Afghanistan votes
‘Millions of Afghans have begun voting in the country’s second presidential election since the fall of the Taliban.’ – BBC
‘When
Tony Blair promised in 2001 that Britain would stand by the people of
Afghanistan, whom we had helped to liberate from the Taliban, most of
us supported him. This newspaper did. The more he said how difficult it
might be and that British forces might have to be committed to the
mission for some years, the more we were convinced that we owed it to
the Afghans to do more than simply install a puppet government, declare
the job done and then leave them to the depredations of warlords and
Islamist guerrillas.’ – Leader, The Independent
A-level results
‘A record-breaking number of A-level entries for England, Wales and Northern Ireland have been awarded A grades.’ – BBC
‘Of
course our university admissions staff sympathise and have been
specifically trained to treat disappointed students sensitively and
constructively. But at least this week’s scramble for places has
exploded one persistent myth: that introducing tuition fees would put
students off higher education. Despite all the scaremongering on debt,
demand has never been greater – and the big question for the
government, whoever wins the election expected next year, is how to
cater for that surge in demand and produce the future graduates the
country will need to emerge from recession.’ – Wendy Piatt, The Guardian
Cameron under pressure
‘John Prescott spent yesterday tormenting David Cameron on Twitter
after The Times disclosed that a Tory health spokesman was a paid
adviser to the UK’s first network of private GPs.’ – Dominic Kennedy and Philip Webster, The Times
‘A
US academic billed as David Cameron’s new intellectual guru takes a
Darwinian approach to economics and says it is wrong for the rich to
pay higher taxes to help the less well-off.’ – Nicholas Watt, The Guardian
Preparing for the G20
‘Alistair Darling, the British finance minister, said on Thursday
that the issue of bankers’ pay needed to be looked at on an
international basis and would be discussed by G20 finance ministers in
September.’ – Daily Telegraph
Skilled migrant numbers
‘The UK must not make deep cuts in the number of skilled migrant
workers coming from outside Europe to fill jobs here simply because of
the turmoil in the labour market, government advisers have warned.’ – Alan Travis, The Guardian
‘The
truth, however, is that it is now generally only an elite of
highly-trained staff that is still eligible to come to Britain from
outside the EU purely in order to work. Indian IT workers, for
instance, who are shipped in by their firm, or those highly skilled in
particular types of medicine or engineering where the UK is short on
knowhow. Slamming the door shut – or even leaning on it any further –
would do nothing for most unemployed people, who are unable to step
into such roles. But it would deter international investment from those
Indian firms and could also create recruitment bottlenecks, draining
momentum from any recovery.’ – Editorial, The Guardian