Guardian

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): The Guardian's veteran political correspondent Michael White cultivates a knowing, seen it all, it won't change, nor-should-it-if-it-comes-to-that, attitude that is only bearable because he works fairly hard. Finally, after thirty years, his faith in the system may have been rocked. In today's political briefing he reports that Parliament's Lisbon debate "rings hollow",

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): There is a must read, two-page exchange of emails between Henry Porter and David Cameron in today's Observer. Henry P sets out the case against Labour with respect to what it has done over the last ten years to cut away at our freedoms and asks the Tory leader for his views. Cameron squirms yet concedes. It is clear he fears unpopularity and it is quite a coup to unveil the positioning of a likely prime minister in this manner. At a hinge point in the exchange, Cameron makes the classic politician's claim that, "Parliament has been the strongest defender of our rights over the centuries". Not true, of course. But read it for yourself HERE. Europe may get him too in the end.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): I spotted the Guardian's political editor strikingly well dressed in a suit nearly as devoid of colour as his name and radiating disbelief as he looked down on the Commons yesterday while Brown presented his proposals. His comment today broke all cover. Noting that Brown had been praised he reported, "It can't last and it won't." Why is he doing it? It all demands disproportionate energy. He's raising expectations too high, just like Blair in 1997. These may be good points and scepticism is a worthy quality in intelligent reporting. But note the second part of White's briefing. "It won't". This is not just a judgement. It's a declaration of intent.

Stuart Weir (Cambridge, Democratic Audit): The Guardian reported ICM poll results on 23 June showing to no-one's great surprise that education, the NHS and withdrawal from Iraq were people's priorities for a Brown government. They would have been my priorities too, plus remedying Labour's shameful neglect of social housing. However the Guardian went on to contrast these choices with the low vote - just 1 per cent - for 'constitutional reform', as though this were a meaningful comparison. The fact is that the public has long voiced dissatisfaction with the way we are governed in the UK. Large majorities of people support a wide range of specific reforms, as the Rowntree Reform Trust's 'State of the Nation' series of polls since 1992 has shown. For example, broadly three quarters of the population has consistently agreed that Britain should have a written constitution; roughly the same proportion believe in a Bill of Rights which protects social and economic rights alongside civil liberties. I am afraid that the national press reflect the impatience of a political class which has a Panglossian view of our pre-democratic governing arrangements and likes to portray those who want democratic change as nerdy members of some Hampstead set. Yet these majorities are made up of working class people more than professionals, and of most people who live north of Watford.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): The Guardian’s editorial this morning on civil liberties ends with a resounding call to arms, “No quarter should be given to the politics of fear”. But this reader had the feeling that after pussy-footing around the issues (if that is not unfair to pussies), and giving away more quarters than make a square, the poor leader-writer came up with this final sentence to quell that inner-trembling which besets the Guardian when things might get serious. In this case it probably comes of making an effort to appear wise while at the same time hearing in one’s inner ear the scornful snorts of philistine colleagues on Farringdon Road who regard anything constitutional as more old-fashioned than Neil Kinnock. The leader backs into a proposal for reform.  But it would be hard not to describe as fearful a suggestion which goes, “Achieving a better outcome… might best be achieved” (Nervous prose? I’d say so), and continues by calling for “a convention like the one that built consensus for Scottish devolution” in order to… improve the Human Rights Act. Is this not a cowardly compromise? A convention, like the Scottish one, is a process designed to engage with things as a whole not one bit of legislation (in the Scots’ case the call for a national parliament.)