'Knives are like rats in London – you're never more than a few feet away'

The family of the 15-year-old knifed to death in Croydon are living the shock, pain and inescapable anguish every parent of a teenager dreads

Sarah Vine in the Daily Mail

The fatal stabbing of a 15-year-old girl on her way to school in Croydon represents "every parent's worst nightmare", says Sarah Vine in the Daily Mail. The motive for the attack is unclear, but such violence is being fuelled by a "toxic, macho culture of death and destruction" that has "infected the nation's youth". In London and beyond, "knives are like rats" now, Vine warns. "You're never more than a few feet away from one."

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Every time a project like HS2 becomes a costly fiasco, we wonder why. So let me tell you: it's clientelism

George Monbiot in The Guardian

When a high-speed rail line to the North was first proposed in 2010, the "numbers didn't add up", writes George Monbiot for The Guardian. Fast-forward 13 years and the project is a costly "train wreck", an instance of an "endemic disease" plaguing the UK – clientelism. This "subtle form of corruption" is "deeply soaked into the fabric of national life", says Monbiot. And HS2 is a "desperate last gamble by Gordon Brown's government" for which "we are still paying". 

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A pointless Republican debate underscores Trump's dominance

Karen Tumulty in The Washington Post 

Republican debates are "pointless", writes Karen Tumulty in The Washington Post, "when the front-runner repeatedly refuses to show up". Donald Trump's absence left the latest looking like a "kids' table", not a place to foster a "credible primary challenger". The most memorable one-liner came from Nikki Haley, who told entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy "every time I hear you I feel a little bit dumber". But the rest of this week's GOP clash "amounted to little more than a blur".

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Drug consumption rooms are not the answer

The Telegraph's editorial board 

A clinic where addicts can inject heroin without fear of prosecution is a "counsel of despair" from a government presiding over "the worst drugs problem in Europe", says The Telegraph's leader article. Scotland is simply "feeding" the crisis by providing state-sponsored consumption rooms. The ruling SNP needs to address the "level of abuse", the paper argues, "not the location". Instead, they have "agreed to turn an official blind eye to law-breaking".

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