The Guardian's Jackie Ashley writes that Labour's defeatism is allowing an increasingly right-wing Conservative Party to ease itself into power:

Even now, there is an alternative. Labour politicians do have a story to tell. It's the story of underfunded public services being built up again, of health workers being paid decently, of a big expansion in further education, public investment in transport and of success in containing terrorism. It's about the emergence of a more tolerant country. It's about relative peace in Northern Ireland and democracy in Scotland and Wales.

Matthew Syed argues in the Times that the BNP should be provided with a media platform so that it can be exposed and humiliated:

[T]hey must be outplayed, exposed, given the run around until they get dizzy and fall over. It is not as if -- with their ramshackle policies and absurd racial obsessions -- they offer much in the way of opposition. If a cabinet minister really feels uncertain about his ability to give Griffin a good thrashing in a televised studio debate, we should be even more worried about the state of British politics than about the state of British tennis.

The Daily Telegraph's George Pitcher wonders how the new atheists will respond to research which suggests the brain is hard-wired to believe in God:

It will, nevertheless, be great fun to see Prof Dawkins & Co take on these new findings. Will they approach it with the reverence they profess to possess for all scientific discovery? Will they heck. They are ideologues, religious about their disbelief. And to accept that there is a scientific premise for religiosity would mean all is lost, not least some lucrative careers.

Mary Dejevsky writes in the Independent that the impasse in Afghanistan strengthens the case for dissolving Nato:

If, it is argued, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, under whose command this war is being fought, cannot prevail -- and, equally pertinent, be seen to have prevailed -- what price the continuation of the alliance at all?

The Washington Post's Jackson Diehl says that Obama's attempt to engage in "direct diplomacy" with the leaders of "rogue states" has failed:

None of this means that dialogue with enemies is inherently wrong or not worth trying. Obama may yet find an opportunity for talks with Chávez or Assad, if not Kim or Khamenei. But what seems pretty clear is that the most notable foreign policy idea Obama offered during his campaign has fallen flat during his first months in office.