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The truth is out there: 07/11/2009

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

After putting on its best face during the Beijing Olympics, China is mindful of its image during next year's Expo in Shanghai. To that end it has announced a ban on that most flagrant of sartorial faux pas – wearing your pyjamas in public. Chengdu Business Daily, which reported the news, criticised the move, claiming it infringed civil liberties and showed insecurity on the part of the government.

John Hutton MP: No we shouldn't pull out... the strategy is absolutely the right one

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

The purpose of the Nato mission in Afghanistan is clear. It is to ensure that Afghanistan does not become a safe haven for international terrorism that would endanger our national security and that of our friends and allies. Our long-term strategy is also clear; it is to give the emerging Afghan democracy the means to do this job for itself.

Paul Flynn MP: Yes we should pull out... nothing will ever change

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

President Karzai should start his war on corruption by investigating his own family's new riches and links to the drug trade. This is unlikely. Gordon Brown is pulling on rubber levers. Nothing will change. Corruption has been the lubricant of Afghan political and business life for centuries. This is another mission impossible that will be as successful as the hope in 2006 that not a bullet would be fired in our Helmand mission.

Adam Roberts: The peaceful revolution of 1989

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

If 25 years ago you had said that within a few years communist rule would end in Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union would cease to exist as a state – and that all would happen with very little violence – you would have been thought seriously deranged. Yet, in fact, a nuclear-armed superpower did fold its tents, and its empire did cease to exist.

Christina Patterson: Why negative thinking makes the world better

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Some years ago, I went on a "positivity" course. My sister had died, my father had died, and I'd had cancer, and a broken heart, and I wasn't, quite frankly, feeling that cheerful. Perhaps, I thought, I could brainwash myself into feeling a bit better.

The truth is out there: 06/11/2009

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Robert Fisk's World: The German Lawrence of Arabia had much to live up to – and failed

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

His name was Captain Leo Frobenius and he was the German Lawrence of Arabia, tasked to start an Arab Muslim insurgency against British rule in Sudan and Egypt. Colonel Lawrence's mission, of course, was to persuade the Arabs of the Gulf to rebel against the German-allied Turkish army of the Ottoman empire. There were a few differences. A colonel Lawrence may have been; a captain Frobenius was not. His military rank was a fraud. And unlike Lawrence, the secret Frobenius mission in 1915 was a hopeless failure.

Howard Jacobson: Call it snobbery if you like, but someone has to rage against the dying of the light

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Doesn't matter where you look at the moment, at low culture or at high, the issue is the inability of the public to distinguish good from bad. Better dancers get thrown out of Strictly Come Dancing because worse dancers have a certain something about them that appeals to prepubescent girls and their only just post-pubescent mothers. Similar criteria operate to the real or feigned fury – there's no telling the difference – of X Factor judges. Nick Griffin appears on Question Time, talks bilge and gains supporters. And Martin Amis delivers a side swipe at Jordan aka Katie Price aka God knows who else at the top of the best-selling fiction list – Dan Brown? Stephenie Meyer? – and gets abused for being a snob.

Mary Wakefield: Sex education classes are the last thing young children need

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Such a charming little story I heard this week, told me by a friend who is governor of her local school. We were standing outside Sainsbury's, wondering where the car was parked, when The Twelve Days of Christmas started up in the forecourt. My friend sighed; gave her head a sad little shake. "What?" I asked. Well, she said, as a treat for the younger pupils, two officials from the local NHS trust had arrived to sing a song for them during the class that used to be sex education and is now PSHE (personal, social and health education). It was a jolly song, chosen with the festive season in mind, and because I've since found the lyrics online I can tell you that it went like this:

Village people: Conspiracy corner at the Queen's Speech?

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

It was not Gordon Brown who called in Sir Christopher Kelly to report on MPs' expenses and staffing arrangements, but the whole traumatic business has increased the longing among some Labour MPs for a leader in whom they could have more confidence. But how can Brown be removed?

Andrew Grice: Cameron is raising great expectations that may lead to a very bleak House

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

On the eve of Guy Fawkes Day, David Cameron produced a typically impressive firework display as he explained his new policy on Europe at a press conference.

John Hutton MP: No, the strategy is absolutely the right one

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Paul Flynn MP: Yes, nothing there will ever change

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Robert Salaam: One man’s actions will affect loyal US Muslims

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:28:15 GMT

There isn’t a word to describe the heartache, pain, and sheer disgust that I felt when I woke up yesterday morning. A Muslim serviceman can always expect to face questions about his loyalty. When I was in uniform, for instance - a converted black sergeant from New Jersey - a converted black sergeant from New York, Hassan Akbar, turned on his fellow soldiers and murdered two of them.

Robert Salaam: The actions of this madman cost us Muslims who serve our country so much

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:28:15 GMT

Alex Deane: Why RIPA is ripe for reining in

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:06:20 GMT

Alan Johnson announced this week that he would curb the ability of local authorities to use the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa).

Ben Chu: Separate the banks - even some bankers now agree

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:13:46 GMT

The argument against separating retail banks from their investment banking operations has got to be on shaky ground when even the financiers who originally pushed for the repeal of Glass-Steagall now say it was a bad idea.

Ruth Spellman: Managers, not businesses, must play a key role in alleviating work-related stress

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:57:42 GMT

Feeling stressed out at work? According to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), your manager is to blame.

Benjamin R Barber: Cultural diplomacy doesn't change how countries do business

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

When presidents and prime ministers worry about what kind of art to hang on their walls – Barack Obama has hung African-American paintings but also opted for some fairly esoteric modern works – we get a sense of the power politics attaches to the arts.

Sean O'Grady: Why governments care so much about saving their car firms

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

What's so special about the car companies? Why save them?

Sarah Churchwell: What I learned from Big Bird and Oscar

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Sunny days, sweeping the clouds away, on my way to where the air is sweet – like millions of children who grew up in the 1970s, I can tell you how to get to Sesame Street. It may be 40-years-old, but little about the show has dated: I have it on good authority – two nephews and a niece – that Cookie Monster still gobbles cookies mumbling "Om, nom, nom", Oscar is still grouchy, and Big Bird is still played by the same puppeteer, Caroll Spinney, who has played him since the show began.

The Sketch: When goodbye seems to be the longest word

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

What a long goodbye it is. There are six months to go but the committee has started its farewells. They've had over a decade together and now they await the deluge. Some will be standing down, others put down. Some will be promoted, others discarded. Meanwhile, we are entering the pre-election period of nothing happening.

Alistair Darling: There are substantial barriers to a climate deal

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

At Copenhagen in December, nations must agree about the future of the planet's climate. The richest nations need to make radical changes – but the developing countries do too, and they will need our help if they are to deliver the emissions cuts required. Climate finance is vitally important, and something we will address at the G20 meeting of finance ministers in St Andrews this weekend.

Mary Dejevsky: You don't need an MP's pay to live in SW1

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Of all the arguments advanced by disgruntled MPs against Sir Christopher Kelly's proposed curbs on their expenses, there is one that I find particularly, outrageously, dishonest. It is the one that says they will produce a Parliament of the super-rich. The same ardent defenders of the status quo tend also to have a uniquely disingenuous line about how the new rules will particularly deter women. Really? Even more than the misogynistic colleagues in the Chamber? More than the "Neanderthal" selection boards? More than any other job that requires half of a couple to work away from home? Come off it; any aspiring female MP will be made of sterner stuff.

Terence Blacker: A guide to the new eco-religion

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

So at last, it is official. Personal convictions about the environment are no longer to be regarded as matters of logic or science, but belong to the world of faith. As from this week, they are subject to the 2003 Religion and Belief Act. A belief in global warming has been put on the same legal footing as a belief in the resurrection or the existence of hell.