Labour's nerves in Glasgow
Glasgow East is Labour's 25th-safest seat, writes Martin Kettle. It is also one of the poorest and most unhealthy constituencies in Britain. No seat is home to more voters on incapacity benefit or disability allowance. None has fewer voters with higher education qualifications. None has a higher proportion of single-parent households. Class A drugs have been a serious blight in the area for many years. The SNP claimed this week that life expectancy in Glasgow East is lower than in the Gaza Strip. To lose such a seat for the first time since 1922 would not just be a spectacular Labour disaster but also an unmissable sign of wider Labour disintegration in Scotland. Not even the very real possibility that the Tories could finish fifth would be any sort of compensation for the loss of such a fortress.
Martin Kettle The Guardian
Our insider in Westminster 
Big Oil owes Iraq reparations
"We" are already heisting Iraq's oil, or at least are on the brink of doing so, writes Naomi Klein. Invading countries to seize their natural resources is illegal under the Geneva conventions. That means the huge task of rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure - including its oil infrastructure - is the financial responsibility of Iraq's invaders. They should be forced to pay reparations, just as Saddam Hussein's regime paid $9bn to Kuwait in reparations for its 1990 invasion. Instead, Iraq is being forced to sell 75 per cent of its national patrimony to pay the bills for its own illegal invasion and occupation.
Naomi Klein The Guardian
Colombia's back on track
A country that only four years ago was a byword for a narco-state, shunned by tourists and synonymous with corruption, is rediscovering its pride, democracy and self-confidence, says a Times leader. It is now fairly safe to walk the streets. Tourists and even a US presidential candidate have returned. The bureaucracy is working. Farc still controls a third of the countryside and can count on huge illegal profits from drug smuggling, kidnapping and extortion. But it no longer commands any sympathy, even among the have-nots. And President Uribe's economic competence has encouraged growth rates to rise from a steady 5.5 per cent since 2003 to 7.5 per cent last year - testimony to better security and growing foreign investment.
Leader The Times
The question behind Betancourt's release
Boris looks after number one
There comes a point for every newcomer when suddenly, irrevocably, London has got into your soul, writes Katy Guest. For some, it's growling at people who stand on the left on escalators. And for Boris Johnson, that moment arrived three days ago. Until 3 May, he was a chilled-out optimist with faith in human nature, who encouraged people to stand up to bullies and "take a risk". But that was when he lived in Henley. One summer in the city and it's sod the bullies and look after number one. And to be fair to him, it happens to us all. Boris's London moment came when he ditched the Good Samaritan views of his more innocent days and started talking tough. "I say to kids who are going out this evening and they see a fight, don't get involved, move away."
Katy Guest The Independent
People: Boris's deputy accused of sexual misconduct
Scale down the BBC
Asked once what the future of the BBC should be, I described a broadcaster that had been scaled back to high-quality news, current affairs and documentaries, including works of brilliance such as Blue Planet, says Jeff Randall. This could be achieved with no more than two radio stations and two television channels - and for a much diminished fee. But the idea of stopping expansion, reining back and, yes, cutting costs, including jobs, is still deeply offensive to the majority of staffers who hold a quasi-religious belief in the corporation as a force for enlightenment. Many seem not to have noticed, or refuse to accept, that, as Sir Antony Jay points out: "There is no longer a case for taking £4 billion a year from the public to produce programmes they do not want or can obtain free elsewhere."
Jeff Randall Daily Telegraph
Cameron neutered by the Left
The success of "conservatism" only once disguised or neutered demonstrates a serious ideological victory for the Left, writes Douglas Murray. It is true that at the next British general election we might have a Conservative victory, but on the party’s present showing it could not be a victory for conservatism. In a speech about making Britain more "family-friendly" Mr Cameron stated: "We've got to ensure that every family has access to the emotional support and help they need." But what on earth is he going on about? Why is it the state's job to support people if they split up with their partners? It is not in the distracting touchy-feeliness of such sentiments, but the reflex belief in the universal applicability of the state that the Left's ideological victory is clearest. Douglas Murray Standpoint
Throwing money at the NHS
Along with the rise in hospital infections, the lack of cost control within the NHS is this government’s biggest failure in health policy, says a Spectator leader. In 2002, Gordon Brown, then Chancellor, accepted a proposal from Sir Derek Wanless that healthcare spending be doubled by 2022 to bring it in line with health spending in other European countries — putting a penny on National Insurance in order to pay for it. What he didn't say was what he intended to achieve with the money; rather, spending was adjudged to be a good in itself, intrinsically virtuous. Small wonder, then, that of the extra £5 billion put into the NHS in 2004/05 alone a mere 2.4 per cent went on operations and new beds — while 27 per cent went on pay rises and 29 per cent on pensions.
Leader The Spectator
