Equality

Friday

David Blackburn

By marginalising Mandelson, Labour has put itself in a half-Nelson

From our UK edition

The Dark Lord’s grip is weakening. Lord Mandelson’s waning status dominated headlines in the prelude to Christmas, and today the Telegraph reports that Harriet Harman, and not Mandelson, will lead Labour’s election battle. Mandelson’s marginalisation is understandable. He has been the government’s fire-fighter, deployed to defend the indefensible and bamboozle voters with a fantasia of figures and the demeanour of the Widow Twankee. As the narrative of recession cedes to that of recovery and the election nears, Labour requires a different style of communicator. Labour considers Harman to be that person, and hope that she will connect with women and middle England.

Friday

David Blackburn

There are moral absolutes: aspects of Sharia are barbaric

From our UK edition

Credit where credit’s due, Peter Tatchell wrote an article for the Guardian describing Sharia law as being “especially oppressive”. He says: ‘Its interpretations stipulate the execution of Muslims who commit adultery, renounce their faith (apostates) or have same-sex relationships. Sharia methods of execution, such as stoning, are particularly brutal and cruel – witness the stoning to death this week in Somalia of a 20-year-old woman divorcee who was accused of adultery. This is the fourth stoning of an adulterer in Somalia in the last year. Somalia is an extreme example of the Sharia oppression that exists in large parts of the Muslim world. As ever, Muslim women are often the main victims.

Friday

Martin Bright

The Oxbridge Elitism Debate: Lynne Featherstone Intervenes

From our UK edition

I always worry about attacks on the so-called elitism of our top universities. It strikes me that academic excellence must always be the "sine qua non" of access to the best institutions in the country. It must be in the interests of those institutions to open their doors to the widest possible pool of talent. And of course Oxford, Cambridge and other institutions must look for potential in students from state school backgrounds as well as taking the ready-made products of the public school system.  But this is not as simple as it sounds.