Today in The Independent Chief Political Commentator Steve Richards considers Labour's cataclysmic Crewe by-election result and asks whether there is any way back for the Government. Have voters finally given up on New Labour? Can Gordon Brown really revive his party’s fortunes? Let us know what you think.

By James Macintyre

It may not be quite true to say that, like the Americans under F. D. Roosevelt, Gordon Brown has nothing to fear but fear itself. But it is certainly the case that now, after the Crewe byelection disaster, even Mr Brown must see he has nothing to lose.

By-election reactions - Nick Robinson

MP calls for cabinet challenge to Gordon - Westminster Blog (FT)

Ukraine: A View From Crimea - Global Voices

A New Job for Digby Jones: Selling Birmingham - Iain Dale

The local elections are coming up in Romania - Csíkszereda musings

National flag commends the dignity of lives - editorial, China People's Daily

Let's rue the culling of common sense - Miranda Divine, Sydney Morning Herlad

Everything is for sale - Zeev Sternhell, Haaretz

Amnesty out of the question if we want to remain sane - Lucy Oriang, Daily Nation (Kenya)

The Obama Learning Curve - Kimberley A. Strassel, Wall Street Journal

By Chris Schuler

As Ciar Byrne reports in The Independent this week, the Viennese playwright Arthur Schitzler's letters and manuscripts – including his correspondence with Sigmund Freud - are going on public display for the first time at King's College in London. In the English-speaking world, Schnitzler is best known second-hand, though adaptations of his works: Reigen inspired Max Ophuls’ film La Ronde and David Hare's The Blue Room; Liebelei (Flirtation) became Tom Stoppard's Dalliance; while Traumnovelle (Dream Novella) formed the basis of Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut.

By Andy McSmith

The worst you can do in a crisis is panic. Yesterday's by-election result was so bad, for Labour, that there may now be nothing the government can do to prolong its life beyond 2010. We live in a two party democracy, and if enough voters have made decided that Labour has been in office too long, that is their decision, and the best Gordon Brown can do is go down gracefully.

Because if they cannot save themselves, the government and its supporters can certainly make things worse for themselves, much worse - and it is quite likely that they will. The combination of Labour MPs desperate to hold their seats and a leader desperate not to be the unelected Prime Minister who never won an election is not a recipe for calm.

By Steve Richards

The script was written before the predictable result at the Crewe and Nantwich by-election: Tories heading for landslide! Will Labour dump Brown now? Every Labour MP will be phoned by journalists over the next 24 hours in the hope that a few of them will deliver the front page quote that Brown must go.

We should all listen to, and read, very carefully any alternative options being offered by the apparently all knowing Labour dissenters. What would they do about the soaring price of oil? How would they have handled the credit crisis? Governments are hammered in by-elections when the economy is precarious and voters feel worse off. Would any new inexperienced Labour figure who has never given a moment’s thought to economic policy be a more formidable alternative to Brown in the current economic context? And while we are at it, when the focus turns on the Conservatives’ old fashioned concoction of tax breaks for families, Euro-scepticism, and the same old familiar promise to cut taxes while pledging to improve public services will voters be as keen to switch when they are electing a government?

In the Independent today:

Dominic Lawson: Mr Brown can try to blame this crisis on Opec, but the real fault lies with his own tax policy

Matthew Norman: Courage is knowing when to stand down

Michael Brown: When MPs must face up to their death sentence

Joan Bakewell: Science or literature? Surely what we need is both

Terence Blacker: What's the point of a royal you can't talk to?

Hamish McRae: High prices won't stop the world going on growing

Best of the rest:

It's the epic flight of the white working class that Labour should really fear - Polly Toynbee, Guardian

A new cold war? We're yet to adjust to the old one ending - Jonathan Steele, Guardian

Edward Kennedy was lucky to survive the shame of Chappaquiddick - Alexander Chancellor, Guardian

Buried, razed - but not forgotten - Ben Macintyre, Times

Voters just don't trust Hillary - Gerard Baker, Times

Cameron strides closer to Number 10 - Iain Martin, Telegraph

By Michael Savage

The results are in and, unbelievably, it's worse than predicted for Labour. The Tories needed an 8 per cent swing to win it. They got 17.6 per cent, and a majority of near 8,000.

Here's another number - 1.05am. I like to think I'm fairly up with the latest political movers and shakers, but that was the time this morning that I first heard Edward Timpson , the winning Conservative candidate, talk. Why? Because Labour, both locally and nationally, did the talking for them. The class war jibe was a disaster. Gordon Brown's run of luck has been a disaster. It was a lesson learnt from Boris's victory.

What do Labour do next? For a start, they need to pull New Labour back together. They need to start rebuilding an idea of aspiration and hope - in other words, bring back some optimism in a party that has become absurdly obsessed with a populist tabloid agenda. No more bullying hoodies or being tough on drugs. They have some work to do - and need to start now.

Another winner - democracy. The 58.2 per cent turn out was just below that of a general election.

As evidence emerges of dwindling oil reserves, and the price of crude hits $135 a barrel, is the world running out of oil? Will the rise in oil prices make us conserve energy?  Or will it put more pressure on oilfields in wilderness areas? Let us know what you think.