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The commentators                    21-10-14

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#479744605 / gettyimages.com

...on Britain and the EU

Britain will need allies in a renegotiation of its EU membership and is losing them fast. There is a growing mood in other European capitals that Mr Cameron is more focused on party management and winning votes back from Ukip than on keeping Britain in a reshaped EU.
- Rachel Sylvester, The Times

David Cameron has crossed the Rubicon. There is no going back. By proposing to limit free movement of labour from the EU he has planted himself on the side of the outs, as José Manuel Barroso made crystal clear in his Chatham House speech on Monday. The other 27 nations will never agree: if limiting national insurance numbers for EU workers is Cameron’s new red line then he has joined the Ukip wing of his party, who won’t let him renege.
- Polly Toynbee, The Guardian

Britain cannot allow the terms of political trade to be set by the miserabilists, and not just because they are wrong. They also have the capacity to do grievous harm. The real threat to this country is nothing these people complain of – Europe, migrants, markets, London’s encapsulation of all these things – but a political overreaction to the complaints themselves. It is easy to imagine the next government doing something seriously stupid in a futile effort to meet the national mood.
- Janan Ganesh, Financial Times

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We continue to exhibit a lukewarm, half-hearted commitment that not only irritates our EU partners but perplexes them, too. The self-regarding farewell tour of José Manuel Barroso, the outgoing president of the European Commission, exemplifies this perfectly. He is astonished that 40 years after joining, the British still decline to embrace Europe’s Grand Design; and yet despite being an unelected official, Mr Barroso feels no compunction in lecturing the UK and its leaders about what is best for their country. It never seems to occur to him, or the others in the Brussels secretariat, that the two are connected.
- Philip Johnston, Daily Telegraph

The EU, wanting Britain to be reduced to status of a province within its empire, is determined to deny us the fundamental right of deciding who can live in our own country. We are paying a terrible price for this ideology, as our infrastructure buckles under the strain of mass immigration, our public services are hopelessly overstretched, our living standards continue to fall, our social solidarity is undermined and the bill for the welfare system becomes unaffordable.
- Leo McKinstrey, Daily Express

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Thursday 25 September Judges for the Editorial Intelligence comment awards announced their shortlists today, with ten nominations for the FT, nine for the Times, five for the Guardian, four for the Independent - and two for SubScribe. 
The Times and Sunday Times scored a clean sweep in nominations for the main award of commentariat of the year, which will be decided between David Aaronovitch, Camilla Cavendish, Daniel Finkelstein and last year's winner Caitlin Moran.
Guardian's Jay Rayner was shortlisted in the food writer category, but said that he did not wish to be considered as that award is sponsored by Tesco. 
The awards will be presented on November 25. 
See the full shortlists here

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The Independent offered a Q&A, the Times expert analysis and comparison with services elsewhere. And both had charts, facts and figures. These were statistic-rich properties. That is not the way of the Mail. It aims directly at the heart, avoiding the head at all costs. With maximum use of  adjectives and minimum use of statistics, it tells us that Welsh health services are a mess - and this is, it seems, entirely a result of the fact that Labour has been in charge of them for 15 years. 
- Press review

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Comment digest courtesy of
Editorial Intelligence

October 20
British politics

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October 17
Lord Freud
October 16
British politics
October 15
British politics
October 14
British politics
October 13
British politics

October 10
Isis and UK politics
October 9
British politics
October 8
British politics
October 7
LibDem conference
October 6
British politics

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October 3
Party conferences
October 2
Cameron's speech
October 1
Conservative conference
September 30
Conservative conference
September 29
Conservative conference

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September 26
War on Isis
September 25
Labour conference
September 24
Miliband's speech
September 23
Labour conference
September 22
Referendum fallout

September 19
Scottish referendum
September 18
Scottish referendum
September 17
Scottish referendum
September 16
Scottish referendum
September 15
Scottish referendum

September 12
Scottish referendum
September 11
Scottish referendum
September 10
Scottish referendum
September 9
Scottish referendum
September 8
Scottish referendum

September 5
Scottish referendum
September 4
Nato and Isis
September 3
Scottish independence
September 2
Hacked photographs
September 1
British politics

August 29
Carswell defection
August 28
Rotherham scandal
August 27
Islamic militants
August 26
Middle East

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