Wednesday's comment from the papers in...

Today in Times Comment

• I write: The BBC has asked for feedback... well, first of all the Middle East editor should have realised that his view of the region is blatantly biased
• Magnus Linklater: The Act of Union vote of 1707 still stands up well after all these years
• Alice Miles: The scandal is not Mohammed Taranissi but the whole IVF service in the NHS
• Alan Coren: The decline of marmalade... it's all down to the demise of the g*ll*w*g
• Carol Midgley: The manipulation of controversy in Celebrity Big Brother is a disgrace

And in the rest of the papers…

• Simon Heffer: (The Daily Telegraph) - Scots destroyed the Union - so vote SNP
• Irwin Stelzer: (The Daily Telegraph) - Woe unto Britain's aspirational class, which is about to be crushed between the upper millstone of David Cameron's Tories and the nether millstone of Gordon Brown's Labour Party
• Andrew Marr: (The Daily Telegraph) - Lost for words in the penguin enclosure…
• Terence Blacker: (The Independent) - The Queen's role of a lifetime is a class act
• Deborah Orr: (The Independent) - Give Scotland its economic independence and it will start to flourish like Ireland
• Mark Steel: (The Independent) - Help the rich to save the poor
• Jonathan Freedland: (The Guardian) - The Tory leader wants us to love his new party, but his version of social responsibility would be a disaster for the poorest
• Simon Jenkins: (The Guardian) - Brown will only rescue the British state from its agonies of self-doubt if he stops trying to wrap himself in the union flag
• Zoe Williams: (The Guardian) - Women who fixate on their weight should relinquish their right to be taken seriously
• Leaders: Israel and Syria: a deal that will have to be done - Independent

And from around the world…

• Harold Meyerson: (Washington Post) - Like Nixon, or like Ike? For the Republicans, there are two ways out of Iraq; one is conciliatory, one is contentious
• Judea Pearl: (New York Times) - As Al Jazeera on the whole feels the heat of world media attention, we can hope that it will learn to harness its popularity in the service of humanity, progress and moderation
• Arielle Thedrel: (Le Figaro - France) - Terrorists fan out across Maghreb from Algeria
• Brendan O'Keefe: (The Australian) - Our uncool national obsession leaves me hot and bothered
• Editorial: A Pentagon official's overboard criticism of Gitmo lawyers is consistent with one bad strain of White House thought - LA Times

Comments

[Mark Holland]

Anyway, every time I went to have a haircut

Those were the days eh Daniel....

[Ephi Levyn]

Were I Alan Coren, I should be mightily displeased that my humorous contribution had today been eclipsed by Magnus Linklater's hilarious attempt to convince Times readers that the Union has been good value for both partners. (The Union was, and remains, good value for the Scots, bankrupted over the self-inflicted disaster that was Darien, and subsidised by the English ever since.)

Mr Coren is exercised by the news that marmalade is in decline because 'children no longer like marmalade, and discourage their parents from buying it'. Children should in general be seen and not heard, and any child who attempts to dissuade a parent on the purchase of marmalade is best offered for adoption at the earliest opportunity.

Marmalade of good quality, which to my taste never extended to marmalade supplied in jars decorated with the g*ll*w*g symbol, is an essential component of any leisurely breakfast and second only in importance to the obligatory bowl of porridge - the one product the Scots should be encouraged to continue exporting to England when the Union is severed.