Tariq Ghaffur, the assistant commissioner, is suing Sir Ian Blair and the Met for racial discrimination, notes a Telegraph leader. Sir Ian and his supporters maintain the commissioner "does not have a racist bone in his body". Unfortunately for him, the Orwellian doublethink ushered in by the Macpherson report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence does not allow for such positive self-assessment. It states that a "racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person". Sir Ian was the foremost champion within the force - or "service" as he would call it - of acknowledging Macpherson's charge of institutional racism. He is, as Hamlet said, hoist with his own petard. Sir Ian seems content to blunder from one crisis to the next. It is time he went. Leader Daily Telegraph
Full article: That's enough of Sir Ian

There is, in fact, almost no difference in the rate of so-called "obesity" between people of different income levels, writes Dominic Lawson. It is possibly true that truly morbid obesity is now more common among the poorer, when once it was the exclusive privilege of the most affluent – Queen Victoria and her son Edward VII both boasted figures which did not deviate much from the spherical. This modern trend, which differentiates the developed world from less fortunate nations, is not a result of increasing relative poverty in the UK, as so many insist: instead it demonstrates that, at least in terms of food purchasing power, we have, after the US, the richest poor people in the world. Dominic Lawson The Independent
Full article: Don't believe obesity figures – they're spun for a purpose

The dangers of gigantism in prison are very great, writes Theodore Dalrymple. Running a prison without resort to brutality requires a delicate balancing act. The necessary co-operation of prisoners cannot be obtained by brute force alone, but staff need to maintain the upper hand. As every prisoner knows, most brutality in prison comes from prisoners, not staff. When the staff lose control, brutality increases. The main purpose of prison is to keep wrongdoers off the streets for as long as necessary, which is usually much longer than our courts acknowledge. It is not to brutalise or humiliate prisoners, which vast and impersonal prisons are more likely to do. Huge prisons do not make us modern, any more than model rockets made Zambia a space power. Theodore Dalrymple The Times
Full article: Titan prisons will only brutalise their inmates
Theodore Dalrymple: Rational Health

The lesson is not that the West was wrong to recognise Kosovo or that Nato was right to delay Georgia's membership, says Nader Mousavizadeh. Rather, it is to suggest that we increasingly live in a world of choices. We may be able to enjoy the satisfaction of supporting the Kosovans or encouraging the Georgians, but we may not be able to do so without paying a price in another arena. If this appears daunting, imagine the time not too distant when China, Brazil, India and a dozen smaller but significant powers begin to align strategic aims with economic power in their dealings with the West. Avoiding a global zero-sum game will require a President Obama as shrewd as he is inspiring. Nader Mousavizadeh The Times
Full article: How to navigate the new global archipelago
Dan Hannan: How is South Ossetia any different from Kosovo?