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Or is a ground war the only way of removing Gaddafi? Lots of developments tonight following the launch by the coalition forces of the joint military action to protect civilians in Libya. The worry is how this will come to an end and isn’t there a danger that Gaddafi will just be able to stay in place unless there’s a ground campaign to remove him? Saddam, after all, managed to remain in place in Iraq with a no-fly zone above…

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BBC news With the dramatic story following Japan’s earthquake continuing to unfold this has so many implications that it is hard to focus on anything else. There is nothing I can add in a thread header – but this is what so many of us want to talk about. So please use this thread to discuss what’s happening and the implications – and to post links about any new developments. Mike Smithson

Aljazeera What’s the significance for Britain, Europe and the World? After a 22 second appearance on TV last night it seems that Gaddafi’s grip on his country could be coming to an end. Libyan ambassadors in many countries have already dissociated themselves from the Tripoli regime while a number of Libyan air force pilots have flown their planes to other countries. There comes a moment at times like this when a regime’s authority collapses and that seems to be happening…

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How dangerous is the Libyan situation for the world? By far the biggest global story today has been eruption of violence in Libya as protesters seek to do to their leader what was done to Mubarak in Egypt earlier in the month. With reports of up to 200 people being killed in what are being termed “massacres” it’s clear that the situation is highly febrile and potentially very dangerous. It appears that the reaction by the Gaddafi regime has been…

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His latest Sunday evening column In Gateshead this week, Labour took another step on its journey to discover fresh political ideas. It is an objective that it is easy to say, but hard to achieve. If there has been a trend post-Thatcher, it is that politics has become more consensual, focussing on fewer ideas. Is Labour seriously attempting to reverse this trend? Can it really discover something fresh and create a winning formula? Labour starts from square one. They have…

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Was he right to say Dave was “writing propaganda for the EDL”? The big ongoing row this weekend has been Cameron’s speech in Munich in which he’s attacked “state multiculturalism” in his first major statement as PM on the causes of terrorism. The UK, he argued, needed a stronger national identity to prevent groups turning to extremism. In one controversial passage on how Muslim civil organisations should be judged Cameron asked: “Do they believe in universal human rights – including…

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What would real reform look like? The events in Egypt might have dominated the news this week but it’s domestic politics that determines the results of elections unless British citizens or troops are directly involved. In that respect, the most significant policy debate this year so far has been around the future of the NHS. It has been said by those on both sides that the government is proposing the most radical reforms in the Service’s more than six decades…

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