In The Times Philip Collins argues that David Cameron is nothing more than the not-Ed Miliband candidate. It might be enough and Mr Miliband is not best-placed to captalise on the no-show Prime Minister. The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee says the more the young and the poor think Westminster doesn’t act for them and isn’t on their side, the less they will vote. And the less they vote, the more they will be ignored as the electoral battleground shrinks to a little middle England handkerchief of turf. The Daily Telegraph’s Fraser Nelson thinks that many Tory rebels have stopped worrying about a Labour government; some just loathe Cameron and want him gone, others are positioning themselves for a post-Tory Party and indulging in fantasies about being Europe minister in Boris Johnson’s government. In The Daily Express Chris Roycroft-Davis asks why do almost 800,000 immigrants in this
country admit they struggle with English or can’t speak it at all? How do they think they’re going to live a full life and prosper in their new home? Frederick Forsyth says we are constantly told that traditional British opinion is Right-wing and therefore vaguely nasty. Thus true Labour voters would never evince an opinion that was not right-on, politically correct. Supposing one of these wealthy exquisites from London actually went up a major A-road and stopped off at a real transport caff. He would find it wall to wall with truck drivers, big hefty men with tattooed forearms, working 50 hours a week, raised to vote Labour. The Independent’s Mark Steel argues that the problem Nick Clegg has is that once you’ve broken your word so blatantly, you can’t expect to be trusted next time. Serial adulterers face the same dilemma, but at least they usually display
some self-awareness.

In The Times Ben MacIntyre thinks that those who see Britain’s floods as divine punishment are tapping into one of the oldest stories in our common culture. Ark syndrome is a psychological urge buried deep in our cultural DNA. The Guardian’s George Monbiot says David Cameron’s dredge pledge is like the badger cull. It is useless. It is counterproductive. But it keeps the farmers happy and allows the government to be seen to be doing something: something decisive and muscular and visible. And that, in these dismal times, appears to be all that counts.

The Independent’s Andreas Whittam Smith says the Spanish Civil War turned out to have been a dress rehearsal for what was to begin just a few months later, the Second World War. From 1939 onwards, the great powers, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union, fought each other directly – and the German air force quickly made use of what it had learned in Spain. In the same way, is the Syrian civil war a dress rehearsal for a general conflagration in the Middle East? In The International New York Times Roger Cohen tries to explain US policy in the Middle East. Think of the Middle East as a huge arms bazaar. The United States plans to sell Apache helicopters to the Shiite government of Iraq, with which to suppress Sunni revanchist stirrings, while the United States is (sort of) supporting the Sunnis against the Shiite-backed Assad in Syria.

The Daily Telegraph argues that there is no need for an inquiry into the actions of police officers at the Orgreave Colliery during the Miners’ Strike of 1984. Old cases should only be reopened in exceptional circumstances and where the public interest warrants it. In this case, it emphatically does not.

The International New York Times thinks the political crisis in Ukraine has reached a critical turning point, at which each side must consider what it stands to lose from further conflict. The West could help by seriously considering emergency aid and by proposing to actively mediate. A popular revolt that began with hope in the West should not end in disillusionment with the West.

The Times asks: Why has it taken so long to help victims of the flooding? If rational economics dictates that less populated parts of the country must be allowed to suffer some flooding when the weather grows extreme, competent governance dictates that those who live and work in them deserve timely support.

The Guardian’s Simon Jenkins says he must apologise to the Germans. They are about to suffer an avalanche of often sickening Great War memorabilia, largely at their expense. It will be the British at their worst: sanctimonious, self-congratulatory, worshipping at the tomb of the unknown, awful German. The centenary of the first world war is already flooding the television schedules before the date of its outbreak (in autumn 1914). History bestseller lists focus on little else: there are no fewer than 8,000 titles on the subject.

In The FT Martin Wolf notes that an independent Scotland would be free to keep the pound, without a currency union, or to peg any new currency to the pound. But currency union would be problematic. It would be folly for the rest of the UK to enter a union with an independent Scotland voluntarily, having seen what has happened inside the eurozone. But, if it did indeed agree to do so, it would have to be on the basis of a view of its own interests.

The Daily Mail’s Jan Moir says women cannot exult in the freedoms and emancipations that come with being captains of our own ships without accepting responsibility for our big bad selves at the same time. And acceding that being drunk just might make a woman more vulnerable to rape is not at all the same thing as suggesting she is somehow responsible for the rape. Surely someone such as the unimpeachable, kindly and helpful Irma Kurtz can suggest this without being shrilly accused by indulged, militant modern feminists of being a victim-blamer? Sigh. Obviously not.

@queenchristina_