Instant Opinion: ‘Boris and Carrie’s staged picture is a PR masterstroke’

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Ross Clark in The Spectator

on the controversial photo of Johnson and his girlfriend

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Boris and Carrie’s staged picture is a PR masterstroke

“Does anyone really think that it’s a big deal planting a photo on the internet to put yourself in a good light? Surely that is what millions of Britons are doing constantly on Instagram and Twitter. Unless you are suffering an advanced case of Boris Derangement Syndrome it is hard to see what we are supposed to be fuming at here. Is it posed, was it caught by someone passing with an iPhone? Is it out of the family album? So bloody what?”

2. Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times

on Elizabeth Warren’s strong showing in the first Democratic debate

Why I Was Wrong About Elizabeth Warren

“As the Democratic presidential campaign began, I was deeply skeptical of Elizabeth Warren. My first objection was that she appeared to have parlayed possible Native American heritage to gain academic jobs (Harvard Law School listed her as Native American beginning in 1995). That offended me, and I knew it would repel huge numbers of voters. Second, I thought she shot from the hip and, with her slight political experience, would wilt on the campaign trail. Third, I thought she was a one-note Sally, eloquent on finance but thin on the rest of domestic and foreign policy. So much for my judgment: I now believe I was wrong on each count, and her rise in the polls suggests that others are also seeing more in her. Warren has become the gold standard for a policy-driven candidate, and whether or not she wins the Democratic nomination, she’s performing a public service by helping frame the debate.”

3. Emma Duncan in The Times

on the shifting Overton Window on green issues

Why I’ve seen the light on the environment

“Environmental risks are behind my changing mind, and it’s not just my views that have altered. My diet is increasingly veggie and even my holiday arrangements have gone green. In the past when I have visited my brother in France in the summer I have always flown, but this year I’ll be taking the train.”

4. Nick Timothy in the Daily Telegraph

on the Catch-22 of Boris’ Brexit plans

Brexit without a deadline risks no Brexit at all

“If we want to leave, and on terms different to those rejected by Parliament, Boris is right that we need a deadline that everybody knows is real. Otherwise Brussels will have no reason to shift its position and MPs will continue to obfuscate, trying to subvert the referendum result while claiming to abide by it. If Brexit is delayed again, the pressure for a second referendum will grow, and the Conservative Party will spontaneously combust before our eyes.”

5. Maya Goodfellow in The Guardian

on the tragic photo of a drowned Salvadoran migrant and his daughter

People are dying crossing borders. It shouldn’t take shocking photos to change that

“There has been far more discussion about immigration and the supposed threats that certain people crossing political boundaries pose to the ‘nation state’ than there has ever been about the problems and logic of borders: the ways they’re policed, the risks they compel often desperate people to take, the death and the destruction they produce and if they are really necessary at all. But it is exactly these responses that are the appropriate ones when people are dying, and will continue to die, trying to cross borders.”