Recently, Tony Blair had the effrontery to carp at what he described as “the fusion of comment and news” by British newspapers, in effect accusing them playing free and easy with the truth. This was pretty rich, coming from someone that had done so much to elevate spin and news manipulation to their present eminence in British politics. Reflecting, though, on the antics of some of the popular press, particularly those that have bent over backwards to support him, one felt that there might be a germ of something in what he said, despite the identity of the person saying it. Then he singled out The Independent for particular attack, and at once it became obvious that this was yet another exercise in tendentious Blairite axe-grinding.

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Given that one can change one's newspaper at the drop of a word to the newsagent, whilst changing the other two involves a bit more rigmarole, that is a remarkable finding. Mind you, I can't remember where I read it. It may have been in the pages of a newspaper, which might reflect on its validity. On the whole, though, I would be more inclined to believe it if I read it in The Independent, to which I switched about two years ago, than if I read it in any other newspaper. Not that that's saying much, of course.

First, some background facts.

The final 12-24 pages of the main paper are devoted to sport. Saturdays and Mondays see the highest sports paginations, as one might expect. All sports are given coverage, but the emphasis is naturally on the most popular, which suits me since I am essentially a football and cricket fan, with only a passing interest in the rest. Reporting tends to be focussed on the games themselves, with clear factual reporting of matches and relatively little off-pitch speculation and scandal-mongering. This again, suits me, as I have long since wearied of the effort some media devote to prying into players' private lives and twisting any manager's comment into a confrontational casus belli. The one element of The Independent’s sports coverage I don’t much like is James Lawton, apparently regarded as the paper’s star sports columnist, though one whose writing I have never found very entertaining or enlightening.

Moving forward, we next reach the business news, which usually occupies about 10 pages. As with most newspapers, the coverage is more financial than about business in the broader sense, since financial markets move daily and are easy to comment on, whilst broader business trends are harder to identify and interpret. This used to irritate me when I was actively engaged in business. Now I'm not, so it doesn't. As a source of daily financial info The Independent seems to me at least as good as any daily except The Financial Times, and how many of us laymen need the FT's depth of coverage?

As long as people keep dying, these are likely to go on filling a page or two. I doubt that anyone selects a paper on the basis of its obituaries. I am reminded, though, that The Independent did succumb to popular hysteria a year or so ago over the death of George Best, even leading the front page with the news, and disappointed me by doing so. A talented player with a tendency to self-destruct, his was perhaps a salutary story. But a media world in which his death is regarded as the day's most important news is one that has lost its sense of proportion. Sorry.

Johann Hari writes engagingly enough on a range of topics, as do Matthew Norman, Deborah Orr and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. I am not much impressed, however, by the two main political commenters, Bruce Anderson and Steve Richards; neither seems to me to have anything very special to say, nor any very special way of saying it. Dominic Lawson as often as not I disagree with, though he can be readable enough. Adrian Hamilton, despite having been a friend of mine at university, talks sense on foreign affairs. On a lighter note, Mark Steel and Miles Kington can both be offbeat and highly entertaining.

Fewer international stories in total than may be found in one or two other papers, perhaps, but those that do find their way in are usually well-chosen. Moreover, the section is studded with features as well as news stories, very often features written on environmental topics or from an environmental viewpoint. Today, for example, straddling the centre spread of the main paper is a feature about the likely upsurge in sales of cheap cars in India and the effect that will have on carbon emissions in that country.

* Europe *

* News *

- Regular columns. These include “The Green Goddess” Julia Stephenson on the environmental lifestyle; fashion, health, and food and drink features by various writers ; and "Sleeping Around" an autobiographical account of the topic by Catherine Townsend, which I found great fun at first but which I have to say is becoming slightly repetitive. How many ways are there in which to sleep around, after all? (Please don't feel obliged to answer this question.)

- TV and Radio. The round-up of the previous night, usually amusingly written up by Thomas Sutcliffe, and the night's preview. As for the listings themselves, I can detect no sign of these being better or worse in The Independent than in other papers. One seems to have much the same stuff flung at one over the airwaves whatever one reads.

- Games and puzzles. The main cryptic crossword is slightly less difficult than that in The Times, which is a relief; the 'concise' crossword is even more simplistic. The Sudoku (three puzzles daily, ranging from elementary to advanced) are okay, but rather samey - or maybe all sudokus are rather samey, and this is only just beginning to dawn on me.

Such is are the two main sections, but every day there are added extras, sometimes welcome, sometimes less so.

As with most newspapers, Saturday is the big day for added extras, including: a Magazine with all the usual lifestyle stuff of such magazines, eminently dispensable in my opinion; a Travel Section, eminently enjoyable; a Money section, eminently unexceptional; and The Information, their round-up of the forthcoming week's TV, Radio and other entertainment, eminently useful. Plus the sixteen-square Saturday Sudoku keeps me occupied for at least an hour each weekend. It has, perhaps, less additional weight of newsprint on a Saturday than its main competitors - but with The Times I always found it annoying to be throwing so much paper out unread.