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As another huge rally spreads across the streets of Tehran, the US President, Barack Obama, has refused to say whether he believes last week's election was stolen by supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
It is a response that may disappoint those Iranians in exile who gathered today outside their Embassy in Knightsbridge to demand a recount or even a re-run. The response may also disappoint all those who applaud the courage of the protesters and hope that for the sake of the wider Middle East and the world, the regime of hardliner and Holocaust denier Ahmadinejad might be on the way out.
Before the election, there had even been hopes for change on the scale of the Orange and Rose revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia. This was a genuinely contested election campaign in which young people and women, galvanised by the wife of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, were more vocal than ever before. But breaking a theocratic tyranny was never going to be easy. The supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has now ordered an investigation of claims of electoral fraud but this is probably only a gesture.
For Britain, as for the United States, exerting any kind of pressure on Iran is fraught with danger. Many Iranians have never forgiven the UK and the US for their involvement in the coup that overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953. President Ahmadinejad is a past master of stirring up resentment against Western influence in order to rally support for his nuclear weapons programme. So President Obama is wise to be cautious. We hope nonetheless that the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, will at least be prepared to condemn the use of force against peaceful demonstrators, if as seems all too likely, the casualty total mounts.
Tighten belts, Beeb
Today's White Paper, Digital Britain, produced by communications minister Lord Carter, will suggest giving part of the licence fee to commercial broadcasters to help them fulfil some of their public service broadcasting requirements. Thus stations such as ITV might pay local newspapers to produce regional news using TV licence money; some children's broadcasting could be funded the same way.
This proposal will gain support from commercial broadcasters in harsh economic times, with advertising revenues in freefall. And after all, the Corporation does not always spend its money well. The ill-advised move of some operations to Salford remains a bizarre example of politically correct regionalism, while the grotesque salaries paid to some presenters such as Jonathan Ross seem even less justifiable in a recession.
For all its faults, the Corporation deserves its public subsidy - but the amount is another question. Freezing the fee would be a timely acknowledgement that many licence-fee payers are struggling financially. The BBC should also, in fairness, continue to open up the news sources and video links from its excellent internet news service to other, non-subsidised providers, such as newspapers. In many areas, the Corporation does the job of public service broadcasting well. But like everyone else, the BBC needs to tighten its belt.
Arise, Sir Paul
Paul Grant, headmaster of a Dagenham comprehensive transformed from sink school to one rated "outstanding" by Ofsted, is to be knighted. This is a recognition not only of the work he has done at Robert Clack School, which was marked recently with this newspaper's own education award but also of the vital importance of good leadership in our schools. Sir Paul, as he will become, suspended 300 troublemakers in his first week at a school that was spiralling downhill. Great head teachers like him set the tone for a school, command the loyalty of staff and inspire their pupils. They deserve respect.
Reader views (1)
Well the Evening Standard is deciding that Obama is wise to keep his opinions to himself rather than incite Iran's leaders with an actual meaningful comment on the shameful repression of Iran's voters. In Obamaland, nothing the great man does - or in this case does not do, can ever be wrong. So we see that the only area Obama is going to be forceful in interfering in the Middle East is with Israel.
Leaving Iraq early so as to leave the country open to a civil war and the retirn of militias, abandoning the nascent Iranian democratic process, that is all good stuff.
Telling 5 million Jews to give up their nuclear arms, abandon border controls, and reduce their settlements in another hopeless gesture to show good faith to an unwilling terrorist regime backed by Iran, that is also good.
Obama abandons his allies and human rights all over the world, but at least he is popular, and his wife is adorable and that is all that matters.
- Stephen Rothbart, Prague Czech Republic, 16/06/2009 11:05
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