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Leading article: No possible excuse for destroying buzzard nests

Mon, 28 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Game shooting – the blasting of large numbers of pheasants and other birds out of the sky for enjoyment – has so far escaped the widespread opprobrium attached to fox hunting, largely because it takes place out of the public gaze. But that may be about to change.

Leading article: Charges with a whiff of a witch-hunt

Mon, 28 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Fiddling expenses is a crime, as not a few MPs and several peers have discovered. Nor is it just the scale of the fraud that determines the existence of a crime, though it plays a role in setting the penalty. It is the principle: the claiming of money – in these cases, public money – to which someone is not entitled. Now Baroness Warsi, co-chairman of the Conservative Party and the country's first woman Muslim cabinet minister, finds herself in the frame.

Leading article: Egypt's elections leave its divisions unresolved

Mon, 28 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

The results of the first round of Egypt's presidential election are at once hugely positive, and hugely negative.

Leading article: The human cost of the NHS's cruellest month

Sun, 27 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

If you go into hospital in the first week of August, beware. This is when new graduate doctors start on the wards for the first time, and fatality rates rise by 6 per cent.

Leading article: Questions for Mr Blair to address

Sun, 27 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

An appearance at the Leveson Inquiry holds fewer obvious pitfalls for Tony Blair than his grilling by members of the Iraq inquiry. But the answers given by the former Prime Minister today should prise open the window a crack further on his government's relations with the media, and with one media baron in particular.

Leading article: Russia must act now to halt Assad's slaughter

Sun, 27 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

That something utterly appalling happened outside the Syrian city of Houla on Friday is beyond doubt.

Leading article: Ten questions for Jeremy Hunt

Sat, 26 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

The Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the Culture Secretary and the inner Conservative entourage appear to suffer from a split collective personality. With their lower brain functions, they feel instinctively that they are on the same side as the Murdoch family and News Corporation. Yet other parts of their brains are occasionally activated, when they recall that, as an elected government, they are obliged to treat commercial interests impartially.

Leading article: At last, a politician fluent in European

Fri, 25 May 2012 19:00:01 GMT

One way and another it has been a good week for Nick Clegg, at least compared with some of the dismal times he and the Liberal Democrats have endured in coalition.

Leading article: Look behind Azerbaijan's glitzy façade

Fri, 25 May 2012 19:00:01 GMT

When the curtains open tonight for the start of the Eurovision Song Contest final, the host nation will be hoping that the world's gaze stays firmly fixed on the stage.

Leading article: Scottish voters must hear the best case for both sides

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

In launching the Yes Scotland campaign in favour of independence yesterday, more than two years before the promised referendum, the First Minister, Alex Salmond, and his Scottish National Party set out to seize the initiative. The star-studded launch, supported by the Scottish Green Party and a host of celebrities, comes months before the No campaign is likely to get off the ground.

Leading article: MPs must move with the times on gay marriage

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

David Cameron's decision to allow his MPs to vote freely on the issue of gay marriage is a reasonable one. After all, the matter is indeed one "of conscience". But Home Secretary Theresa May's enthusiastic support – not least her video for the Out4Marriage campaign – blazes a trail that her Conservative colleagues should follow.

Leading article: The watchdog needs more teeth

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

The corruption uncovered by the police watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Commission, is disturbing. Perverting the course of justice, abuse of authority, unauthorised disclosure, theft and fraud are all illustrated in its new report.

Leading article: The Prime Minister has questions to answer, too

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

From the testimony of News Corp's top lobbyist to the Leveson Inquiry yesterday it is clearer than ever that Jeremy Hunt cannot defend his position in the Government. And the whiff of impropriety attached to his supposedly impartial review of the Murdochs' bid for BSkyB is drifting closer to the Prime Minister by the day.

Leading article: Time for a critical look at so-called bargains

Wed, 23 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Supermarkets' special offers which, on closer inspection, are not the snip that they purport to be may not be breaking the letter of the law; but they are certainly against the spirit of it. The good news, however, is that the problem can be solved without recourse to yet more legislation. All that is needed is for consumers to get wise to their tricks.

Leading article: A shameful tax avoidance culture

Wed, 23 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

It was bad enough when it was only Ed Lester, the head of the Student Loans Company, who was enjoying lower taxes thanks to his being paid as a private contractor rather than a government employee. The implications grew darker when the Department of Health was forced to admit that two dozen of its senior staff were also pulling the same stunt. Only now, after a much-needed Whitehall-wide review, is the full extent of the rot revealed – and it should make both the non-mandarins themselves, and those who waved through their advantageous arrangements, blush with shame.

Leading article: We need to look beyond the fuss about Beecroft

Wed, 23 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

For a report that hardly warrants the name – it runs to a bare 16 pages – the document produced by the venture capitalist Adrian Beecroft has caused a rare old kerfuffle. Nor is it even the whole of the report. The offending section argues that employers should have the right to sack someone just because, say, they do not like his, or her, face.

Leading article: Political legitimacy is about more than Eurovision

Tue, 22 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

The Eurovision Song Contest is the most-watched non-sporting competition in the world. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that Azerbaijan's government sees Saturday's gala as a ticket of admission to the community of nations. Nor that President Ilham Aliyev has spent around $134m on a spanking new venue to host the event.

Leading article: No alternative to nuclear power

Tue, 22 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

When it comes to keeping Britain's lights on, the Government is between a rock and several rather hard places. A quarter of our ageing power plants will shut by the end of the decade. But demand is set to double as people turn to electricity for heating and to run their cars. And under EU treaty commitments, 30 per cent of our power must be green by 2020. Meanwhile, household fuel bills have trebled since 2004 and 8.5 million people are set to slide into fuel poverty over the next four years.

Leading article: Beware false promises of easy economic growth

Tue, 22 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Amid the hard graft of paying down vastly inflated national debts, the promise of another – easier – way is a seductive one. It is also, alas, too good to be true. Both here and in Europe, the economic debate is becoming ever more polarised, pitting "austerity" against "growth" as if politicians have merely to choose between the two. It is an over-simplification that could hardly be further from reality, and the spread of its appeal could hardly be more unhelpful.

Leading article: Liking Facebook, or not liking? Take time to decide

Mon, 21 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

After the triumphalist scenes at Facebook's headquarters when it floated last week, the company probably deserves the outpouring of derision that accompanied its share price plunge yesterday, which at one point had wiped $15bn off the value of the company ($15bn is equal to about one Yahoo).

Leading article: Olympic brands aren't this sacred

Mon, 21 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Some £2bn is being provided by the sponsors of the 2012 London Olympics. Without substantial financial contributions from firms like Coca-Cola, McDonald's, BP and BMW it would, quite simply, not be possible for the Games to happen. So it is quite right that the London 2012 authorities should seek to control the use of official names and logos and prevent their unauthorised use by other companies. Coke would rightly object if adverts for Pepsi were emblazoned across billboards within camera shot when coverage commenced.

Leading article: Lessons still to be learnt from grammar schools

Mon, 21 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Last week, it was the Education Secretary, Michael Gove.

Leading article: Time for Nato to fill in the blanks on Afghanistan

Sun, 20 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

As if one insoluble problem were not enough, world leaders moved directly from discussing the woes of the eurozone at Camp David at the start of the weekend, to the equally intractable challenges of the Nato summit in Chicago at the end of it. Even without the thousands of protesters lining the streets, the meeting would not have been an easy one. And the issue at the top of the agenda is the most difficult of all: the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Leading article: Chelsea... the triumph of the underdog?

Sun, 20 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Judged one way, Chelsea's win over Bayern Munich in the Champions League on Saturday might be nothing more edifying than a victory for the deepest pockets. But for all those football fans who love to hate the west London club for being the first of the really big spenders, there is another story to consider. Looked at from a certain angle, in fact, the win at the Allianz stadium was the triumph of the underdog.

Leading article: No closure for Lockerbie families

Sun, 20 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

The death of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in Tripoli yesterday is a closure of sorts, but only of the diplomatic fracas that accompanied his release from prison in Scotland in 2009. It brings us no closer to solving the mystery of who was responsible for the bomb that brought down Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. Nor does it offer any resolution to the families of the 270 people who died.