By Nigel Morris

The Commons authorities have lost another attempt to keep the details of leading MPs’ expenses secret. But they could still mount yet another appeal against today’s High Court ruling.

They have already been ordered to pay £33,500 in legal costs – money that will come out of public funds – and the final bill from the protracted legal action looks certain to exceed £100,000.

Surely the time has come for the authorities – under the stewardship of the Speaker Michael Martin – to face up to the 21st century.

Defending the ideology - Ayesha Siddiqa, Dawn (Pakistan)

Leaders must be serious on mediation - editorial, Daily Nation (Kenya)

Small towns work better than big ones - John Gilbey, IHT

We're not alone - Yoel Marcus, Haaretz

Tories Told to Stop Laundering Frontbench Cash Through CCHQ - Guido Fawkes

The campaign starts - Justin Webb

Power to the People? - Our Kingdom

Is a Gordon 2008 exit wager the best C&N bet? - Political Betting

The Hezbollah Rampage - Mick Hartley

By Adrian Hamilton

It is what political leaders leave out of their speeches that is often more interesting than what they put in. So with President Bush's speech this week to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel. The peace process which he is supposed to be pushing as his final legacy of office barely got a look in.

Which tells you all you need to know about how the talks for peace set in motion earlier this year at Annapolis are going. The straight answer is nowhere. Although Washington would still hope to get some kind of statement of agreed principles by the time Bush leaves office in January, words are the very most they can hope for. On anything substantive or practical there just isn't the ability to deliver from either side. The Palestinians are divided between Gaza and the West Bank. Israel's government is too weak and its prime minister may fall any moment, charged with corruption.

By John Rentoul

Terrific article in The Atlantic on the extraordinary fund-raising success of the Barack Obama campaign. Funny stuff, money, especially in America, Brobdingnag of revolutionary capitalism, where the giants of each wave eat their parents: IBM, Microsoft, Google.

The numbers are so large as to have no meaning. Obama has raised a quarter of a billion dollars so far. What is more "he is doing it almost effortlessly". Quite unlike the traditional top-down model of political fund-raising where the candidate has to work dinners and small rooms hard to raise large cheques, this is a vast, self-generated and self-sustaining internet phenomenon in which thousands of people all over America have spontaneously decided to raise small donations from Facebook friends and social networks.

The social-networking model provided Obama with something that insurgents before him, from Gary Hart to McCain, always lacked: a means of capturing excitement and translating it into money. In the 2004 primary, Howard Dean raised $27 million online. Obama is fast approaching $200 million.

By Ben Chu

The global media has thus far mostly concentrated on the rescue effort in China and confined its political analysis to remarking on the encouraging openness of the Beijing regime (compared with their Burmese counterparts) in the wake of this natural disaster. But I believe that the story will, or at least ought to, shift soon to the question of why so many buildings collapsed in Sichuan province with this disaster struck. This excellent piece of reporting in the Los Angeles Times on the flouting of building regulations makes for sobering reading.

By Michael Savage

Before I say anything on this, let me first say that the scenes coming back from China in the wake of the earthquake are truly awful. But the very fact that we can see scenes of the tragedy - and especially those of collapsed schools - means that our attention has turned all too quickly away from the catastrophe still unfolding in Burma.

Be it the media's preference for a powerful image or our greater interest in China in the current climate, the Chinese earthquake is the big story. That may not be a surprise given that as many as 50,000 people may have been killed. But while the death toll in Burma could top 100,000, the repressive actions of the junta could see millions die from disease. That is where our attention should be - even if the images are harder to come by.

By John Rentoul

One of the subterranean shifts in politics over the past two months has been that in expectations of the outcome of the next election. For a long time, the default assumption has been that it would be a hung parliament; now a Conservative overall majority seems most likely. That assumption is reflected in the betting markets.

So it may seem an odd time to recommend No Overall Control?, a lively booklet recently produced by the Hansard Society, which assesses the impact of a hung parliament on British politics. But I think the default assumption will swing again. As The Independent on Sunday argued last weekend in a splendidly counter-herd leading article, "has Westminster forgotten the key maxims in politics – Macmillan's events and Wilson's week?"

I do not think Gordon Brown can recover, but I do think that a change of leader in the next two years is now more likely than not and could pull the party back into hung parliament territory. So this book is a valuable guide to the scenario that has been touted before every election since we last had a hung parliament (1977-79) but which this time really could come to pass.

In The Independent today:

He appears to have robotic self-discipline. But inside, Brown is a ferment of emotion - Dominic Lawson

Ignore the experts: here's the secret of happiness - Terence Blacker

These petty buffoons who ruled over us - Matthew Norman

No wonder the toffs are back with a vengeance  - Joan Bakewell

Cool title, but what does it mean? - Hermione Eyre

Sanity seems to have hit Gordon. The end is nigh - Simon Carr's Sketch

The Best of the Rest:

Goodbye, good times. Now Labour has to show just whose side it is on - Polly Toynbee, The Guardian

When it comes to kissing and telling, you can't beat this 15th-century gadget - Simon Jenkins, The Guardian

Essex boys and girls will wreak revenge for being sold a pup - Jeff Randall, The Daily Telegraph

Opportunity should knock, not be blocked - Michael Gove, The Daily Telegraph

Barack Obama: the new Great Redeemer - Gerard Baker, The Times

UFO: an Undeniably Fading Obsession - Ben Macintyre, The Times

Beichuan was a town of 160,000 nestling in one of the world's most beautiful   valleys. When rescuers arrived yesterday, they found a scene of unimaginable devastation and despair caused by China's worst natural disaster in 30 years. What lessons can be learnt from the earthquake? Let us know what you think.

Political fight-back - Nick Robinson

Cameron on top form - Coffee House

About Robert Mugabe’s Honorary Degree in Law… - This is Zimbabwe

Israel: Iranian Grad Missiles Hit Ashkelon Mall - Global Voices

Fixed Term Parliaments - Quaequam Blog!

A Victory Plan for Hillary - Gail Collins, New York Times

West desperate to unseat President - editorial, Herald (Zimbabwe)

New leadership looks like the old - Peter Hartcher, Sydney Morning Herald

Protectionism won't solve crisis - Hugh Cortazzi, Japan Times

Democracies Don't Let People Die - Daniel Henninger Wonder Land, Wall Street Journal