Six of the Best 512

"Labour activists were receiving emails beseeching them to go and help in the marginal seat of South Ribble (which Labour failed to take) but choose instead to work their socks off in Southport where the only outcome which they could hope to achieve would be to reduce the Lib Dem vote and let the Tory in." Iain Brodie Browne takes Labour tribalism to task.

The floggings will continue until morale improves - or something like that. Caron Lindsay is rightly outraged by an email sent to the party's candidates straight after the debacle of 7 May.

Britain has resigned as a world power, says Fareed Zakaria.

Adam Gopnik explains the crumbling of America's infrastructure.

"What, then, took the gold out of British detective fiction? P.D. James points to the simple fact that the police got better at their job. Both she and Ruth Rendell, the two recently deceased queens of the genre, observed the fact by making their series heroes professional flatfoots." John Sutherland on the demise of amateur sleuth in crime fiction.

Jamie Ross pays tribute to Balustrade Lanyard, who died this week.