Tuesday's comment from the papers in...

Today in Times Comment

• David Aaronovitch: Flood alert: keep your fingers crossed. Should we spend billions because of this infrequent risk? Mr Brown, I think, says no
• Tim Hames: Blair can enjoy the Lebanon effect. Most Israelis have no desire to live in a gilded ghetto. They would like to reach peace
• Chris Ayres: If it’s all right for Julia Roberts… at one point a nurse began to dance around a mop and bucket singing 'Happy Maternity' to the tune of Happy Holidays
• Amir Taheri: Turkey is still as starkly divided as it has ever been about what kind of country it wants to be
• Peter Riddell: Voters do not blame politicians for natural disasters, but they care about how a Government responds
• Carol Sarler: There is something self-defeatingly mealy-mouthed about filling our prisons to bursting point and then leaving inmates idle
• Michael Gove: Mr Blair is settling for second best instead of genuinely striking out in a different direction
• Ann Treneman: Mr Twain would find our Prime Minister to be utterly exhausting in every way

And from the rest of the papers…

• George Monbiot: (The Guardian) - The middle classes congratulate themselves on going green, then carry on buying and flying as much as before
• Madeleine Bunting: (The Guardian) - This equality road map must now apply to men
• Polly Toynbee: (The Guardian) - The government is taking the right steps towards changing the housing climate, whether homeowners like it or not
• Mary Dejevsky: (The Independent) - Home ownership is a fixation we need to get over
• Steve Richards: (The Independent) - The perverse orthodoxy that says our politicians are always up to no good
• Philip Hensher: (The Independent) - Why is 'gay' still used as an insult?
• Rachel Sylvester: (The Daily Telegraph) - After Teflon Tony, it's Gore-tex Gordon. For years, it looked as if nothing would stick to Mr Blair and now Mr Brown also seems to be protected by an impermeable trouble-proof coat
• Peter Lilley: (The Daily Telegraph) - Only trade can solve global poverty
• Andrew O'Hagan: (The Daily Telegraph) - I really love pensioners. I love their lack of interest in fashion and their quite reliable lack of conversational banality: what I do not love is their driving

And from around the world…

• Anne Applebaum: (Washington Post) - For Russians, Putinism isn't just a foreign policy problem
• Richard Cohen: (Washington Post) - When faced with some unpleasant truth, Fred Thompson fibs. It ain't nice. It certainly ain't presidential
• Bret Stephens: (The Wall Street Journal) - Syria occupies Lebanon. Again
• Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon: (The Wall Street Journal) - A war the Pentagon can’t win - send the Central Intelligence Agency after al-Qaeda in Pakistan
• Mark Schmitt: (New York Times) - While the absence of policy detail in the Republican presidential campaign is remarkable, Democrats go too far in the other direction
• Elif Shafak: (Lebanon Daily Star) - Let's concede a measure of pluralism to Turkish women

Comments

[John Charlesworth]

The Government must insist on proper Environmental Impact Assessment before alowing more development!

The Government seems reluctant to give the Environmental Agency the power to insist on proper drainage before risky building programmes are undertaken. The laws exist but are they enforced?

Environmental Impact Assessments required, with local population involvement, are there to be used: getting local politicians to accept this is more difficult. They fear the loss of their own authority and bartering powers.

Too often we are at the mercy of Quangos and vested interests.

[Candadai Tirumalai]

In view of the fact that the charge of lies in high places have been much in the news in the United States in recent days (when Senate leader Harry Reid was asked if he would still call President Bush a liar, he said he would--in different terms), perhaps the old adage, "There are three kinds of lies--lies, damned lies, and statistics," should now be revised to "Lies, damned lies, and politics."