Wednesday's comment from the papers in...

Today in Times Comment

• Alice Miles: If Mr Brown’s intentions towards the United States are fuzzy, his domestic objectives are utterly opaque
• Magnus Linklater: Because a target missed is a bonus postponed, the plenipotentiaries are on the warpath
• Christopher Martin-Jenkins: Michael Vaughan is an outstanding leader, but England’s occasionally graceless behaviour has certainly not been discouraged
• Melanie McDonagh: A child flourishes best when it has a parent of each sex, better than if both parents are the same sex
• Peter Riddell: Mr Brown cannot be certain the economy or his ratings will be so favourable next year
• Ann Treneman: Thanks to the new Tory logo, Mr Cameron was in Westminster repeatedly saying the word 'discipline' while under a cloud
• Stephen Pollard: Bergman is one of a large category of 'important artists' whose defining quality is an almost total absence of public popularity
• Robert Crampton: In principle there is no reason why a great white shark wouldn't make a meal of you off Margate as off Miami

And from the rest of the papers…

• Jonathan Freedland: (The Guardian) - More bulldog than poodle, Brown has signalled a new special relationship
• Zoe Williams: (The Guardian) - All hail the return of the multifarious posh. Let's now quit the chav-baiting, and go back to mocking the class that deserves it
• Peter Wilby: (The Guardian) - The decline of the street as a place where children play goes hand in hand with the atomisation of our neigbourhoods
• Dominic Lawson: (The Independent) - The camera always lies. So why deny it?
• Mark Steel: (The Independent) - Why does Saudi Arabia need military aid?
• Deborah Orr: (The Independent) - Equal rights for co-habiting couples will strengthen marriage, not undermine it
• Simon Heffer: (The Daily Telegraph) - One thing David Cameron has got right is his diagnosis of what he calls "the broken society". It is broken
• Irwin Stelzer: (The Daily Telegraph) - Brown came, he saw and was seen, and he got along with President Bush, who found him a 'warm, humorous man'. Now come the difficult bits
• Jan Moir: (The Daily Telegraph) - War memorials are such an established part of the British landscape that sometimes we don't see them
• Amanda Platell: (Daily Mail) - Women deserve the same pay as men as long as they work for it

And from around the world…

• Teresita C. Schaffer: (Washington Post) - Everyone favours strengthening the political side of Pakistan's government and holding free elections, but there are disagreements about how important an issue this should be for the United States
• Peter D. Zimmerman, James M. Acton and M. Brooke Rogers: (New York Times) - The government and people need to have a conversation about radiation terrorism before the next attack
• Jurgen Reinhoudt: (The Wall Street Journal) - Even as European leftists move right, American ones move further left
• James Huang and Michael Kau: (International Herald Tribune) - Despite broad support, Taiwan remains an international orphan
• Gwynne Dyer: (Japan Times) - Libya is the land of make-believe with regard to fixing blame, as the Lockerbie case and last week's release of five medical workers indicate
• Editorial: Voters in Japan have inflicted every possible electoral humiliation on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe short of forcing him to resign - International Herald Tribune

Comments

[John Charlesworth]

Both Alice Miles and Ann Treneman have a similar theme: it is difficult to determine the real intentions of both Labour and Conservative leaders.

Hardly surprising as both are captives of their local bases, European and UN Politics. The best leader for the UK is the one that can mange these conflicts: the best person is the one that can steer the UK in the right direction. At the moment Brown is the clear winner and Cameron needs to build on his strengths at local level where his party is in a clear majority.

[Candadai Tirumalai]

I saw the films of Ingmar Bergman forty years ago and found them suggestively powerful. Even if I were to see them today, I do not believe I would agree with Stephen Pollard's assessment of Bergman, who, incidentally, was honest enough to admit that he never gave his several children an ounce of attention. But Pollard's argument that coterie-backed art is dull or pointless, with no appeal to those who trust their own instincts and judgment, does deserve general consideration. It is a question posed by the modernist revolution in the arts, of which Bergman was a part.