Tonight:
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Corruption, fear, intimidation: all will play a part in today's Afghan elections.
Indeed, censorship on the part of the Afghan government may lead to the suppression of reports about violence today, lest people be deterred from voting. For all the pictures of queues at polling booths and of women in burkas with fingers marked to show they have voted, it is difficult to feel optimism about Afghanistan from this poll. Yet the obvious truth is, it is better that people should have the right to vote than not. It is better to have a flawed election than none at all.
This election is about the Afghan people. It is the second since the fall of the Taliban, an opportunity, funded by Nato governments, for the people to choose a president and members of the provincial councils. Many of the flaws in Afghan culture and society will be reflected in the outcome: the patriarchy, the dominance of a few influential families, the corruption. But at least people have a say in their future. Even a flawed democracy offers hope of stable self-governance and that is what the West seeks if we are to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.
The election raises, yet again, the question of just what we are doing there. David Davis, writing here, reminds us of the various and conflicting goals advanced by ministers to explain British involvement. The answer must be minimal: defeating the Taliban and ensuring Afghanistan will not again give refuge to Islamic extremist groups who wish us harm. That means assisting the Pakistani government in its attempts to contain insurgent groups in the border area: it is impossible, as we know, to deal with Pakistan and Afghanistan in isolation from each other.
But part of that effort to stabilise Afghanistan involves establishing a working government, which is why the election matters. Mr Davis is right to suggest that we should give far greater help to support, train and expand the Afghan security forces in the hope of being able to withdraw sooner rather than later.
But it is preferable that these forces should be under the control of a properly elected government, even if that government is drawn from the ruling elite and heavily dependent on the West. Indeed, the US has suggested that the Afghan president, whoever he is, should be assisted by a chief executive to support good governance, which, however bleakly realistic, is hardly a vote of confidence in the president.
Our hopes when the Taliban was overthrown for a more liberal Afghan society, including greater participation by women in the structures of power, seem remote now but this poll, however flawed, offers hope of a better future.
Future of A-levels
Today's A-level results show improved results from candidates for the 27th year in a row. Inevitably, this will provoke the usual debate about whether standards have been maintained but one thing is true: most of the candidates have worked extremely hard. Indeed, it can be argued that some have worked too hard; many students' lives have been dominated by the necessity to succeed, sometimes at the expense of their broad education.
Next year sees the introduction of the new, starred A-levels, which sets a new hurdle for aspiring university applicants. That should be the end of further tinkering with the system. The onus now should be on making A-levels credible.
That means going further than ministers have yet done to diminish the importance of coursework except in vocational subjects and to reduce the extent to which subjects are broken into manageable modules which pupils can resit almost indefinitely. It also means taking a hard look at the examination syllabuses. It is one thing to supervise the standards of marking, another to ensure that the syllabus is broad and demanding.
In some subjects, examination candidates are rewarded for performing to a formula, rather than for showing evidence of a broad range of reading and skills.
The pupils who get their examination results today face a hard struggle to obtain sought-after university places and jobs in a recession. They deserve praise for their efforts. The onus is on ministers to do better.
