill Clinton of 1992. Both men offered to transcend the old categories of left and right, but Clinton did so by promising to be ideologically flexible. Obama's implicit promise is that he is above left and right, not because he is pragmatic so much as because he is morally good. In this context, says Wieseltier, U-turns are much less tolerable: "They compromise his radiance." There are other contrasts. Bill Clinton could finesse shifts by wrapping them in the language of policy detail; Obama is the very opposite of a policy wonk. He operates at 30,000 feet, somewhere in the rhetorical stratosphere. Jonathan Freedland The Guardian
A Reagan of the Left? Not much chance
Education - an obscene joke
A candidate was awarded marks in his GCSE English exam for writing 'F*** off' on his paper as a gratuitous profanity, writes Melanie Phillips. So this is what our once glorious education system has come to - that if a child writes anything at all on a sheet of paper, examiners are so pathetically grateful, they will award him marks. So much of what schoolchildren are now expected to do is a joke. Too many pass exams by ticking boxes with pictures in them. Too many are told they can read when all they are actually doing is memorising or guessing the words on the page. Too many have never been taught the rules of formal grammar which actually enable them to decode foreign languages.
Melanie Phillips Daily Mail
