Iranian election gives new hope to the West

The campaign by reformist Mir Hossein Moussavi has galvanised a country that is still a theocracy but which has seen the grip of the mullahs shaken by increasing freedom of expression via the internet and other media.

Demonstrators last night protested against Mr Ahmadinejad's final address via state television.

For the Middle East, the stakes are high. This electoral battle will affect the direction of a state in hot pursuit of nuclear weaponry and lavish in its support of Hizbollah and Hamas militants in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

Mr Ahmadinejad has used the nuclear programme and anti-Israel rhetoric to win electoral credit for standing up to the West.

However, rising inflation, a sluggish economy and high unemployment have created disillusionment that has improved Mr Moussavi's chances.

Women, chafing at religious restrictions on their rights, have been attracted by his wife's active campaigning.

At the same time, President Obama's reaching out to the Muslim world in recent speeches and gestures of respect for Iran's civilisation may have addressed the anti-Western paranoia that in the past has reinforced the position of the mullahs.

Mr Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, has succeeded in upsetting some key clerics.

That said, the influence of the Revolutionary Guards and powerful militia stack the odds in his favour.

But even if the incumbent clings on, after this hotly contested struggle Iran will not be quite the same again.

For the rest of the world, at risk from nuclear proliferation and wider instability in the Middle East, for London's many Iranian refugees, and for the country itself, tomorrow is a crucial day.

PM's half-measures

We are already getting a preview of the real political debate before the next election with the Prime Minister's insistence that spending will rise, when in inflation-adjusted terms it is set to fall.

Given the condition of public finances, it seems remarkable that he can still suggest that cutbacks are anything but inevitable and necessary; for him to say otherwise is pure fantasy. Any government will have to make painful cuts.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has given us his proposals for constitutional reform. Most are unlikely to be effected this side of a general election.

They include plans for a written constitution and for lowering the voting age.

Proposing an external regulator for MPs' expenses would be more impressive had it not come immediately after Shahid Malik's restoration to his ministerial post, without the publication of any of the findings from the expenses inquiry that cleared him.

The Government's talk about transparency seems just that: talk.

It would help if the chairmen of select committees were elected by MPs.

And if the Lords is indeed to be almost entirely elected, as Mr Brown wants, it must be constructed so as to be an effective revising chamber.

But it is hard to escape the impression that Mr Brown's proposals are intended not so much to change the way things are run as to give an impression of purposeful activity from a beleaguered premier.

Back to the future

It is welcome news that trains are running on eight out of 11 lines despite today's Tube strike.

However, amid reminders of RMT union leader Bob Crow's admiration for the defeated miners' leader Arthur Scargill, the rest of the world, viewing TV pictures of Londoners defiantly trudging to work, could be forgiven for thinking we were back in the 1970s.

With the cost of the strike to Britain's economy estimated at £50 million a day, it is time for the Mayor to direct recruitment of reserve drivers, so that next time London can get to work regardless of the RMT's antics.