The US foreing polict think tank CFR has two articles which highlight the debate and the possible different options available:
1. It’s Time to Think Seriously About Intervening in Syria which asserts:

After all, if the many Syrians who have been in open revolt since March of last year are on the verge of bringing down Assad, then, as the conventional wisdom has it, there is no need for a international response and thus no need for an agonizing debate about whether to use force in Syria. But this logic seems less convincing every day, and it might be time to reconsider our assumptions about intervention.

AND

2. We Intervene in Syria at Our Peril which argues:

This is a juncture at which to rebuild and renew the United States, not be consumed by the civil war of a complex nation. Syrians will decide their own fate.  When the British said to Gandhi that without their involvement, India would be in chaos, Gandhi retorted “At least it will be our chaos.”

Chatham House’s Gareth Price has an excelleent analytical piece in the Huffington Post: NATO’S Leaked Report: A Breakdown in Relations With Pakistan   Here is an excerpt:

At the same time, there is little hope of success in Afghanistan without Pakistan’s engagement. And as moves towards some form of peace process or reconciliation with the Taliban are expedited, the need for Pakistan’s involvement becomes greater still.

The leaking of a report suggesting that Pakistan continues to back the Taliban will probably have less impact on Western engagement with Pakistan than the bombing of a Pakistan border-post at the end of November; an act which led Pakistan to prevent NATO supplies transiting via Pakistan. That said, given the urgent need to start rebuilding the relationship it will do little to engender trust.

At the heart of the problem lies a void in Western thinking over how best to deal with Pakistan. Carrots, in the form of large cash transfers, would seem to have singularly failed in reducing Pakistan’s ambivalence in its dealings with Afghanistan. And the Western toolkit is somewhat lacking in sticks, short of threatening to withhold those cash transfers, in dealing with nuclear-armed Pakistan.

“Fear the Boom and Bust” a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem

Fight of the Century: Keynes vs. Hayek Round Two

And….Hayek’s Gift

The Guardian, published on January 27, an interview with alleged Boko Haram spokesman Abu Qaqa, conducted by Guardian Nigeria correspondent Monica Mark. In conjunction, the paper also included a careful analysis by Jason Burke that concludes the Boko Haram remains “a local phenomenon, not a global threat,” and an editorial that calls on President Goodluck Jonathan to address Nigeria’s religious divide and corruption, provide protection for all, and to redistribute state resources to accomplish those goals.  The article asserts:

Boko Haram’s gruesome rise has prised open crevices where ethnic, religious and socioeconomic fault lines intersect

Also the Telegraph has a piece: “‘We will attack Nigeria again and again’, Boko Haram leader vows’. It is reported that the purported leader of Boko Haram, the radical Islamist group responsible for hundreds of deaths in Nigeria has vowed to attack “again and again” until the country becomes an Islamic state. 

The full international impact of these attacks is also reflected in an excellent article in the Washington Times: Nigeria Islamist militant sect drawing increased scrutiny  The article is well worth a full read but here is an exerpt:

But the extent to which Boko Haram, the Islamist sect that claimed responsibility for the blasts that killed 185 people Jan. 20, is tied to al Qaeda remains a subject of international debate.

While senior U.S. officials, including Army Gen. Carter F. Ham, head of U.S. Africa Command, have suggested the Nigerian group has developed ties to the international terrorist group al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), some regional experts are circumspect.

Boko Haram, they argue, remains a nebulous and ill-defined national movement - less aligned with the globally focused tenets of al Qaeda than it is eager to embrace violence to combat injustice in Nigeria.

What few dispute is the sheer level of sophistication marking the terrorism now gripping the oil rich yet impoverished West African nation, whose predominantly Christian south is tensely divided from its mainly Muslim north.

“Nigeria has never had a terrorist organization like this,” said Elizabeth Donnelly, the Africa program manager at London-based Chatham House, a British institution that analyzes international issues.

Several northern Nigerian sects, she said, have long embraced varied approaches to fundamentalist Islam.

And….

According to a congressional report three months later, the U.N. bombing “marked a significant shift in the targeting and goals of the group, largely unknown to the U.S. intelligence community, and capped off an evolution in the capabilities of Boko Haram, beginning in the mid-2000s, from attacks with poisoned arrows and machetes to sophisticated car bombings.”

The report, titled “Boko Haram: Emerging Threat to the U.S. Homeland,” highlighted claims by senior U.S. military officials that members of the group are being trained by AQIM and are thought to have established “ties to the Somalian militant group al-Shabab.”

Such assertions have caused an uproar among some regional experts, including Jean Herskovitz, an Africa historian and Nigeria expert. She argues that Boko Haram has “never expressed goals of an international sort that would make it the kind of threat that is being portrayed in that report.”

1. A question not just for the Scots, but for everyone in Britain - Charles Moore, The Daily Telegraph

What Alex Salmond calls independence is really the break-up of the United Kingdom.

2. A generous offer to Scotland could keep the Union safe - Dominic Raab, The Daily Telegraph

As Alex Salmond makes hay haggling over process points for a referendum on Scottish independence, we risk losing sight of the big picture. Mr Salmond may see crude political capital in casting the debate as Scots versus English, but the referendum will define the constitutional architecture for the United Kingdom as a whole.

3. Of course Scotland can stand on its own two feet - and here’s how ~ Hamish McRae, The Independent

Scotland’s voters will be asked to make a political decision in its referendum on independence, but it will be a decision coloured inevitably by economics – or at least economic perceptions, for the long-term economic impact of independence is far from clear. But such is the nature of politics that economic arguments will be used by both sides to support their case.

4. Scotland’s political bruiser - Andrew Bolger, George Parker, The Financial Times

Alex Salmond, the ebullient leader of the Scottish National party, was in his element this week, doing what even his foes concede he does best: hogging the centre of the political stage, draping himself in history and arguing the case for independence that would break up the United Kingdom.

Only a start…...

Peers voted against the Government on three separate amendments on the employment support allowance for disabled people and for cancer patients. The amendments, brought by crossbenchers Lord Patel and Lord Listowel, mean that young disabled people who are unable to work are automatically eligible for the employment support allowance, that claimants are reassessed for the benefit after two years, not 12 months, and that cancer patients are exempt from the time limit between reassessments altogether.

Campaigners had feared that the reforms would mean cancer sufferers would be forced back into work before they had fully recovered.

Peers voted 222 to 166 for the amendment for cancer patients, 234 in favour of the amendment for the time limit, and 260 to 216 for the amendment on young people. They mark the fourth defeat for the Government on the legislation, following a vote before Christmas on housing benefit cuts.

Here is more in the Independent: Lords throw out plans for welfare reform
And the BBC - Click here

Simply cutting it back to 300 and assuming that everybody’s got to be a full time parliamentarian, would make us too much like the House of Commons. ”

In today’s Telegraph Charles Moore has an excellent article Why have a House of Lords if there’s not a single lord left in it?.  He asserts:“The last thing we need is a second chamber filled with yet more professional politicos.”  The article begins:

Dr Johnson said that “most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things”, and that was 250 years before Nick Clegg tried to reform the British constitution. Last year, Mr Clegg failed to persuade the British people, in a referendum, that the Alternative Vote system was the answer to their political ills. This year, he hopes to persuade both Houses of Parliament to invent a new House of Lords. He thinks the present House is “an affront to the principles of openness which underpin a modern democracy”.

Other recent articles on the issue have been [none of them seemingly in favour of reform]:
BBC - Plans to cut Lords to 300 rejected
Independent: Peers and MPs reject Clegg’s plans to cut size of the Lords by a half
Daily Mail: Don’t make the Lords in your image, Mr Clegg
Spectator: The scale of Clegg’s Lords challenge

The so-called “class of 2010” is playing a central role in the simmering discontent facing the Prime Minister on a range of issues, a study next month will disclose. The Government has suffered a revolt in 43 per cent of Commons divisions between the general election in May 2010 and Christmas 2011, by far the highest rate in modern times. Tories have rebelled in 31 per cent of votes. Particularly worrying for Mr Cameron is that more than half of the Conservative rebels have been “newbie” MPs, voting 340 times against their leader.

Useful analysis for arguing that Parliament still has a life of its own and executive dominance is not to be just taken for granted.

Ed Miliband’s performance is certainly under scrutiny.  James Macintyre [co-author of the recent Ed: the Milibands and the making of a Labour leader] has an article in the Guardian - Ed Miliband is just not radical enough

Contrary to David Cameron’s accusation of being too ‘leftwing’, the Labour leader’s vision is being obscured by opportunism.  He writes:
The end of the year provides a good time for reflection. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Miliband’s problem is not that he is too “leftwing”, to use the word David Cameron now attacks him with. It is more complicated, and actually graver, than that. Instead, he is not consistently radical enough. His long-term vision is being obscured by incoherent opportunism epitomised by two judgment calls this year: calling for Kenneth Clarke’s resignation and exploiting the scare over immigration.

More on the Milband debate can be followed in John Rentoul’s blog in the Independent:1
“He needs to be much more Blair-like”

Cameron’s performance as PM and his relationship with his own party is always well chronicled by Tim Montgomery [conservativehome] - he has an article in the Independent An appetite for conservatism that the PM doesn’t always satisfy Cameron’s position has strengthened after he has acted in recognisably conservative ways.  He asserts:

The Conservative Party has never fallen in love with David Cameron. Today’s ConservativeHome survey of Tory members for The Independent shows that he is only eighth in a 15-person league table of centre-right politicians.

Thus once again highlighting that one of Cameron’s weaknesses as a ‘powerful PM’ is his ability to take his own party with him and rely on their support.

And just to end the festive season Bruce Anderson in the Telegraph says Santa Claus David Cameron will have to discover his inner Scrooge and that:

Despite his strengths, Cameron can sound like a vicar jollying along a church outing

1. Steve Richards in the Independent looks at the performances of Ed Balls, Alex Salmond and David Cameron - and his conclusion is obvious in the title Well done Alex and Ed, but David wins by a head. He asserts “Leaders or aspiring leaders must try to appear overwhelmingly dominant, when mostly they are not”. 

A useful excerpt on Cameron - who is also described as being elusive to the point of being uninteresting is:

Cameron is the third candidate. He leads on the narrowest of stages. To the one side of him are the increasingly stroppy Liberal Democrats, on the other is an assertive parliamentary party that cannot be easily appeased with the promise of ministerial jobs. Prime ministerial patronage is a powerful weapon in controlling a party, but Cameron has fewer jobs at his disposal in a coalition. Meanwhile, economic storms are brewing on a scale that makes those of the 1970s and 1980s seem little more than minor breezes.

Other leaders in comparable circumstances were exhausted and demoralised. Harold Wilson leading a hung parliament in the 1970s, John Major in the economic doldrums in the early 1990s and Gordon Brown in 2008, all lost their humour and political guile partly because there was no cause for laughter and they felt trapped politically. Cameron remains vivacious and witty and is implementing a radical Tory agenda without having won the election. In policy terms, he is skating on thin ice and I suspect the ice will crack next year, but, for now, we are looking back.

2. Another article, if unfortunately hiding behind the Times paywall, is Let’s be honest. How did the leaders do in 2011? by Mehdi Hasan, Tim Montgomerie and Mark Pack. It comments:

Pity poor Ed Miliband. By any objective assessment, he has had a good year. His leadership is secure, his party united. Despite losing in the Scottish Parliament elections to the SNP, Mr Miliband gained more than 800 seats in May’s local elections and won five parliamentary by-elections in a row. Labour consistently polls at around 40 per cent and has been ahead of the Conservatives for much of 2011, as austerity failed and growth ground to a halt.

The attacks on churchgoers in Nigeria yesterday [by Boko Haram] will further inflame the already tense relationship between Muslims and Christians in Africa’s most populous nation.

The BBC carries the story and some useful analysis: N Korean leader Kim Jong-il dies

Also the CFR has a comprehensive piece [including an interactive link] :

North Korea after Kim.  It starts:

The death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il on December 18, 2011, has raised serious concerns over the future of the country and stability in the Korean peninsula. His son Kim Jong-un is now expected to take over the helm of the nuclear-armed Communist country, one of the most closed-off societies in the world. A September 2008 CFR Council Special Report says there is a possibility North Korea might intentionally transfer nuclear weapons or materials to a terrorist group, and thus merits Cold War-style methods of deterrence from the United States. While some experts believe the country might see some reform in the period after Kim, others see little hope for change, especially in the ongoing effort to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons.