Lib DemMP Jo Swinson scored another victory this week in her one-woman battle against the beauty industry. But is 'airbrushing' really the big issue during an economic crisis?

On the way to meet Jo Swinson I'm still unsure what to make of the Lib Dem MP's campaign for body confidence. Is this a gutsy, slightly risky move by a young woman on her way up, taking on an issue that proved calamitous for Labour in 2000, when its "body image summit" was widely ridiculed? Is it a subject simply too soft and fuzzy for the political arena? (The YMCA's website for their part of the campaign features pictures of barely clad people holding hearts saying "I love me" over their genitals, as if recently beset by Gok Wan, Trinny, Susannah and some unruly Care Bears.) Or is it an impressive example of a politician using techniques often associated with grassroots campaigners - the simple, straightforward letter of complaint - to secure surprising results?

Most importantly: is it what politicians should be focusing on right now? There's no doubt this week saw Swinson notch up another small triumph in her campaign. On Wednesday it was reported that a complaint she had made to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) had led to it ruling that an ad for a L'Oréal anti-wrinkle cream could never again appear in its current form. The ad showed a lovely photograph of the actor Rachel Weisz, her skin glassily, fantastically smooth. The ASA decided that although the ad didn't misrepresent the "luminosity or wrinkling" of Weisz's face, "the image had been altered in a way that substantially changed her complexion to make it appear smoother and more even", and concluded it could therefore mislead the public as to the product's performance. This came after two rulings in Swinson's favour last year - ads featuring Julia Roberts and Christy Turlington were also deemed to have been digitally enhanced, and potentially misleading - and another in 2009, when an image of Twiggy was pulled.

All perfectly laudable. No one would argue in favour of misleading adverts, few in favour of the over-enthusiastic use of airbrushing - even if trying to stem this last tide seems Sisyphean in a digital age. And yet it still feels slightly odd to see an MP focusing on this issue in the midst of an economic crisis. Body confidence obviously affects both men and women, but primarily the latter, yet when I talk to women's campaigners it doesn't seem to be at the forefront of the issues they are worried about. The Fawcett Society, the UK's leading women's rights campaign, seems more concerned about the 23-year high in women's unemployment, and the way cuts to benefits will disproportionately affect women (a fifth of female income comes from welfare payments and tax credits, compared to a tenth of male income).

Others cite this week's news that local authority cuts to the domestic violence sector have led to women being advised to sleep in Occupy camps or police stations because all the shelters are full. Body image may have seemed a pressing issue before the recession, and it is very necessary, of course, for campaigners, doctors and academics to work together on eating disorders and associated problems. But is it a priority for the political arena?

I meet Swinson in a cafe in Kennington, south London, the area where she lives with her husband, fellow Lib Dem MP Duncan Hames. She bustles in from the cold, and we get straight to talking about the campaign. I ask why she feels so strongly about this issue, and she says she feels strongly about a lot of issues. This is certainly true. There can be no doubting Swinson's commitment.

In 2005, when she was elected MP for East Dunbartonshire, the area where she grew up, Swinson was 25, the youngest MP in the House. She made a decision, she says, "that I wasn't going to be afraid of the chamber, and I was going to make sure I spoke regularly and just didn't get scared of it". Since her first question at prime minister's questions - asking Tony Blair if it was time "to say goodbye to the Punch and Judy style of PMQs" - she has spoken up on everything from foreign affairs to the over-packaging of Easter eggs, and is now deputy leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats.

"So," she continues, "you know, when I went to Chechnya in 2010, and looked at the human rights situation, I think I arg-u-ably," she spaces out the syllables to give just the tiniest hint of sarcasm, "felt more strongly about that". She straightens up in her seat. "But [airbrushing] is a very important issue. It's important because it has an impact on health. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has said very clearly that they think excessive retouching - and I would talk about this in a much wider context anyway, because it's not just about retouching cosmetics adverts, it's about the whole range of body image pressure on men and women - but this kind of culture creates a huge amount of pressure on people, and that can lead to self-esteem problems. At extreme ends, we have rising rates of eating disorders, and we [also] have a much larger section of the population that engages in what they would call disordered eating rather than eating disorders. And then, from an educational point of view, there's research that shows young people are less likely to participate actively in class on days when they're not feeling confident about their appearance."

She started working on this area in 2009, when it was part of a Lib Dem women's policy paper. She co-founded the Campaign for Body Confidence in March 2010, then became a leader of the all-party parliamentary group on body image in 2011. She says the campaign has "ambitious goals - to change the culture we're living in". What does she say to suggestions that body image isn't an appropriate area for politicians? "Well, it's not just politicians who are involved. After the policy paper was published ... I was contacted by lots of organisations, and so, on the Campaign for Body Confidence, we have Girlguiding, the eating disorders association Beat, Mumsnet, Susie Orbach and her AnyBody team, YMCA, All Walks Beyond the Catwalk, and political representation too."

The all-party group has been hearing evidence from experts over the past months. One interesting snippet came from an industry voice who said that what had been acceptable in advertising 12-15 months ago was not any longer, due to public pressure, so maybe Swinson's incremental, small-scale system of complaints is working. I ask what other measures Swinson thinks politicians can take to address body-image problems. There's a possibility of education on this issue becoming a part of the PSHE curriculum, she says; there's also the question of "What do you do about parents? So much of what young people perceive about their body image is taken from watching their parents ... I think we need to look at ways we can help parents pass on more positive messages to their children, and perhaps some of that can be done through health visitors, for example."

Another problem for young women, she says, is the paucity of strong women in the public eye. She and some other MPs are meeting with the head of sports at the BBC soon to discuss the fact that 2011's Sports Personality of the Year shortlist featured 10 men and no women. I ask whether there is any embarrassment in talking about this issue when there are only seven women Lib Dem MPs - just 12% of the party's total. The representation of women in the Lib Dems has long been disastrous - although not as disastrous as the fact that they have not a single non-white MP - and last year a report suggested they could potentially be left with no women MPs at all after the next election. Five of their women MPs are in marginal seats, including Swinson.

Swinson has opposed all-women shortlists in the past - at the 2001 Lib Dem party conference she wore a bright pink T-shirt saying I Am Not a Token Woman - but it's these shortlists that led to a sea-change in the representation of women in parliament: the breakthrough moment in 1997 when 101 female Labour MPs were elected. She speaks enthusiastically about the Lib Dem's leadership programme, which involves mentoring people from under-represented groups, but, speaking to experts in this field, there is scepticism about whether this will make much difference.

In many ways, Swinson is impressive, and the Lib Dems could do worse than to promote her - she is articulate, loyal, always willing to put her head above the parapet, and in a way that draws the focus to the issues rather than her as an individual. She is confident, a comprehensive school pupil who loved debating and went on to study management at the London School of Economics. But her devotion to politics can sometimes make it difficult to find out if there's much beneath the rhetoric. I ask about growing up in Milngavie, part of the area she now represents, and rather than any insight into her childhood, she talks about it being a middle-class, affluent area, with]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2012/feb/04/jo-swinson-interview http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/feb/04/deknighting-fred-goodwin-gesture-politics

This gesture politics won't combat the increasing inequality in society

Stephen Hester declines his bonus. Fred Goodwin is deknighted. Fine. But this is gesture economics. David Cameron remains convinced about the morality of free markets, and their natural ability to make everyone rich. This sharing out is ostensibly carried out by a kindly invisible hand, identified long ago by the Scottish economist Adam Smith, and in recent decades referred to as "trickledown".

New Labour did believe that the trickle had to be helped, but they were so busy actively redistributing, which in itself belied the trickledown theory, that they persuaded themselves that close scrutiny of the source of the largesse was not necessary or desirable. But figures in both Britain and the US show that huge increases in wealth at the top of society have not, in fact, led to any increase in affluence at the bottom. High salaries got much, much higher. Low wages, even average wages, stagnated. Underlying unemployment rose.

The neo-liberal concern is always that, left to its own devices, let alone deliberately channelled by "the state", a trickle can become a flood. But really, the growth in inequality in neo-liberal economies confirms the belief of neo-liberalism's critics - that a trickle is all too easy to dam up.

The debt crisis, quite simply, is the result of the huge efforts that have been made to hide the absence of trickledown. Cheap debt, in the form of mortgages, artificially inflated housing assets, encouraging people to take on more cheap debt, that they could treat like disposable income, created a consumer boom.

Even without a mortgage, you could still get credit cards, lots of them, and continually transfer your debts to the latest new deal. This meant that people felt as if they were becoming more wealthy and affluent, even when in reality they were not. Thus, an illusion was created - the illusion that concentrated wealth really was enriching everyone, when that was far from the case. Is Cameron really deluded, or just cynical? Either way, he is not going to find a solution while he remains so tremendously enthusiastic about the problem.

One year ago, a father's racist politics had poisoned the relationship with his son. Now, the birth of a child has brought about a subtle change

After more than a day of labour, Baby Finn forced his way into the world: 5lb 11oz, beautiful, healthy and wondrous. Dizzy with pride for my partner and son, I wanted to tell the entire world, one by one. Except, that is, for my own father.

He'd made clear his lack of interest in our mixed-race child, so what must be life's greatest phone call was taken from me by his irrational hatred of difference. In truth though, nothing could sully the joy of Finn's arrival. If the third world war had broken out, it would have been a footnote to my day.

Collecting myself in the autumn air outside St Thomas' hospital, London, where not even the gothic splendour of the Palace of Westminster could impress after seeing what Mira had gone through to bring Finn into the world, I rang Mira's mother. The happiness doubled and the news would be distributed among the Patels at a speed Twitter could only dream of.

Now for my lot. If I rang the family home, the only person in the world I didn't want to speak to would answer. We hadn't spoken in months and he didn't deserve - or desire - the good news. On this day, especially, I didn't want to hear his voice.

Given the length of the labour, I had been able to warn my mum that we were heading for the hospital and to turn her mobile phone on. (For reasons best known to the elderly, mobile phones are usually turned off when not in use to "save the battery", even when childbirth is imminent.)

Mum was overwhelmed to hear the news that she had a fifth grandchild. It was an unexpected treat for her late in life as it had been 16 years since the last one, and he's already shaving. She knew how happy Mira and I were, and hoped we'd bring her a baby to love. Her prayers and my father's fears were answered simultaneously.

For the first few weeks of Finn's life I'd pick my mum up to bring her to see the baby without speaking to my dad. She couldn't have been more delighted. Well, perhaps if her husband shared her profound glee, she could.

Mira's family were regular visitors and made a fuss of Finn, showering him with affection and gifts, as well as providing great support.

The situation with my father couldn't go on. He's approaching 90 and it was intolerable to think that Finn would not meet his grandfather. I don't know why he finally decided to get in touch, but détente was reached at his request.

He didn't apologise, but wanted us to put our differences aside. He said he had his reasons for his objections. I told him I didn't care what they were - they would make no sense to me. We were talking about an innocent baby, his grandchild, I told him. He agreed. A newborn baby was to be cherished. He wanted to meet him. We would not reach an understanding, simply a slightly chafing accommodation.

When Finn was three months old, I took him to see my father. When I put my son in his arms, even with his faltering eyesight and unsteady grasp, he was visibly moved to hold him, to gaze down on those big brown eyes and declare him handsome.

Now he regularly rings up to ask: "How's my beautiful grandson?" before telling me how alert and lovely he is, just like any proud grandad. It still surprises me, but I'm gratified and - more than anything - relieved. As an added bonus, he hasn't said anything offensively racist to me for months. I think of it as Babies 1, BNP 0.

He hasn't changed his politics, of course, but he has at least stopped his small-minded bigotry poisoning the bond with his own blood. Although our relationship will never be the same, it is at least cordial and Finn at last has a grandfather (Mira's father died some years ago).

Race was not an issue for Mira's family. Both her sisters are married to white Englishmen and have beautiful children. The family has had many happy mixed marriages since they came to England from east Africa in the 1970s.

It took a baby to shake my father from his rigid stance, and I suppose it is the same for many families. The thing you fear turns out to be nothing at all.

I still brace myself for an offensive outburst when we take Finn to see my parents. But he takes most of the attention, so the state of the modern world comes up less. Last time, my dad piped up: "It doesn't make sense. Our government has just given £4m to the starving Somalis ..." I tensed, fearing the rest of the sentence but he said, "Yet Manchester City has just spent £35m on a footballer." Perspective is the last thing I expected from him.

Mostly, though, I am glad that he is proud of the baby we made, a child we couldn't love more, who will grow up to hear that his grandad has some good points. I can tell him he was a war hero who risked his life and gave part of his sanity, in my opinion, to protect this country from the evil force of nazism.

It still shocks and saddens me that my father, along with others of his generation and experience, embraces the racist ideology they fought against in the battle that defined their lives. Do they really wish they had been on the other side?

"I didn't fight for this," he used to say about our multicultural society. I could never satisfactorily explain it to him, but he did fight for this - for Britain to determine its own future and for its people to be free to live their lives and love whoever they loved. And he fought for Finn, and all his grandchildren, so they need never fear a knock at the door from a regime based on hate, division and brutality. For that I will always be grateful.

Names have been changed

Chris Huhne's divorce spiralled into political crisis after claims by his former wife that she took speeding points on his behalf

The acrimonious divorce of Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce spiralled into a political as well as personal crisis when they were both charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, prompting Huhne's resignation as energy secretary and a call by Pryce for the case to resolved quickly.

Huhne described the director of public prosecutions' decision to charge him as deeply regrettable and vowed to prove his innocence in front of a jury.

Pryce, in a brief statement from her lawyer, did not declare her innocence or guilt, saying she would now spend some time with her family and adding: "Obviously I hope for a quick resolution of the case." It is not known what plea she will submit to the charges.

In a day of personal turmoil and suspense for Huhne and Pryce, Keir Starmer, the DPP, announced he judged that sufficient evidence existed to charge the former couple. It is alleged that Pryce has admitted taking speeding points on behalf of her former husband in March 2003, an allegation she initially made in the Sunday Times during their separation.

It is the first time a serving cabinet minister has been charged with an imprisonable criminal offence in modern times, and represents a devastating blow to one of politics' most resilient figures, as well as potentially weakening the Liberal Democrats at a time when the party is hoping to stage a recovery. Huhne has been described as "the grit in the oyster", self-confident enough to challenge his coalition partners across the policy range.

Lawyers for the former couple will be summoned to appear at Westminster magistrates' court on 16 February, with a full trial at the Old Bailey possibly in September, on the assumption that neither side pleads guilty or manages to get the case dismissed. There is a prospect that other Liberal Democrats could be summoned to give evidence.

In a letter accepting Huhne's resignation, Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister, said: "I fully understand your decision to stand down from government in order to clear your name, but I hope you will be able to do so rapidly so that you can return to play a key role in government as soon as possible."

David Cameron, however, made no mention of a possible return in his own letter accepting Huhne's resignation, saying only: "Like the deputy prime minister, I am sorry to see you leave the government under these circumstances and wish you well for the future." He added that Huhne had made the right decision to stand down in the circumstances, and praised his work on climate change.

In a typically robust response, Huhne said: "The Crown Prosecution Service's decision today is deeply regrettable. I'm innocent of these charges and I intend to fight this in the courts and I'm confident that a jury will agree.

"So as to avoid any distraction to either my official duties or my trial defence, I am standing down and resigning as energy and climate change secretary. I will of course continue to serve my constituents in Eastleigh."

Clegg spoke to Huhne on Thursday night and Friday morning. Clegg's wife, Miriam, spoke to Pryce to express her sadness and offer her support. It was being stressed by Lib Dem aides that the Cleggs were not taking sides, but making a human gesture to two people who as a couple had been the only Liberal Democrats to attend their wedding.

Pryce is said to be disappointed at the decision of the Sunday Times to succumb to a police court demand to hand over emails between herself and a journalist on the paper. The Sunday Times had initially resisted the release of the emails, but changed tack, prompting some of Pryce's friends to claim that it had not protected its sources as newspapers are expected to do. News International sources said it had a written agreement with Pryce that it would protect her but if the court demanded material, the Sunday Times could hand that material to the police.

Cameron was informed at 9.10am of Starmer's decision and spoke to Huhne by phone at 10.40am, little more than half hour an hour after Starmer's announcement.

In a rapid, long-prepared response to the resignation, Cameron appointed the Lib Dem business minister Ed Davey to succeed Huhne. Norman Lamb, Clegg's parliamentary aide, has taken on Davey's former brief.

Lib Dem officials praised Davey's quick grasp of policy and ability to get on with officials and said he would be his own man putting forward a strong green case. He said his three chief challenges were climate change, energy security and securing a better deal for energy consumers, a field in which he specialised while at the business department.

The prime minister's spokesman said he did not expect to see any substantial change in policy as a result.

But some environmentalists voiced dismay at the loss of Huhne, described by Greenpeace as "a vocal advocate for the green agenda in a government whose green credentials are looking more than a little tarnished".

Other government changes resulting from the resignation saw the Lib Dem MP Jenny Willott appointed an assistant government whip and Jo Swinson take Lamb's old post as parliamentary private secretary to Clegg. Despite speculation, there was no return for David Laws, who quit as Treasury chief secretary in May 2010 and was later suspended from the Commons for seven days after an expenses scandal.

Andrew Lansley says some trusts can no longer afford to honour PFI deals that were 'badly negotiated' by Labour ministers

Seven hospital trusts struggling with crippling private finance initiative debts are to receive £1.5bn in emergency funding from the government to help them avoid cutting patient services to pay their bills.

The Department of Health is making the £1.5bn available - in grants, not loans - to the seven hospital trusts in England with some of the heaviest PFI debts through a "stability" fund. Trusts will be able to use the money to meet PFI repayments, rather than their usual budgets, as long as they meet four conditions set out by the department.

The move will help trusts such as South London Healthcare NHS trust, which is facing a PFI repayment in 2012-13 of £66.8m under the terms of a deal agreed in July 1998, in the early days of Tony Blair's government. They will be able to access the £1.5bn over the next 25 years, until the PFI contracts end.

Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, said he had been forced to use taxpayers' money because certain NHS organisations could no longer afford to honour PFI deals that had been "badly negotiated" by Labour ministers.

"Labour left some parts of the NHS with a dismal legacy of PFI, and made them rely on unworkable plans for the future. They swept these problems under the carpet for a decade and left us with a £60bn postdated PFI cheque to deal with," Lansley said.

"The problems facing some parts of the NHS left to us by Labour now have to be sorted out. Tough solutions may be needed for these problems, but we will not let the sick pay for Labour's debt crisis."

The six other NHS trusts are Barking, Havering and Redbridge; Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS foundation trust; St Helens and Knowsley; North Cumbria; Dartford and Gravesham; and Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells.

Without the fund, there was a danger that services would be put "at severe risk" because of the weight of their PFI deals at a time of tightening NHS budgets, according to Department of Health sources.

South London faces the largest annual repayment in 2012-13. The Barking, Havering and Redbridge trust has to find £49.8m on its deal, agreed in January 2004, and the St Helens and Knowsley trust's payment will be £42.5m under the terms of its contract, signed in June 2006.

Lansley acted after 22 hospital trusts told him their PFI debts were endangering their financial or clinical future. Department of Health research established that PFI payments were one of the reasons for trusts' problems.

The department set four conditions for trusts to use the fund:

o The problems they face must be exceptional and beyond those faced by other organisations.

o The problems must be historic and they have a clear plan to manage their resources in the future.

o They must show they are delivering high levels of annual productivity savings.

o They must deliver clinically viable, high quality services, including delivering low waiting times and other performance measures.

Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, who was health secretary during Labour's time in office, has previously admitted in relation to the deals: "We made mistakes. I'm not defending every penstroke of the PFI contracts we signed."

The money will be available over the remaining lifetime of the seven trusts' PFI contracts. It will come from underspends over that time in different Department of Health budgets.

In December a report into NHS finances by the public accounts committee flagged up looming problems with PFI debt. It concluded: "The cost of private finance schemes is an additional challenge for a limited number of hospitals. Analysis commissioned by the department has identified six trusts that are unviable largely because of their PFI charges. Long-term private finance initiatives deals reduce the department's ability to establish a level playing field of financially sustainable, autonomous trusts.

"In many cases efficiency savings alone will not be enough to make unviable trusts financially sustainable. The department faces a particular dilemma about how to manage the debt of these hospitals as their long-term financial commitments make reconfiguration more difficult," it added.

The capacity of clubs such as Portsmouth to carry on in apparently hopeless positions is one of the game's phenomena

In football perspectives have obviously changed. There was a time when the merest hint of a famous old club threatened with extinction would have been regarded as a major crisis within the game. Now the news of Portsmouth being issued with a winding-up order by HM Revenue and Customs for unpaid taxes is greeted with a shrug.

So what. Portsmouth have been this way before, HMRC having filed a similar petition in December 2009 which was eventually withdrawn, leaving the club to face a nine-point penalty for going into administration.

Pompey have experienced a series of financial crises since the late 90s which have usually involved last-minute rescues by foreign investors, though with mixed results. Harry Redknapp's two spells as manager between 2002 and 2008 saw them gain promotion to the Premier League and win the FA Cup but their cash problems have only ever been put on hold.

Now Portsmouth's bank accounts have been frozen following HMRC's latest wind-up. The tax man is owed £1.6m which may seem trifling compared to the sums being paid to Premier League players and the debts run up by their clubs as a result, but is posing yet one more threat to the club's future.

The winding-up petition is due to be heard on 20 February. Portsmouth are seeking a validation from the court to have their accounts unfrozen so that wages and money owed to suppliers can be paid. Meanwhile their supporters will be wondering who will take over the club next, always assuming that there is anyone left out there likely to show an interest.

Elsewhere life goes on. The season's issues continue to grab the headlines ... the Mancunian arm-wrestling contest at the top and the struggles of the rest to keep up, John Terry, Carlos Tevez, red cards that should or should not have been shown, two-footed tackles ... and so on and so forth. Winding-ups are not big news.

Portsmouth will probably live to be wound up another day. The capacity of football clubs in apparently hopeless positions to carry on somehow is one of the game's phenomena.

In the mid-80s Middlesbrough were broke and had to borrow £30,000 from the Professional Footballers' Association to pay the wages. The gates at Ayresome Park were padlocked and Boro, then in the old Third Division, kicked off the 1986-87 season with a home game against Port Vale except that "home" on that day was at Hartlepool.

Ten minutes before the deadline for registering with the Football League, at a cost of £350,000 which up to that point Middlesbrough did not have, Steve Gibson, the present chairman, led a consortium to the rescue and Boro ended up winning promotion. In the early 80s Derek Dougan headed a similar salvage operation to bail out Wolverhampton Wanderers, again with minutes to spare.

Broadly speaking, football clubs live on so long as the will to live is strong. For Halifax Town read FC Halifax, riding high in the Blue Square Premier. Cast a glance through the Evo-Stik North Premier and there are Bradford Park Avenue, a point ahead of FC United of Manchester. Darlington's financial woes may have cost them 10 points in the Blue Square Premier but at least they are still there, the fans having rallied round to keep them going.

Older followers of Leyton Orient will remember Arthur Page, then the chairman, walking around the running track at Brisbane Road with a plastic bucket into which supporters were invited to drop contributions to ease a cash crisis. The will of the fans to ensure that their team stays in existence should never be underestimated.

The restoration of Brighton and Hove Albion as a serious footballing force, epitomised by the way Gus Poyet's side have just swept Newcastle United out of the FA Cup, owes much to the energy and vision of Dick Knight. But if Albion supporters had given up when, the Goldstone Ground having been sold from under them for development, they were asked to travel to the ends of the earth, otherwise known as Gillingham, to watch home games, the club might have faded away.

Maybe a franchise system, requiring those who would own a football team to stick to an agreed set of practices or lose control, might save clubs from themselves. At present the tendency is to apply the Billy Bunter principle in matters of finance : the Owl of the Remove was forever expecting a postal order. Either this or hope that the figure shimmering in the heat haze of an Arabian desert is Omar Sharif with oil wells and not merely a mirage.

A major factor in why US prisons are overflowing is the highly profitable privatised industry that has an incentive to fill them

In the past few decades, changes in sentencing laws and get-tough-on-crime policies have led to an explosion in America's prison population. Funding this incarceration binge has been an enormous drain on taxpayer dollars, with some states now spending more to lock up their citizens than to provide their children with education. It's difficult to spin anything positive out of that scenario, but as it turns out, even this blackest of clouds has a silver lining - silver as in dollars, that is, for the private prison industry.

In 2010, two of the largest private prison companies in America, GEO Group, Inc and the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) generated over $4bn dollars in profit between them. Their respective CEOs, George Zoley and Damon Hininger, each earned well in excess of $3m in 2010. Although there have been some concerns that any relaxation of sentencing or drug laws might negatively impact their bottom line (profit), they remain confident in their ability to drum up new ways of generating their taxpayer-funded commodities (also known as inmates): lobbying California for their excess prisoners being one; caging juveniles on trivial charges another. But the favorite, by a long shot, is the accelerated drive to lock up America's immigrants.

So far, these strategies seem to be working nicely. In their 2011 third-quarter earnings report, the GEO group proudly announced an increase in profits from the previous year. This joyous news can be at least partially attributed to changes in immigration law, particularly in states like Arizona and Oklahoma, which allow for, among other things, the indefinite detention of illegal immigrants, including those whose asylum proceedings are underway. The majority of immigrants who are picked up by law enforcement officials, mostly on civil charges, like being caught with a broken tail light for instance, will end up in privately run prisons. In many of these facilities, they will be charged $5 per minute to call their loved ones, whilst earning $1 per day for their labor, from which the corporation running the facility will profit.

According to an investigation by NPR, in 2008, two men, allegedly from CCA, showed up in a small Arizona town, close to the Mexican border to pitch the construction of a new prison specifically to house women and children who were illegal immigrants. Local officials were not convinced that the prison could be kept full, but that is, perhaps, because they were unaware that, at the time, CCA was one of the key groups involved in drafting and promoting the Arizona Senate Bill 1070 (which requires police to lock up anyone who cannot prove they came to the US legally), under the auspices of a secretive group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which specializes in model legislation.

It's hard to think of a more cynical way to earn one's fortune than to devise means of placing innocent children in prison. But if no one's going to stop you, then why the hell not?

It's not all sunshine and roses in private prison land, however. These dens of inequity were sold to the public as super-efficient, money-saving, job-creating dream machines. The trouble is, most of the savings are derived from hiring too few prison guards and paying them on average 30-40% less than their counterparts in government-run prisons. According to Brian Dawe, executive director of the American Correctional Officers (ACO), an organization that promotes the well-being and safety of corrections officers (COs), no self-respecting CO wants to work in a private prison - where their chances of being assaulted are 49% higher, where escapes are commonplace, where riots are frequent and where the staff are ill-equipped to cope.

It might seem counterintuitive to create conditions that are conducive to outbreaks of violence, until you realize that violence is good for business. Inmates who act out tend to get time added to their sentence. Time added to sentences means more money, and more money is exactly what the CEOs and their shareholders are interested in.

This brings me to what the ACLU's David Shapiro, who authored the recent report Banking on Bondage, calls a "fundamentally flawed incentive". In a sane society, the purpose of a prison should be to keep the public safe. The goal should not be to encourage criminal behavior or to find new ways to incriminate people, so that certain private individuals can line their pockets.

It's an added kick in the face that these corporations which profit from human misery are doing so at the taxpayers' expense and to the detriment of public safety. But until the public cries foul, there will be no stopping them.

Interested parties can write to: 

Sadhbh Walshe 
PO Box 1466
New York, NY 10150

Or send an email to: sadhbh@ymail.com

David Miliband rejects my pro-state policy ideas as 'Reassurance Labour'. That's why he's not leader

Rejoice. It is just possible that two not very original articles, which recently appeared in small circulation magazines, will stimulate the debate about Labour's principles and purpose that the party has needed, but lacked, for so long.

In the first article - published in the Political Quarterly - Kevin Hickson and I argued that Labour would only succeed if it based its programme on a coherent and consistent philosophy, that its ideological objective should be a more equal society, and that the Blair and Brown governments had made too little progress in that direction because of two crucial errors: they placed too much faith in the power of markets and they accepted the fashionable view that the role of the state should be drastically reduced. To us it seemed so blindingly obvious that we were not at all surprised when, for months after its first publication, the article was completely ignored.

Then along came David Miliband. His response, in the New Statesman, amounted to the rejection of what he called "Reassurance Labour" - his description of our strongly held belief that, far from being an electoral liability, genuine social democracy is what millions of disillusioned voters are waiting for.

Events conspire to prove our point. Who now believes that "light regulation" will encourage banks to contribute to the general good, or that the profit motive - as illustrated by the collapse of Southern Cross - is the best stimulus to high-quality domiciliary care? If "modernisation" - more often demanded than defined - means accepting that the world is constantly changing, it is a requirement of policy making. If it means that it is now impossible to mobilise a majority for the redistribution of power and wealth, the inherent pessimism is contradicted by the evidence.

There are points at which the two diagnoses coincide. David agrees that, when properly defined, liberty and equality are essentially related, rather than mutually exclusive, conditions. But if he does want a more equal society he has do more than extol its virtues. He has to support the means of bringing it about. And state power is essential to its achievement. We no more believe that the state is always benign than we believe in the extinction, or even the regulation, of a majority of markets. Our complaint against the Blair and Brown governments is that in both areas they lacked discrimination. Markets are often necessary to preserve liberty as well as to promote efficiency - but they are not the best method of distributing welfare, medical care and education. The state sometimes intrudes unacceptably into the lives of its citizens - but more often it is the best way of providing essential social services.

State action is vital to the achievement of a more equal society. It is the most efficient mechanism for the redistribution of power and wealth, and it enables a genuinely egalitarian government to destroy the institutions of inequality and replace them with systems which unite rather than divide the nation.

For some reason, which I cannot explain, David accuses us of wanting to diminish the role of local government. Perhaps he has a guilty conscience. The government in which he served invented "city academies: they are a perfect example of how - by replacing public provision with the individualism of the "choice agenda" - the interests of the articulate, self-confident and determined minority are promoted at the expense of the community as a whole. David ignores the state's basic duty to protect the vulnerable against private tyranny. So did the Blair-Brown governments. As a result, the bankers' greed and incompetence created a "lost generation" of the young unemployed.

Understandably, David bridles at criticism of the governments in which he served. We have no doubt that they did much of which the Labour party can be proud. We said so when we campaigned for its re-election. David makes the tired old jibe about the luxury of "principle without power". But we believe that future office will elude us until we establish a distinctive radical reputation. That requires a leader who has the courage and character to acknowledge the fundamental flaws in New Labour thinking. It is one of the reasons why we voted for Ed Miliband 18 months ago.

From bonuses to knighthoods, the leaders we put in high office prefer jaw-jutting certainty to thoughtful judgment

The laws of contempt demand that we tread warily when assessing the matter of Chris Huhne's judgment. We can wonder if the now departed energy secretary would have had to resign to spend more time with his lawyers had he played things differently. Perhaps if he had been less abrasive, declining to compare his Tory cabinet colleagues to Nazis during the alternative-vote campaign for example, he would have had more friends in high places saddened rather than cheered to see him go.

Not that they could have saved his job. Whatever the law says about innocent until proven guilty, politics has its own code - one that deems criminal charges incompatible with high office. If Huhne has any regrets at all, they probably relate to ... but no, the lawyer is hovering.

Still the Huhne resignation on Friday did one man a favour, diverting the spotlight from Sir Philip Hampton, the RBS chairman, who, with his knighthood still intact, did a round of morning interviews, mostly focusing on the bonus of very nearly £1m offered to, and then waived by, the bank's chief executive, Stephen Hester. "I think it's true that we underestimated the scale of the public reaction to the bonus award," Hampton conceded.

Think about that for a moment. This is the chairman of a huge institution, in a post so responsible he was himself deemed worthy of a £1.4m bonus, admitting that he was unable to predict that taxpayers would be agitated by the prospect of forking out a seven-figure prize to the head of a bank they all but own, even though that bank's share price had tumbled by 37% in a year. Only "in hindsight" could Hampton see what anybody who had opened a newspaper or listened to a phone-in over the past three years could have told him in advance.

Forget the outrage over rewarding failure and throwing millions at this one public employee, Hester, while everyone else in the public sector has to endure a pay freeze that is, in effect, a pay cut. Focus only on the admission of utterly defective judgment. A titan of British finance has confessed that he did not know what was obvious to the dogs in the street.

It recalled the round of interviews Peter Mandelson had given a week earlier, where the former Lord High Marshal - I forget his exact title - of the Brown government explained his new understanding of globalisation. He had once believed that globalisation would produce "rising incomes for all". Indeed, he said, "we took all that for granted". But, to his shock, "we've learned that markets, while indispensable ... can become volatile and unstable and have to be managed and regulated"; and, more shocking still, that "globalisation is also generating income inequalities within countries and between countries."

Now, perhaps we should applaud Mandelson both for changing his mind and coming clean about the gaps in his previous thinking. But it's not as if he has discovered a truth impossible to glimpse until now. He was a cabinet minister in the era of the great anti-globalisation protests in Seattle and elsewhere. All he had to do was listen to what those protesters were saying nearly 13 years ago, as they warned that the new economic orthodoxy was fuelling inequality and that markets needed to be tamed. For, as he has now admitted, their judgment was right and his was wrong.

He's not, of course, the only eminence to have erred. Alan Greenspan - yet another financial big to be knighted - was revered as the oracle, the sage who chaired the Federal Reserve for nearly 20 years. Yet he eventually confessed that he did not see the devastating sub-prime housing bubble coming - "I really didn't get it until very late" - and, what's more, that it was with "shocked disbelief" that he realised that bankers might not put the safety of their depositors' cash ahead of all other considerations, including, say, personal greed.

Hampton, Mandelson, Greenspan - all confessing that they got it wrong. Which would be admirable if judgment were not the very quality they were hired for. That, after all, is the deal. The eminent public official gets the titles, the salary, the status that separates him from lesser mortals because he is meant to be endowed with greater wisdom. That's their purpose. And yet, in Philip Hampton we have the lavishly paid chairman of a public concern cheerfully admitting that when faced with a critical decision he had less insight than any man or woman you might pick at random from the top deck of a passing bus.

The Mandelson case is graver. His first boss, Tony Blair, used the word "judgment" all the time, especially when defending the Iraq war, solemnly insisting that this was a judgment that ultimately he, as prime minister, had to make. But Blair's judgment proved to be fatally wrong: there were no WMDs and no plan for the aftermath of invasion. An unkind historian could seize on Mandelson's recent admission and conclude that, while right on so much else, on the two great questions of the age - the changing global economy and the "war on terror" - Blair's judgment was badly wrong. And yet it was precisely the quality of his judgment that he insisted qualified him to lead.

There are countless examples, in every direction. George Osborne slammed quantitative easing as "the last resort of desperate governments", before resorting to that very move himself. In 2001 Paddy Ashdown declared the idea of "a long drawn-out guerrilla campaign" in Afghanistan "fanciful". Earlier, Michael Gove wrote a pamphlet denouncing the doomed folly of the Northern Ireland peace process. Again and again, those who believe their judgment qualifies them to make great decisions of state get it wrong.

Perhaps Ed Miliband will draw comfort from this. He's made several judgment calls he's proud of: Murdoch, Hester and Fred Goodwin. The trouble is, it might not matter. Al Gore could always point to a good record - he supported the first Gulf war and opposed the second, for example - but it was not enough. It might not be sound judgment we crave, but the leader-ish appearance of it: the jaw-jutting certainty, the alpha confidence. Blair had that by the bucketload and so does Cameron. It may all be an illusion, covering an alarming pattern of misjudgment. But by the time the voters find out, it's often too late.

Twitter: @j_freedland

Amelia Gentleman should be congratulated on a powerful piece of journalism (After all the pep talks and CV workshops, where are the jobs?, 1 February) . It should be compulsory reading for the coalition government and Labour frontbench. Schemes to maximise people's CVs, job searching and employability skills may help some unemployed people. However, as she points out, the emphasis of these sorts of schemes is to make unemployment purely an individual problem, ignoring economic factors.

The danger is that many unemployed people start to believe that their failure to find work is solely due to defects in individual characteristics, rather than primarily a result of economic factors. Interestingly, at least one of the workers who are attempting to put people into work, Mark Harrison, acknowledged the shortage of jobs as a problem ("... there not being the jobs out there"). Incongruously, this realism frequently coexisted with a jargon-ridden, gung-ho approach from his colleagues when they were talking to clients and assuring them they would find a job.
Michael Somerton
Hull

o It was refreshing to read Amelia Gentleman's balanced report on what she saw of our work programme operations. In just six months G4S has already supported over 6,000 people into jobs through our management of the work programme. During turbulent economic times, providing quality support for long-term unemployed people becomes more important, not less so.

The total amount of jobs in an economy is not fixed. Labour market interventions like the work programme help create more jobs as well as match people to the jobs currently available. If we get it right, the work programme offers a unique opportunity to transform the present and future job prospects of a generation of unemployed people.
Sean Williams
Managing director, G4S Welfare to Work

o The headline on Amelia Gentleman's article encapsulates the problem: whereas there is much that is good in these schemes, it is clear that all this effort, at an apparent cost of £5bn, does not create a single job, apart from those of the individuals running them.
Philip Heselton
Hull

o Now we're having an intelligent debate on banking, can we also talk about the impact of the outsourcing and offshoring of jobs? What is the point of the work programme when the government is happy for both public and private sector work to move offshore to India or China? There will be no effective, long-term creation of jobs while this continues.
Tony Clewes
Walsall

o Amelia Gentleman's excellent article once again highlighted the total lack of vision in the government's approach to getting people into work. Rather than encouraging the unemployed to work unpaid for large companies, workshops should be run to help people of all ages identify the many gaps and new business opportunities that exist using modern technology and e-business models. I ran a two-year programme for Business Link Kent called e-quality for women entrepreneurs aimed at women over 50 wanting to start an online business. The response was amazing. They felt empowered when they realised that they could use their skills running a self-employed business and take control of their working lives.

Far more could be done to create mutually beneficial partnerships which could lead to employment or self-employment. Teach the young man being trained in making bird tables how to sell his products online. Get the 18-year-olds familiar with Twitter and Facebook to work with small businesses who are struggling to find the time to understand how social networking can raise their profile and create new markets. Arrange for the 60-year-olds with business backgrounds to mentor the young to start up a business. Too much time is spent focusing on traditional routes to employment.
Dee Alsey
Rye, East Sussex

o John Harris ('Being your own boss' is no alternative to a proper job, 23 January) is describing members of the new precariat - a combination of "proletariat" and "precarious". For women and ethnic minorities this is no new condition; altogether it's the growing class of those who live and work precariously, often in a series of short-term, insecure, low-paid jobs, and whose condition produces instability - like Occupy, riots and so on.

There are creative and egalitarian alternatives - work sharing, everyone working shorter hours rather than half the population out of work and the other half over-worked, co-operatives like Mondragon in the Basque country, where the highest earners are paid on average no more than five times that of the lowest, finance sector included. When are our politicians going to have a go at some of these?
Sue Ledwith
Ruskin College, Oxford

o Three months ago I was an employed IT professional and company director. I am now unemployed. I have applied for many jobs. Having paid tax into the system for many years, I feel entitled to my £60 per week unemployment benefit. To retain that I am now told by the Kingswood jobcentre in Bristol that I must make visits to offices/garages etc asking if they have any driving jobs. I am also told I must change my CV (dumb it down) and take any job that's offered to me. They say: "We know this is a bit demeaning but you are receiving taxpayers' money so this is what you must do."

Is it good for the UK economy for jobcentres to try to force highly qualified people to feel demeaned and undersell themselves simply because they have been unemployed for three months?
Mark Laridon
Bristol

o Please pass on to Amelia Gentleman my appreciation for the honesty and sensitivity she showed in her article on unemployment here in Hull.

It could only happen in Hull, the crucible of the anti-slavery movement and parliamentary seat of William Wilberforce, that unemployed citizens are expected to work without pay. Work without payment is my definition of slavery in the 21st century.
Mel Pink
Hull

o In Hull, there are apparently 58 applicants for each job. If each year, just over four of them do 12 weeks' unpaid "work experience", that job will disappear, and none will be able to gain paid employment. In the catechism I learnt at school, one of the sins crying out to heaven for vengeance was "defrauding labourers of their wages". It is a sin - and should be a crime - that has not gone away.
Frank Roper
Weymouth, Dorset

o The work programme does not save the government any money. When one benefit claimant finds work he simply fills a vacancy that would have gone to another claimant.
Janet Johnson
Rugby, Warwickshire

o It is all very well for the MoD to say that their purchasing policy does not preclude them from buying British (Fears for British jobs after BAE loses out on £7bn fighter contract, 2 February). The record of governments in the past of supporting development of ground-breaking work is abysmal - look at trains or windfarms or tidal power, where there has been virtually no support for British effort. What is the point of a scientific education if there are no British companies to provide employment? We will always be paying someone else to do the development work, so we will never have anything new to sell. The economy will never be rebalanced. Investing in R&D now is investing in our future. That must be government policy.
John Laird
Harrogate, North Yorkshire

o "Laughing at vocational jobs is a very British kind of snobbery, " writes Sarah Ditum ('Your kids aren't smart, posh, upper-class, whatever': a very British snobbery, 31 January). No it's not! It is stupid predjudice and active discrimination practised by people who should surely know better. Intellect and intelligence are not the same thing and most people now realise that the only way out of the economic impasse we find ourselves in will be by making things.

Creative industry needs to be the driving force of our economy rather than casino capitalism and low-taxed asset speculation. A change in attitudes is required that allows for the coming together of physical and mental intelligence working alongside academic intellect to create new goods and services that will enable a different economy to grow and prosper. Fortunately, the working class, with their myriad vocational skills and abilities, are usually quite good at this sort ]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/03/unemployment-job-creation-and-precariat http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/03/condone-child-rioting-admirable-parent

The trouble with blaming the parents is that you risk blaming people who have coped far better than you would have

Margaret Thatcher's famous remark, "There is no such thing as society," is often quoted out of context. That's a shame because, in context, it is even more absurd than it appears when naked and alone. Thatcher offered her observation in 1987, during an interview with Woman's Own: "There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate." Yes, That's right. There is living tapestry, all woven together to make a big picture. Some people even call that picture "the big society", I hear.

Thatcher continues: "... we have these little innocents and the worst crime in life is when those children, who would naturally have the right to look to their parents for help, for comfort, not only just for the food and shelter but for time, for understanding, turn round and not only is that help not forthcoming, but they get either neglect or worse than that, cruelty."

Oh, dear. That bit is not so easy to ridicule, is it? That bit is quite right. It is appalling to have children and then to abuse or neglect them. There is no excuse for it. Not even the excuse that you were abused and neglected as a child yourself - an explanation not being the same as an excuse. We are all agreed on that, broadly?

Good. By agreeing that Thatcher is right in that second assertion, one proves that she is wrong in the first one.

If there were no such thing as society, there would be no such thing as criticising others for their own sovereign and individual behaviour. There would be no social norms, no agreed ethical standards. There would be no loom, no warp, no weft, no tapestry. That is the trouble with rightwing individualism. It is always poking its snout into other people's business to remind them that ... well ... that other people's business is not their business. The baleful Conservative paradox is that you go into public service to dismantle it, into government (ostensibly) to disempower it.

I recalled Thatcher's homilies on parenting as I watched a recording of David Cameron doling out similar blame-the-parents "wisdom" the other evening, at the start of Olly Lambert's excellent documentary, My Child, The Rioter, which interviewed parents of young people who had taken part in the summer riots, sometimes alongside their children, sometimes not. All of those parents were people who had tried to do their best. (No takers for going on telly to announce that you had neglected and abused your offspring and couldn't care less what they got up to, of course.) All the parents rued the day their children had got involved, except for Ryan's parents. All the children, in some way or another, expressed regret, except for Ryan. Ryan had no regrets at all, except that he had failed to take the opportunity to wreak more havoc.

Ryan, significantly, was the only child who claimed to have looted for political reasons. "There is such a thing as committing a crime for the right reasons," said Ryan. He wants to riot again, "because nothing's changed." Ryan isn't stupid. He is at Salford University, doing a course in "Culture, Power and Identity". Nevertheless, a lot of people agree that repeating the same action, and expecting a different outcome, is the very definition of stupidity.

That is exactly why Cameron's repetition of Thatcher's opinions grated so much.

Ryan, again significantly, was also the only young person in the group who had not been arrested, charged and convicted. At the time of writing, he still hadn't. But it would be no surprise now, after his televised confession, if that were to come. So why are his parents allowing him to risk arrest, six months on, by publicly admitting to have taken part in rioting and looting?

It is because they are proud of him. "He's out to make a difference." He is a political protester, in their eyes, and his, not a criminal rioter, and the family is frustrated that this message is being buried, because the establishment does not want to look at "deeper issues, social injustices, all that".

It would be easy to mock Ryan, and his parents. People have done so. Lambert says that Ryan has been very shocked by the vitriol with which their television appearance has been condemned. Ryan is right to be shocked. He is right to be hurt at the criticism that has been directed at his parents. Because, despite their indulgence of their son's romantic ideas about the political sophistication of smashing stuff and nicking stuff, Ryan's parents are in some respects both exceptional and admirable.

Each admits to having been "poorly parented" themselves, Ryan's mother by a violent, alcoholic father, Ryan's father by a violent, alcoholic boyfriend of his mother's. Ryan's father says he was out on the streets, smashing things up, committing crimes, by the time he was five. The pair have brought up their family determined not to repeat this pattern. "I'm just trying to get things right as a parent now. Break the cycle," Ryan's dad asserts.

Ryan's parents, broadly speaking, are doing the right thing, a thing that is notoriously hard to do. They are refusing to pass on a legacy of neglect and abuse to the next generation. They have not looked to "the government" to change things. They have taken the initiative to change things themselves. No doubt they have not always found that to be an easy task.

Like so many of us, Ryan's parents accept their responsibilities (in their own idiosyncratic way), but see wider societal problems that need addressing too (even if I don't agree that encouraging your child to riot is the right way of going about it). They have certainly made their own contribution to society's improvement. In one generation a self-admitted "feral child" has brought up a university student. (Ryan isn't Gandhi, it's true. But he's engaged and discursive and almost perilously secure.)

Perhaps, as parents, Ryan's are making their own mistakes. We all do. The mistake of encouraging your child to believe that opportunistic rioting is a mature and politically useful undertaking is a mistake that is greatly preferable to the "mistake" of beating and brutalising him.

Indeed, Ryan's parents' mistake is no worse a mistake than bringing up your child to believe that if there is a profit in it, then it is the right thing to do (which one could be forgiven for thinking had been the guiding principle of the life of Thatcher's son, Mark). The trouble with blaming the parents is that you risk blaming people who have coped far, far better than you would have, given the same start in life. Worse, like Thatcher, you risk believing that you know what's best for everyone, when you don't even understand that "everyone" needs a collective noun: Society.

The UK's ruinous experiment with austerity only highlights how good the US economic news is for Obama's re-election chances

There were two major pieces of good news Friday on the US economy. First, there was better-than-expected news from the non-manufacturing survey from the ISM, which added to a very positive sister survey of manufacturing earlier in the week. The combined message that can be drawn from the two surveys is that the US economy grew at the fastest rate for ten months in January. The surveys are broadly consistent with gross domestic product rising at an around 3.0% at the start of the year, setting the scene for a robust first quarter.

The ISM survey also brought goods news on employment, with a leap in non-manufacturing headcounts, following a more modest, though still substantial, rise in manufacturing jobs reported earlier in the week. The overall rise in employment was the largest since February 2006, with non-manufacturing jobs also showing the largest increase over that near-six-year period.

The good news on jobs kept on coming with the publication Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the latest data on the US labor market. An improving labor market boosts Obama's re-election chances, given that both his likely Republican opponents have argued that his economic policies have not been working. The data are starting to suggest otherwise.

The rise in non-farm payrolls of 243,000 was larger than the consensus of around 150,000, with all of the increase in the private sector (+257,000), and only a small fall in public-sector employment. There was growth in employment across almost all sectors, with especially large increases in manufacturing (+50k), professional and business services (+70k) and leisure and hospitality and even construction (+21k). Non-farm payrolls are now up by nearly 2 million on the year; private-sector job creation of 2.22m far outweighs public-sector job declines of 275,000.

These employment numbers are derived from a survey of firms. Data are also reported in the release from a survey of households, which also provides a count of the number of jobs. Employment counts from the firm and establishment surveys often diverge since the coverage is different. (The household survey has a more expansive scope because it includes the self-employed, unpaid family workers, agricultural workers and private household workers, who are excluded by the establishment survey.) According to that measure, which can be pretty volatile, employment has grown by an unlikely 850,000 on the month; but on the year, the increase of 2.3m is very close to that derived from the firms' count.

The household survey is also used to calculate the unemployment rate, which fell by more than expected, to 8.3%, the lowest level since February 2009. The number of unemployed also fell, by 340,000 on the month, and is now down by 1.1m on the year. Unemployment rates fell sharply for African Americans (from 15.8% to 13.6%), and somewhat for Hispanics (from 11.0% to 10.5%). Young adults aged 20-24 saw a sharp decline in their unemployment rates, from 14.4% to 13.3% on the month, as did high-school dropouts (13.8% to 13.1%) on the month.

Interestingly, the young, minorities and the least educated tend to do worst in slumps - and benefit, relatively, most in booms - as their unemployment experience tends to be more cyclically volatile than other groups such as the more highly-educated. So, these are all welcome signs and will alleviate some of the pressure on incomes at the low end of the US scale.

Of interest also is how the improvement in the unemployment rate is distributed across states. The latest data we have by states, up to December 2011, shows that 46 states registered unemployment rate decreases from a year earlier, while four states - Hawaii (6.3% to 6.6%); Illinois (9.2% to 9.8%); Mississippi (10.2% to 10.4%); North Carolina (9.8% to 9.9%); plus the District of Columbia (9.6% to 10.4%) - experienced increases. Currently, five states have double-digit unemployment rates - California (11.1%); DC (10.4%); Mississippi (10.4%) and Rhode Island (10.8%). But overall, the improvement is widespread and not limited to a few states, which should also help Obama in November.

An especially interesting comparison is between the United States and the United Kingdom, which implemented a package of austerity measures in 2010. US GDP growth for Q4/2011 was +0.7% compared with -0.2% for the UK. Both the UK and the US have large financial sectors and both were highly exposed to a financial sector shock. In March 2008, unemployment rates in the US and the UK were similar (5.1% and 5.2% respectively). The response in the US was for firms to shake out workers at early stages of the recession; thus, unemployment went up to 10% in October 2009 (see graph). UK firms appear to have hoarded labor, and by October 2009, it had only reached 7.9%; but they have now started to shake the tree.

So the situation has now reversed itself, and the two series are now moving in the opposite directions - US unemployment down and the UK's up. We only have data for the UK up to November, as their surveys are small, so they only report rolling three-month averages, but all indications are that the series will cross in the next couple of months. The UK is in a jobless, or even a job-loss, recovery.

It is likely that Obama will run on a platform for jobs against an obstructionist Congress and a Republican party committed to fiscal austerity and a weakening of the Federal Reserve. As far as I can tell, they have no credible plan at all for jobs. The lab experiment that has been conducted in the UK, which essentially has done what Republicans advocate, which provides great ammunition for the Democrats since austerity has demonstrably failed in the UK - and with more than 90% of the proposed cuts yet to come. Despite both countries having their own exchange rate, and central banks that have cut interest rates to the nominal bound and which have injected large amounts of quantitative easing into the economy, outcomes on the job front are very different.

Unlike Greece and Ireland who are stuck in monetary union, the UK coalition government voluntarily decided to run the experiment to see if there is such a thing as an "expansionary fiscal contraction". Now, they have found out that there isn't.

The UK cut public spending and fired public-sector workers; over the last year for which we have data, public-sector employment fell by 276,000, while private-sector employment grew by 262,000, giving a net decline of 14,000. There has been no private-sector resurgence and a "expansionary" fiscal contraction has turned out, in fact, to be contractionary.

Interestingly, the UK coalition government is hugely supportive of loose monetary policy and more quantitative easing, which, they have made clear, is their plan B. Next week, the Bank of England will do more quantitative easing - probably, another £75bn injection - to make up for the fact that cutting public spending doesn't work in a slump. Aren't Republican nomination rivals Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney (both pledged to implement, in large part if not all, the Ryan plan) proposing cuts in public spending? And are they not opposed to further QE by the Fed, a position that looks like a disaster to me, if the UK is anything to go by?

I suspect they would have a different view, if they were in power. But it is now starting to look as if we won't have the chance to find out.

Should the energy secretary have quit? From the point of view of justice and precedent, it is a pity he did not fight on

Should the energy secretary Chris Huhne have resigned? The answer may seem so obvious as not to be worth asking, especially now he has gone. Yet on the vital principle of justice that a person is innocent until proven guilty, a principle which his party has done much to defend in recent years, the answer is surely that Mr Huhne should not have quit. After all, in addition to the principle, the ministerial code clearly envisages that a minister may continue in office while being involved in legal proceedings in his personal capacity, including as a defendant, although the code also acknowledges that "there may be implications for them in their official position" if they do so. That was the exact situation in which Mr Huhne found himself when he was charged with perverting the course of justice. Yet Mr Huhne also protests his innocence, as he is absolutely entitled to do. Unless and until he is convicted, therefore, he was as fully entitled to try to stay as a minister as he also is to remain as an MP. His resignation leaves a bad taste.

From the point of view of justice and precedent, it is a pity he did not fight on. But from the point of view of politics, the consensus was that he had to go. That decision, though, lay with David Cameron, and to a lesser extent with Nick Clegg, not Mr Huhne, in the same way that the English football captaincy issue lay with the FA, not with John Terry. One of the overarching principles of the ministerial code, section 1.5, is that "ministers only remain in office for so long as they retain the confidence of the prime minister". The reality is that Mr Cameron should have sacked Mr Huhne because of perceived political necessity if that is what he thought best for the government. He should not have allowed the Huhne case to establish the dubious precedent that a minister who is charged with a criminal offence should automatically have to offer his resignation.

Was it, nevertheless, politically necessary for Mr Huhne to go? Again, the reflex answer is at first sight yes. Yet it depends on how you balance the contribution that Mr Huhne brought to the government as a senior minister, an architect of coalition, and as a particular type of Liberal Democrat politician against the damage which he inflicted on his ministerial work and on the government as a weakened minister facing a criminal charge. That is not as open and shut a judgment as it may seem.

The case in favour of Mr Huhne staying rests on two legs. The first is that Mr Huhne was a strong minister who ran his department well, stood bravely for the green agenda, and fought his corner effectively. It is to his credit that the UK is signed up to tough carbon emission cutting targets and that the green investment bank exists at all. He did a good job at the Durban conference and fought a strong rearguard action against Treasury efforts to weaken green goals in the face of recession and austerity.

The second is that Mr Huhne also played an important role in the coalition cabinet as the voice of the more social democratic wing of the Lib Dem team, putting pressure not just on the Conservatives but on Mr Clegg. Whether this was always the best way of advancing his party's interests is a moot point, since the Lib Dems sometimes seem at their strongest in getting their way in the coalition when they are at their weakest in the wider arena. It reassured the grassroots, though, to have their interests forcefully represented, and Mr Huhne did that. And the task of articulating distinctive Lib Dem priorities inside government is likely to grow, not diminish, as the general election nears.

It now falls to Ed Davey to help make that case. He begins with our good wishes. But as Mr Huhne, and David Laws before him, have found, coalition government is an unforgiving business, in which optimism and ability are not enough to hold back the punishing force of political reality in the wake of a serious error of either personal or ministerial judgment.

Chris Huhne's divorce spiralled into political crisis after claims by his former wife that she took speeding points on his behalf

The acrimonious divorce of Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce spiralled into a political as well as personal crisis when they were both charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, prompting Huhne's resignation as energy secretary and a call by Pryce for the case to resolved quickly.

Huhne described the director of public prosecution's decision to charge him as deeply regrettable and vowed to prove his innocence in front of a jury.

Pryce, in a brief statement from her lawyer, did not declare her innocence or guilt, saying she would now spend some time with her family and adding: "Obviously I hope for a quick resolution of the case." It is not known what plea she will submit to the charges.

In a day of personal turmoil and suspense for Huhne and Pryce, Keir Starmer, the DPP, announced he judged that sufficient evidence existed to charge the former couple. It is alleged that Pryce has admitted taking speeding points on behalf of her former husband in March 2003, an allegation she initially made in the Sunday Times during their separation.

It is the first time a serving cabinet minister has been charged with an imprisonable criminal offence in modern times, and represents a devastating blow to one of politics' most resilient figures, as well as potentially weakening the Liberal Democrats at a time when the party is hoping to stage a recovery. Huhne has been described as "the grit in the oyster", self-confident enough to challenge his coalition partners across the policy range.

Lawyers for the former couple will be summoned to appear at Westminster magistrates court on 16 February, with a full trial at the Old Bailey possibly in September, on the assumption that neither side pleads guilty or manages to get the case dismissed. There is a prospect that other Liberal Democrats could be summoned to give evidence.

In a letter accepting Huhne's resignation, Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister, said: "I fully understand your decision to stand down from government in order to clear your name, but I hope you will be able to do so rapidly so that you can return to play a key role in government as soon as possible."

David Cameron, however, made no mention of a possible return in his own letter accepting Huhne's resignation, saying only: "Like the deputy prime minister, I am sorry to see you leave the government under these circumstances and wish you well for the future." He added that Huhne had made the right decision to stand down in the circumstances, and praised his work on climate change.

In a typically robust response, Huhne said: "The Crown Prosecution Service's decision today is deeply regrettable. I'm innocent of these charges and I intend to fight this in the courts and I'm confident that a jury will agree.

"So as to avoid any distraction to either my official duties or my trial defence, I am standing down and resigning as energy and climate change secretary. I will of course continue to serve my constituents in Eastleigh."

Clegg spoke to Huhne on Thursday night and yesterday morning. Clegg's wife, Miriam, spoke to Pryce to express her sadness and offer her support. It was being stressed by Lib Dem aides that the Cleggs were not taking sides, but making a human gesture to two people who as a couple had been the only Liberal Democrats to attend their wedding.

Pryce is said to be disappointed at the decision of the Sunday Times to succumb to a police court demand to hand over emails between herself and a journalist on the paper. The Sunday Times had initially resisted the release of the emails, but changed tack, prompting some of Pryce's friends to claim that it had not protected its sources as newspapers are expected to do. News International sources said it had a written agreement with Pryce that it would protect her but if the court demanded material, the Sunday Times could hand that material to the police.

Cameron was informed at 9.10am of Starmer's decision and spoke to Huhne by phone at 10.40am, little more than half hour an hour after Starmer's announcement.

In a rapid, long-prepared response to the resignation, Cameron appointed the Lib Dem business minister Ed Davey to succeed Huhne. Norman Lamb, Clegg's parliamentary aide, has taken on Davey's former brief.

Lib Dem officials praised Davey's quick policy grasp and ability to get on with officials and said he would be his own man putting forward a strong green case. He said his three chief challenges were climate change, energy security and securing a better deal for energy consumers, a field in which he specialised at the business department.

The prime minister's spokesman said he did not expect to see any substantial change in policy as a result.

But some environmentalists voiced dismay at the loss of Huhne, described by Greenpeace as "a vocal advocate for the green agenda in a government whose green credentials are looking more than a little tarnished".

Other government changes resulting from the resignation saw the Lib Dem MPs Jenny Willott appointed an assistant government whip and Jo Swinson take Lamb's old post as parliamentary private secretary to Clegg. Despite speculation, there was no return for David Laws, who quit as Treasury chief secretary in May 2010 and was later suspended from the Commons for seven days after an expenses scandal.

Ed Miliband should think of some constructive ideas to reduce inequality rather than just putting the boot into bankers again

Scapegoats are easy targets and politicians who spend most of their time battering perceived enemies are usually only doing so because they have run out of ideas to improve the general malaise their leadership had created.

Well, that's what Ed Miliband's populist rantings about banking and corporate bonuses is beginning to feel like. It appears that he has nothing better up his shirtsleeves and the only thing that he can possibly get any consistent headline and public support on is his belief that bankers' bonuses and executive pay are too high.

Following the Royal Bank of Scotland chairman's and chief executive's decisions to forgo their respective bonuses, Miliband has had to move on to other enemies, the chief executive of Barclays, for instance, and of course now bankers in general, who "are further isolated" from society and provoking "public anger".

Anyway, the Labour leader managed some more headlines by launching his rather cynically branded "one-nation banking" concept, suggesting that we need a culture of responsibility in the industry that he doesn't think is there right now. If Miliband had been serious and wanted to make some constructive comments about policy for the industry, he wouldn't have named his vision after the Tory party's old "One Nation Conservatism" slogan.

The Labour party leader is intent on painting the industry and the people associated with it as the enemy of society and the only solution he offers in this entire exercise is to require employee members to sit on company remuneration committees. If he is not careful, his accusations might end in tears or at least show that he hasn't scored any more political points among voters than he had before. Whatever happens, the accusations have to stop and some more constructive policy ideas need to be generated by the Labour party.

Most people, including many corporate and banking boardroom members, cannot disagree that there is a growing gap between the rich and poor in the world, and even in the developed economies that gap is getting significant. Most also cannot disagree that it is obscene that some employees of large companies, particularly investment banks, are paid vastly inflated compensation that appears out of kilter with both the profits of the companies and also the real economic benefit these banks claim to provide. Though, it should also be pointed out that many people in professional service firms - solicitors, barristers, accountants, head-hunters, management consultants, doctors, dentists - can also earn very high salaries.

Many bank board members and executive staff cannot forget that they lost their sense of reality and allowed the companies that appointed and employed them to be so over-exposed that their respective capital bases collapsed and caused the greatest economic slowdown since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

And many of the newer breed of bank board members have noticed that few bankers have shown any remorse for what happened.

Bank board members and politicians, too, also have to admit that the banking industry is part of a massive global construction and Britain cannot go it alone. In the absence of any internationally agreed approach to resolving the issue of big bonuses, they will be part of the financial services world's compensation schemes. If American, Chinese, or Brazilian companies compensate through high bonuses then banks and corporate entities in Britain and Europe will have to do the same thing.

What British policymakers can do is try to manipulate the local market through special taxes, which could in turn be used to try to stop the gaps between the rich and poor from expanding and reallocate money to those who really need it. If we want to punish the unrepentant banking industry for causing the economic downturn then why not impose a transaction tax, or continue the special bonus taxes that have been paid by the banks for the past few years.

The policymakers could try something more radical and tax bonus payments differently, especially those that are above a certain proportion of the base salary. And, yes, policymakers can put employees on compensation committees if they want to - but it should be pointed out that even German banks, where employees sit on compensation committees, pay large bonuses to investment bankers.

Lib Dem leader voices approval of new energy secretary after strong record at Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

Ed Davey confides on his website that it was his strong views on the environment that first pushed him towards being politically active, so it seems fitting that he now joins the cabinet as the new secretary of state for energy and climate change.

His promotion will be seen as a reward for what is widely viewed as doing a good job at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills where he had responsibility for Royal Mail privatisation, employment relations, consumer policy and competition rules. Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, described Davey as "the right man" to take up from where Chris Huhne had left off.

Davey, who originally foresaw his career prospects being in journalism or as an agricultural economist, has come a long way since he became MP for Kingston and Surbiton in 1997 after three recounts.

He has held a series of frontbench roles under different Lib Dem leaders. He was the chair of campaigns and communications after Clegg was elected party leader and was shadow foreign affairs spokesman before the 2010 general election.

The 46-year-old married father of one grew up in Nottingham and lived with his maternal grandparents after both his parents died - his solicitor father when he was four and his mother, a teacher, when he was 15.

He went to Oxford University, where he gained a first-class degree in philosophy, politics and economics, graduating in 1988 and joining the Lib Dems as an adviser six months later. He would leave four years later to to work as a management consultant until he became an MP.

Before becoming an MP Davey received awards from the Royal Humane Society and the chief constable of the British Transport police in 1994 for rescuing a woman from the path of an oncoming train at Clapham Junction. He speaks French, Spanish and German, and supports Notts County FC.

Mr Goodwin, Mistletoe & Wine and the compelling case for temporary knighthoods

?I very much like the idea of withdrawing knighthoods. Why not make them all temporary? Few of us expect to have the same job all our lives, or drive the same car, or live in the same house. And just as members of the public can write in to nominate people who deserve honours, we should be able to suggest the names of those who ought to lose their gongs. I'm sure you have a few ideas yourself. If not, why don't you take a train to Manchester at a busy time, and ponder "Sir" Richard Branson?

(By the way, I was surfing the net, looking for videos for the Guardian's excellent online feature, Old Music, when I found myself at Amtrak, the American railway. Riding on the City of New Orleans, as in the famous song, all the way from Chicago would cost $115 for the 927-mile trip - £73, or 8p a mile. Riding on the Branson Pendolino to Manchester from Euston at peak time, standard class, costs £126, or 64p a mile.)

Then we could reverse all the usual cliches. The Sir Fred Goodwin figure would arrive at Buckingham Palace with his family smartly dressed. He'd smilingly show off the medal, or whatever it is. Then he would go inside, kneel in front of the Queen, who would lift her sword from his shoulders, and announce, "Arise, Mr Goodwin!"

And how about stripping Sir Cliff Richard too, as punishment for Mistletoe & Wine?

?I went to the huge annual Australian wine-tasting the other day. It's been a difficult year or so for the happy country - drought and the strength of their dollar have pushed prices up fast, and allowed the French to reclaim some of their market share here.

One way the Aussies have fought back is with bizarre names, no doubt in the hopes of catching attention on the shelves. Here are a few of their wines: Skuttlebutt, The Opportunist, The Pugilist, Bootstrap, Giles, Riposte, Ten Miles By Tractor, Skillogalee, Running With Bulls, The Last Straw, The Cover Drive, and The Trial of John Montford, which sounds more like a novel than a bottle.

Mind you the most off-putting wine name I know is Fat Bastard, and that's made in France.

?On my desk lands a slim volume, called Among Booksellers, by David Batterham, who I have never met, and of whom I hadn't even heard. He has collected all the letters he sent from his travels, mainly round Europe and America, to his friend, the artist Howard Hodgkin.

It is a strange book, but beguiling - you meet the weird people who inhabit the world of antique bookselling (my friend, the late Derek Brown, loved old books, and fantasised about a rare book shop with a sign, "All incunabula in this bin, £5,000"). And there are old crones serving terrible meals in French hotels, crab-like people who try to cheat him but halve their prices when he insists, the discovery of amazing volumes he can sell in London for 10 times what he paid. I expected to toss it aside, but couldn't put it down.

The book is, of course, self-published. Something such books usually have in common is that there is one really interesting section. They were in Bomber Command, or had a spell playing the piano in a Turkish brothel, or worked with Margaret Thatcher. One of these days, if I have time, I shall read a hundred of these books and put the good bits into a single volume. (The authors will cheerfully sign over the rights, since they will think it will sell some of the 4,927 books they have left over from the 5,000 they had printed. But of course no one will buy their book, since they'll know they've already got the only interesting part.)

The fascinating bit in Mr Batterham's book is about the Duke of Edinburgh, who apparently is a bibliophile. He has a secretary who orders books for him. "The duke keeps a cupboard of goodies, such as the books he buys from me, so that people who want to give him a present can choose something he is known to like! Then they buy it from him, and give it back."

What a wonderful idea! You get both the present, and the money.

"Happy birthday, Simon! What would you like?"

"Let's see what we have in the cupboard. Ah yes, how about this signed first edition of Pride and Prejudice? Or a bottle of Skuttlebutt."

?Friends held their Burns Night supper last weekend, just three days late. Lots of haggis, one of those really delicious peasant dishes. I was asked to make the speech to the Immortal Memory - not easy since Burns was not always a good boy. He spent some time in Jamaica, working as a bookkeeper on a slave plantation, no doubt using his spare time to write some of those stirring poems about freedom and the rights of man.

So I read out a little-known poem including this typical verse:

"An' will ye lie by crambo clink?

An' bitter frae the hoggie?

A' wha can live by sowps o'drink,

An' mirkest blast a scroggie!"

It was, of course, entirely made up, though from words which do occur in Burns's real verse. What delighted me is that it also fooled the several Scots who were there.

?Labels: Pam and Dennis Saunders have just bought an electric kettle: "Do not use in the bathroom, near water, or outdoors." They ask, how can they possibly use it without going near water?

Jamie Woolley bought six jumbo toilet rolls from Sainsbury's, marked "toilet tissue for everyday use". He asks, "Do they also sell satin-finish toilet paper for birthdays and bank holidays?"

Christopher Hallgarth suggests a new strand: song titles rewritten for these hard times, such as Gladys Knight's Midnight Replacement Bus To Georgia. Others welcome, if they come to mind.

o Energy secretary says CPS decision 'deeply regrettable
o Huhne and ex-wife due in court on 16 February
o Nick Clegg praises Lib Dem minister's 'trailblazing' work
o Ed Davey to take over cabinet post
o Read a summary of events so far

4.45pm: Ed Davey has made an upbeat statement on the steps of his department.

It's a sad day for many people in the department and the Liberal Democrats, because Chris Huhne had a vision for a green economy, and he's done fabulous work as the secretary of state.

I've now got to take up the challenges of climate change ... of energy security... and I'm particularly conscious of the impact on consumers' households across the country of high energy bills.

But I'm determined to work to follow on Chris's priorities, the Liberal Democrats' priorities, the coalition government's priorities, and make them my priorities.

I want us to have a green economy, where there are lots of green jobs, to help grow our economy.

3.29pm: Ed Davey will now face the spotlight as the man tasked with the government's climate change policies. Here's a profile piece on him from 2007 in which he talks extensively about his experience of being an orphan.

Edward Davey was four when his father died of Hodgkin's disease. Eleven years later, his mother too died of cancer, leaving behind 15-year-old Edward and his two brothers. Davey is now the Libera Democrat MP for Kingston and Surbiton and campaigns for improved services for bereaved children.

"The death of my parents was tragic, but in a way I was lucky: after my mother was diagnosed with bone cancer, my brothers and I looked after her and we got to talk for a long time. I didn't need counselling because my mother had been able to prepare me for a life without her.

Child bereavement services in this country are very good where they exist, but there are not that many of them. It's part of a very British problem: we don't always put children first. There is, for example, no obligatory training for teachers on how to deal with children who are bereaved.

3.15pm: Hélène Mulholland weighs up what Huhne's resignation means for the make-up of the cabinet.

David Cameron's mini reshuffle following the resignation of Chris Huhne as energy secretary represents a missed opportunity to improve the gender profile at cabinet level.

Though the shakeup sees an additional woman entering government in the shape of Jenny Willott as assistant government whip, the decision to promote Ed Davey to the vacancy left by Huhne, and in turn hand over Davey's previous job in the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills to Norman Lamb, means the gender gap remains a sore point at senior ministerial level, with just five women - all Conservative - in the 23-strong cabinet.

When the Conservative defence secretary Liam Fox resigned last October, and amid polling suggesting the Tories had a problem with women voters, Cameron used the mini-reshuffle to promote Justine Greening to the role of transport secretary to raise the tally of women cabinet ministers to five.

This time, the fact that the third cabinet minister to resign since the coalition government was formed was a Liberal Democrat meant Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, had the say in who would fill the seat - albeit a decision that Cameron would sign off.

2.03pm: Huhne's mother was the voice of the speaking clock. His real surname is Paul-Huhne. He worked at the ratings agency Fitch. He may have in fact won the Lib Dem leadership election over Nick Clegg, but his votes were delayed in the post. He claimed a Corby trouser press in his MPs' expenses.

These and other gems in this illuminating profile of Huhne by Michael White.

1.33pm: Political editor Patrick Wintour has more details of how Huhne's departure was handled by the coalition:

David Cameron was informed of the DPP decision at 9.10 on the way to the airport at Northolt before a regional tour in the south-west.

He spoke to Huhne at around 10.40 for about five minutes where it was agreed that Huhne would resign from the cabinet to fight his case. It was stressed that the coalition agreement gives powers for the cabinet and ministerial posts to be distributed approximate to the size of the the two parliamentary parties.

Number 10 did not elaborate on why the prime minister had not in his letter suggested that Huhne could be brought back into cabinet if he was found innocent.

It was stressed that the deputy prime minister has responsibility for nominating his appointments, so Nick Clegg might have the prerogative to decide whether Huhne should return.

The prime minister's spokesman said: "It was Chris Huhne's decision to resign and and he accepted his judgment. They had a good working relationship and he was a valued colleague".

The spokesman stressed that Cameron had not considered undertaking a wider reshuffle, and added that he did not expect Ed Davey, the new energy secretary, to impose a significant change of direction in policy after he has read himself in.

12.48pm: Confirmed: Ed Davey will become energy and climate change secretary, with Norman Lamb, Nick Clegg's parliamentary aide, taking over from him as business minister.

Jenny Willott, MP for Cardiff Central, will become an assistant government whip. All three, it should be stressed, are Lib Dem MPs.

The net loss for the party in cabinet is nil, although clearly Huhne's experience will be missed.

In a brief statement, Nick Clegg has said if Huhne cleared his name he would like to see him back in government in a key position.

12.29pm: Some reaction coming through from green groups to the Huhne resignation, mostly regretful.

John Sauven, Greenpeace's director, said the former minister would be "a tough act to follow".

His achievements in getting the "green bank" and stricter legally binding carbon targets are a physical legacy of what he was able to accomplish.

He has been a vocal advocate for the green agenda in a government whose green credentials are looking more than a little tarnished."

Friends of the Earth's executive director, Andy Atkins, struck a similar tone:

Chris Huhne has championed the environment in an administration that's shown little enthusiasm for keeping David Cameron's pledge to be the greenest government ever.

He should be commended for insisting on tougher climate targets and fighting for a green investment bank - but his department's incompetent handling of solar cuts has put 29,000 jobs at risk.

The new energy secretary must stand firm against George Osborne's anti-green agenda and make the case that protecting our environment ns a way to boost not hinder our economic recovery.

12.15pm: Huhne has written a rather more expansive letter to Nick Clegg, his party leader, in which he says: "It has been a privilege to serve with you in the first group of Liberal ministers in a British government since 1945".

"The Liberal Democrats under your leadership are playing an essential role in ensuring the coalition government reflects liberal values at home and abroad."

Clegg's reply is here. He writes: "I fully understand your decision to stand down from government in order to clear your name but I hope you will be able to do so rapidly so that you can return to play a key role in government as soon as possible."

12.09pm: Cameron's letter of reply to Huhne says he has "made the right decision under the circumstances".

He adds: "Like the deputy prime minister, I am sorry to see you leave the government under these circumstances and wish you well for the future."
The full text is here.

11.58am: A quick summary of events so far:

o Chris Huhne has resigned as energy and climate change secretary, after the director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer announced he would be charged with perverting the course of justice.

o Vicky Pryce, Huhne's estranged wife, has also been charged with the same offence. The charges relate to an incident in 2003 when, it is alleged, Huhne persuaded his wife to accept a speeding penalty on his behalf.

o In a statement, Huhne continued vigorously to deny the charge, but said that "to avoid any distraction to my official duties or my trial defence]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2012/feb/03/chris-huhne-speeding-penalty-energy-secretary-live-updates http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/feb/03/who-caused-financial-crisis-great-recession

Fred Goodwin lost his knighthood but the global financial crisis was not all his fault - and the list of those who erred is long

In 2000 it was the $164bn (£103bn) AOL takeover of Time Warner in America. In 2007 it was the then Sir Fred Goodwin's £49bn acquisition of ABN Amro that signalled that the markets had peaked and were about to crumble.

Every financial crisis has its totemic moment; a decision that even at the time seems to defy logic and in retrospect is seen as an act of gross stupidity.

Yet it takes more than one individual banker, no matter how powerful, to make a crisis and when the historians come to chronicle the Great Recession of 2008-09 the list of guilty men and women will include more than one former knight of the realm.

Here, then, is a (far from exhaustive) list of those who might be considered most culpable - who caused, exacerbated or failed to prevent the worst downturn in the global economy since the 1930s.

Laughably given an honorary knighthood in 2002 for his "contribution to global economic stability", Greenspan's responsibility for the crash cannot be underestimated.

A fanatical believer in the self-righting qualities of financial markets, was the bubble king who allowed the dotcom boom of the late 90s to get out of hand and then, when plummeting share prices pushed the economy into recession, started the whole process off again, this time in the housing market.

As chairman of the Federal Reserve, he cut interest rates and left them at rock-bottom levels for two years. Cheap borrowing costs encouraged Americans to load up on debt to buy homes, even when they had no savings, no income and no job prospects.

These so-called sub-prime borrowers were the cannon fodder for the biggest boom-bust in US history. The housing collapse brought the global economy to its knees.

Britain was mini-me to the US in the days of grand illusion before the crash, having its debt-fuelled party where growth was concentrated in the speculative sectors of housing and finance.

King became Bank of England governor in 2003, and while he has subsequently been one of the most pro-active central bankers with a refreshingly robust approach to the banks, the case against him is that he failed to "lean against the wind" during the economic upswing, leaving interest rates too low, and then waited too long when the economy was nosediving into its most severe postwar recession before cutting bank rate.

Under the government's tripartite system of regulation, the Old Lady was supposed to ensure developments in the City did not pose a systemic risk to the economy. It failed in that task.

We have abolished Tory boom and bust, Brown said repeatedly in his 10 years as chancellor of the exchequer. He hadn't.

His last big speech before becoming prime minister, made at the Mansion House in June 2007 just as the financial crisis was about to break, praised the bankers for their remarkable achievements and predicted "the beginning of a new golden age for the City of London." It wasn't.

Brown presided over the loss of a million manufacturing jobs and an ever-widening trade deficit while cosying up to the City. He used to quip that there were two types of chancellors: those who failed and those who got out in time. He got that one right.

One Democratic president, Franklin Roosevelt, put a cage round Wall Street after its excesses in the 20s led to the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression. Another Democrat, Bill Clinton, gave Wall Street the cage keys.

After a fierce lobbying campaign, Clinton agreed to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act, which ensured a complete separation between investment and retail banks. The move heralded the coming of superbanks, huge behemoths that took in retail deposits and used them to take highly-leveraged punts in the markets.

To make matters worse, Clinton beefed up Jimmy Carter's 1977 Community Reinvestment Act to force lenders to take a more relaxed approach to disadvantaged borrowers. Liberalised banks plus millions of new sub-prime customers equalled one big problem.

The economics profession failed to cover itself in glory in the runup to 2007. Not only did economists fail to spot that financial institutions were loading themselves up with vast quantities of toxic sub-prime debt, most of them thought it was theoretically impossible for a crisis to happen.

In large part, responsibility for that lies with Fama, a Chicago University economics professor who in the 70s came up with the Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH), which stated that financial markets price assets at their true worth based on all the publicly available information, encouraging the belief that the best thing to do was to pile in when prices were rising. Bubble think, in other words.

Just as many trends in modern popular music can be traced back to the Beatles, so politics was shaped by the activities of Reagan and Thatcher, the Lennon and McCartney of deregulation, market forces and trickle-down economics.

The changes pushed through in the US and the UK in the 80s removed constraints on bankers, made finance more important at the expense of manufacturing and reduced union power, making it harder for employees to secure as big a share of the national economic cake as they had in previous decades.

The flipside of rising corporate profits and higher rewards for the top 1% of earners was stagnating wages for ordinary Americans and Britons, and a higher propensity to get into debt.

The US treasury secretary in 2008, Paulson was the Sir Anthony Eden of the financial crisis. He had all the necessary credentials a Republican president would consider necessary for the job - chief executive of Goldman Sachs with an MBA from Harvard. He was considered the brightest and best of his generation. Like Eden over Suez, he was faced with a monumental challenge. And he blew it.

Paulson's big mistake was to put Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae into conservatorship, wiping out the stakes of those who had invested $20bn in the two government-backed mortgage lenders over the previous 12 months.

Unsurprisingly, there was no great rush among private investors to rescue Lehman Brothers when it ran into trouble the following week, and when the US treasury allowed the investment bank to go bust every financial institution in the world was seen as at risk.

Fred the Shred destroyed a bank; Paulson triggered the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression.

No rogues' gallery of the crisis would be complete without a representative of the credit rating agencies. These were the bodies that took fees from the banks while giving the top AAA rating to collateralised debt obligations, the hugely complex financial instruments that bundled together the toxic sub-prime mortgages with the sound home loans.

Corbet was CEO of Standard & Poor's, the biggest of the rating agencies, and she left her post in a "long-planned" move in August 2007 just as the financial markets were shutting down.

The justification for the top-notch ratings was that the poor-quality loans would be lost in the mix, but when the crisis broke the reality was more like a food scare, in which supermarkets know there are a few dodgy ready-made meals on their shelves but must bin the lot as they are not sure which ones they are.

"Some people look at sub-prime lending and see evil," said this senator in a debate on Capitol Hill in 2001. "I look at sub-prime lending and I see the American dream in action."

Gramm, who thinks Wall Street a "holy place", was the main cheerleader in Congress for financial deregulation, putting pressure on the Clinton administration to ease restrictions (not that it needed much persuading).

The fact that he had been the biggest recipient of campaign fund donations from commercial banks and in the top five for donations from Wall Street from 1989 to 2002 was, of course, entirely coincidental.

Was it Fred Goodwin at RBS or Adam Applegarth at Northern Rock - the first UK high street bank to suffer a full-scale run on its branches since the 1860s? Was it Dick Fuld, the man in charge at Lehman Brothers when it went belly-up? Jimmy Cayne, who spent the first month of the crisis playing bridge rather than running Bear Stearns?

Or Stan O'Neal, whose attempts to rid Merrill Lynch of its fuddy-duddy image saddled the bank with $8bn of bad debts?

How about Andy Hornby, the whizzkid running HBOS? Or perhaps the man chosen by Gordon Brown to be HBOS's white knight - Sir Victor Blank, chairman of Lloyds?

Choose any one from a very long list.

The MP for North Norfolk is taking over as minister for employment relations, consumer and postal affairs

Norman Lamb's previous life as an employment lawyer will stand him in good stead as he tackles his in-tray in his new role as minister for employment relations, consumer and postal affairs.

The MP for North Norfolk, who takes over the reins from his Lib Dem colleague Ed Davey, who has been promoted to energy secretary, will be responsible for overseeing the review of employment law and implementing the privatisation of the Royal Mail.

His new boss, Vince Cable, the business secretary, said it was a fitting appointment in light of the fact it was Lamb who pioneered the Lib Dems' policy to privatise Royal Mail and establish employee share ownership in the business while serving as the party's trade and industry spokesman.

Well liked across the party, the 54-year-old married father of two held a trinity of titles as chief parliamentary and political adviser and parliamentary private secretary to the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, and assistant government whip, after failing to secure a ministerial portfolio when the coalition government was formed.

Lamb, who worked for a year as a researcher for the Labour MP Greville Janner in the early 1980s, was elected to parliament in 2001 at his third attempt, wresting the seat from the Conservatives. He went on to hold a succession of policy briefs for the Lib Dems in opposition: deputy spokesman for international development (2001-02), Treasury spokesman (2002-03), shadow trade and industry secretary (2005-06) and shadow health secretary (December 2006 until the general election). He served as parliamentary private secretary to the then party leader Charles Kennedy (2003-05), and did a stint as chief of staff for Kennedy's successor, Sir Menzies Campbell (March to December 2006). It was Davey who replaced him in this role when Lamb became shadow health secretary.

After the election the new Conservative health secretary, Andrew Lansley, blocked a role for Lamb in his department because of a falling out during the campaign over the financing of long-term care for the elderly.

Eleven months later, when the backlash against Lansley's planned reforms prompted a two-month listening exercise, Lamb drew on his expertise of health policy to demand four key changes to the health and social care bill, making clear he was prepared to resign as a whip if these were not met.

A keen Norwich City supporter, Lamb lists his other interests as travel and art. He is the son of the late Professor Hubert Lamb, who was the first director of the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia.

Vicky Pryce, who also faces charge over speeding case, is said to regret actions in wake of breakup from now former minister

The former wife of Chris Huhne has been consulting lawyers and preparing for a break with her children after learning that she and Huhne face criminal charges that could lead to jail sentences.

Vicky Pryce, an economist, is to be charged with perverting the course of justice after allegations that she took speeding points on Huhne's behalf.

The possibility of jail has, according to sources close to Pryce, led her to regret some of her actions in the wake of the breakup of her 27-year marriage to the former energy secretary.

In particular, she is said to have wished that she had never spoken to the Sunday Times while still emotionally raw - an interview which led to the publication of allegations that she had taken Huhne's speeding points. She is also said to be dismayed at her treatment at the newspaper's hands.

Pryce, 59, was the first to release the news that they faced charges when she told the BBC at 9.30am on Friday. Half an hour later, she released a statement through a solicitor which read: "As the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] has decided to prosecute, it would not be appropriate to comment further at this stage. "Obviously I hope for a quick resolution of the case. In the meantime, I will be taking a little time off over the next few days to be with my family."

Unlike Huhne, she has not yet stated whether she will contest the charge. The decision to prosecute follows an eight-month investigation by Essex police. The case could take a year to come to trial.

Born Vasiliki Courmouzis in Greece, Pryce is the daughter of a Greek businessman and the middle child of three. She moved to Britain at 17 and five year later married a student union president from the London School of Economics whose surname she has retained.

By the time she married Huhne in 1984, she had built a high-flying career at KPMG and later Exxon Europe.

Huhne was an economic journalist, working for the Guardian and the Independent, having attempted to become an MP. Pryce already had two children from her previous marriage.

They were married in a Greek Orthodox ceremony in west London. At their wedding, "there were lots of jokes about how we'd be discussing GDP figures in bed," Huhne later recalled.

She then took a senior job at the Royal Bank of Scotland, before becoming the first woman chief economist at the Department of Trade and Industry and the first female Master of the Worshipful Company of Management Consultants.

She shouldered the majority of the burden of bringing up their three children Nico, Peter and Lydia while Huhne established a property portfolio and stood for office, according to reports.

In 2005, Huhne achieved his ambition with his election as Liberal Democrat MP for Eastleigh and five years later became a cabinet minister. Then, in 2010, he became cabinet minister. She stood down from her prestigious government post at the time that he entered government.

Weeks after praising her husband for achieving office, Pryce has said she was "absolutely shocked" when it emerged that Huhne had been having an affair with his former 44-year-old press aide, Carina Trimingham.

She later told the BBC that he announced their marriage was over during the half-time break of a televised World Cup match in June 2010. He then immediately went to his study to write a statement and sent it out to the press, she said.

When the news of the affair broke, she thought about running away to Greece, she told the Guardian in October. "But my friends said I couldn't hide, that it would be the worst thing to do ... It was incredible. You know, the loyalty of your friends and your colleagues, and of course your kids, that's what you live for."

She also said that she wanted to stand as a Lib Dem MP. Those political ambitions may well have been shattered following the CPS's announcement on Friday.

Huhne has denied the allegations throughout.

I spent Thursday tramping round a piece of London where there is great and justified concern about violent youths, postcode rivalries and gangs. I spoke to a range of people, including several good citizens who are trying to sort the problems out. They had both very positive and very negative things to say about the police, depending on what sort of officer and what sort of police work they were talking about.

It was made plain by some that the intensive use of stop-and-search, especially when conducted by officers who weren't local or known, did not improve matters at all, especially when officers were arrogant or rude.

I'll be writing about the situation in the part of town in question in weeks to come. In connection with that project I've been doing looking into the Met's use stop-and-search in recent times. Here's an excerpt from a BBC News report from 1999:

The number of police stop and searches in London has halved since the Lawrence inquiry, according to an independent report...

The power of stop and search was introduced for all police in 1984. Since then, it has accounted for about 10% of arrests. But the high incidence of stop and searches among the black population has led to charges of police racism, and even police chiefs have admitted it is a "blunt instrument".

[An] interim report, compiled for the Home Office pending a full report in October, was based on seven pilot areas in London in which the police said newer, more systematic methods were used. The report shows the methods improved arrest rates, which rose to about 18%.

The Metropolitan Police welcomed the figures, saying they showed stop and search could target the right people. Assistant Commissioner Denis O'Connor said the practice remains an "essential tool for community safety", but he said the police were trying to use it in a "more sophisticated" way.

Now here's the Guardian's Vikram Dodd, reporting last month on the Met's moves towards using stop-and-search in what commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe had previously called a "smarter" way:

As part of the reforms, senior officers will reduce by 50% the number of times they authorise an area to be the target of section 60 stops that do not require reasonable suspicion. They said more intelligence would be needed before this power could be deployed in the future.

The Met also said that the force's commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, wanted the arrest rate from all stop and searches carried out to increase from 6% (at this rate the lowest for an urban force) to 20%.

The question that comes to mind is why a fall to an arrest rate of 6% has been allowed to occur when 13 years ago one of 18% was cited as evidence that the tactic was being used in a "more sophisticated" way against the right people. "Smarter" now means getting the recent arrest rate up to 20%. How did it become OK for so many of the wrong people to be subjected to it?

The contexts for the two changes in the tactic's use are different: the reduction of stop-and-search in 1999 followed the Macpherson report while the adjustments being made now come amid concerns about legal challenges to the use of powers under section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. So has the commissioner made the latest change only reluctantly, or has he truly accepted that the Met's use of stop-and-search of late has not been smart at all? It would be helpful to be absolutely sure.

He must get to grips with energy suppliers and green campaigners - but the toughest challenge for the new climate and energy secretary is likely to come from cabinet colleagues

Ed Davey, the new secretary of state for energy and climate change, faces a daunting in-tray of policies that will create battles with industry, electricity consumers, anxious renewable energy investors and green campaigners - but the toughest challenge of all is likely to come from his cabinet colleagues.

Chris Huhne was one of the few heavyweight champions of the green agenda within the coalition government. His departure sparked immediate fears that without him, the voices within cabinet - and among the Tory rank-and-file - that have been calling ever more loudly for a watering down of environmental policies will prevail. Those calls have been led by George Osborne, the chancellor, who vowed the UK would do no more than the minimum to meet environmental goals, and could revise current targets downwards.

Andrew Simms, fellow at the New Economics Foundation, urged: "Davey must face down the economic and environmental self-defeating destructiveness of the Treasury, which is preventing the UK from becoming a world leader [in green industries]."

Matthew Spencer, director of the Green Alliance, said it was time for David Cameron and Nick Clegg to speak up: "This creates a moment for the prime minister and deputy prime minister to assert their ownership of the green economy, and for the new secretary of state to build a broader coalition for action across government. It's important that the top tier of government speak publicly to correct the misunderstanding that the leadership are giving up on this agenda."

Speaking in Westminster today, Davey said: "I've now got to take up the challenges, the challenge of climate change, of energy security and I'm particularly conscious of the impact on consumer households across the country of high energy bills."

He added: "I want us to have a green economy where there's lots of green jobs to help grow our economy."

Here are the key policies in Davey's in-tray:

The government's ability to influence bills, which have soared on the back of international fossil fuel prices, relies mainly on attempts to bully and shame the big six suppliers. Its answer has been to bring forward a new flagship policy, the "green deal", for cutting consumer charges by encouraging insulation and other low-carbon home improvements. The bad news is the green deal is in trouble, as several analyses show its appeal is likely to be limited when it launches this autumn.

Subsidies for renewable energy are under fierce attack, from free-market thinktanks and sections of the rightwing media. The government was humiliated when it tried to cut feed-in tariffs for small-scale renewables, in a hasty move that judges ruled unlawful, and that stirred up turmoil and job losses among solar companies. But the promise of hundreds of thousands of green jobs, billions of pounds in investment, and meeting our EU obligations on renewable generation all hang on a strong showing of government support for the sector.

For Liberal Democrats, nuclear power is always a tricky issue. Huhne tried to finesse his party's long-standing opposition to new reactors with Tory enthusiasm for them by pledging that they would receive no public subsidy. Critics pointed out that policies to aid "low-carbon" generation would also provide financial support to nuclear. As nuclear projects inch forward, Davey will have to walk a similar tightrope.

Under pressure on his green credentials, Cameron agreed last summer to carbon-cutting targets for the UK that will be some of the most stringent in the world when they take effect in the 2020s. Osborne wants to review them within two years. This will be a key test for Davey - if he is still around by then.

The next two years will see some of the toughest negotiations over climate change within the European Union and globally in the long-running United Nations talks. In Brussels, member states must thrash out the next set of renewable energy and carbon targets by the end of 2014. Under the UN, countries have committed to forge a new global climate change treaty by the end of 2015. Both these punishing forums require a combination of high statesmanship and low guile. Huhne was widely praised for his skilful performances - Davey will have a tough act to follow.

In the studio to discuss the implications: political columnist Michael White and environment reporter Fiona Harvey.

David Cameron resisted the temptation for a wider reshuffle, but Edward Davey of the Liberal Democrats replaces Huhne at the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

You can listen to the Thursday's full edition of Politics Weekly on bankers, Europe and the French presidential election here.

As Ed Davey replaces Chris Huhne as energy secretary, there are still just five women - all Conservative - in the cabinet

David Cameron's mini-reshuffle following the resignation of Chris Huhne as energy secretary represents a missed opportunity to improve the gender profile at cabinet level.

Though the shakeup sees an additional woman entering the government in the shape of Jenny Willott as assistant government whip, the decision to promote Ed Davey to the vacancy left by Huhne, and in turn hand over Davey's previous job in the department of Business, Innovation and Skills to Norman Lamb, means the gender gap remains a sore at senior ministerial level, with just five women - all Conservative - in the 23-strong cabinet.

When the Conservative defence secretary Liam Fox resigned last October, amid polling suggesting the Tories had a problem with female voters, Cameron used the mini-reshuffle to promote Justine Greening to the role of transport secretary, raising the tally of female cabinet ministers to five.

This time, the fact that the third cabinet minister to resign since the coalition government was formed was a Liberal Democrat meant Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, had the say in who would fill the seat - albeit a decision that Cameron would have signed off.

To date, the five Lib Dem cabinet seats have all been taken by men, despite their occupants being reshuffled twice following the resignations of David Laws and now Huhne.

Fifty of the 57 Lib Dem MPs are male, giving Clegg the lowest proportion (12%) of women of the main three parties, compared with the Conservatives (16%), and Labour (32%).

Until Friday, just two Lib Dem ministers were women: Sarah Teather, the schools minister, and Lynne Featherstone, the Home Office minister for equalities. This has risen with the appointment of Willott, 14 months after she resigned as parliamentary private secretary to Huhne to vote against the rise in tuition fees.

Jo Swinson, the MP for East Dunbartonshire, is also on the rise after assuming the parliamentary private secretary (PPS) post previously held by Lamb alongside his other responsibilities. As bag-carrier positions go, being PPS to the Lib Dem deputy prime minister is the most sought-after. But party activists may nonetheless wonder how the absence of a female Lib Dem at the top level sits with the leadership programme recently launched by Clegg to encourage women and black and minority ethnic candidates to get ahead in politics. Role models at the top, after all, offer aspiration to others. For the coalition government overall, critics will argue it's a case of "plus ça change" in terms of the scarcity of women at the top.

Anna Bird, acting chief executive of the Fawcett Society, said: "Men outnumber women in parliament four to one, and the 2010 election saw a paltry 2.5% increase in the number of women MPs.

"Today's changes see more women pushed up the ladder, but no new women join the cabinet. Men continue to outnumber women 18 to five, meaning British politics' top table is almost 80% male.

"Women have a right to an equal say in politics, but there are more millionaires than women in the cabinet. Decisions of national importance - about everything from whether to go to war to what to teach in our schools - are being made without women round the table. The different experiences and perspectives of one half of the country are not being heard.

"David Cameron must honour his pledge to make a third of his ministers women by 2015, and we believe this must involve more women getting a seat at the top table."

Huhne made himself vulnerable to his enemies the minute he left his wife for his mistress. It's a curiously undignified way to go

For a man so shrewdly political to his fingertips, the great irony of Chris Huhne's downfall is that it should have so little to do with politics.

No grand gesture of principle, no ideological difference, not even a foiled plot: just a messy divorce, and its toxic fallout slowly smothering the career of the man who came within a whisker of leading the Liberal Democrats. It's a curiously undignified way to go.

The lazy parallel is with Robin Cook, that other proud man humbled by a vengeful ex-wife, but it's misleading. Margaret Cook certainly embarrassed her former husband with toe-curling revelations about his brusque ending of their marriage (just as Huhne reportedly told his wife it was over halfway through a football match) but she didn't dislodge him. Cook's ministerial career ended on terms of his choosing, with a resignation over Iraq that ultimately enhanced his reputation: even if Huhne is now found innocent, it is hard to see him emerging stronger from this unedifying saga.

The suggestion of a possible return one day, made in Nick Clegg's farewell letter to his erstwhile rival, feels more like a pragmatic recognition of the trouble he might make from the backbenches were he cleared than a longing to have him back. Comebacks are rare even for outstanding talents, as the continued exile of David Laws makes clear: for every Mandelson or Blunkett, there are many more ex-ministers - some deservedly fired, some just unlucky - who find themselves rapidly left behind as new talent rises to fill the gaps. Ed Davey, the big winner this time, is not just competent but also notably a team player, who has been careful to forge a good working relationship with close Tory counterparts such as Maria Miller.

And whisper it, but the truth is that the coalition can get by without Huhne. He was a competent but not particularly revolutionary minister, one whose life was only likely to become more difficult as the formerly husky-hugging prime minister's green enthusiasm waned. While he played a critical part in bringing the coalition into being, he had lost trust among colleagues who suspected him of self-serving leaks - and Clegg himself would be an unusual politician if he didn't feel some tiny, secret relief at the downfall of such a close rival.

The role of a Murdoch-owned newspaper in all this, just as the relationship between politicians and press is being rewritten by the hacking scandal, won't be lost on some indignant Lib Dems. But they might consider - alongside those fuming against Vicky Pryce, in her role as vengeful Fury - how far Huhne made himself vulnerable to his enemies the minute he left his wife for his mistress. It's unlikely that the allegations against him, whether true or not, would have surfaced had he never given in to an affair.

We await a jury's verdict, of course, on precisely what happened between the Huhnes. But one reason this story is so gripping is that it illustrates a broader truth about many other marriages: hidden inside many long-term relationships are secrets large or small which, were they to become public, would hurt. The reason men and women are both appalled and fascinated by vengeful exes - slashers of suits, trashers of sports cars - is that we secretly wonder whether we (or our partners) might do the same if provoked: they remind us of the boiling anger often seething beneath failed relationships, the destructive force of love turned sour.

So perhaps the only sensible political lesson to draw from this, beyond the obvious advantages of monogamy for the politically ambitious, is a reminder of just how irrational and powerful are the forces unleashed in a separation. For a government hellbent on charging desperate parents to use the Child Support Agency, supposedly as an "incentive" to settle disputes amicably, it should give pause for thought that even the threat of mutual annihilation could not apparently persuade this most intelligent of couples to bury the hatchet.

So now what remains of a once thriving family is one career wrecked, with a question mark surely hovering over Pryce's professional standing should she be convicted; and three children living with the fact that both their parents face criminal prosecution. In politics, no matter how big the crisis, someone usually emerges a winner: Huhne's downfall is a reminder that when families go to war, everybody loses.

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The right is outraged by India awarding a fighter jet contract to the French, but it is this arrogance that damages our relationship

"What on earth do they know about cricket and curries," was the acerbic response of Tory MP Peter Bone to the news that the French firm Dassault has emerged as the lowest bidder for a $10bn (£6.3bn) contract to supply India jet fighters. And, in one crisp sentence, Bone encapsulated the problem: a lingering British attitude towards India enveloped in the language of colonialism and entitlement, which is buckling any attempt at a modern, co-operative relationship.

Of course, Bone is not the only one. This week the Sun newspaper has been running a campaign demanding Britain ends its aid programme. "Britain can no longer justify sending aid to India," it announced, since "this superpower in the making is treating us like mugs."

All of which led the BBC's Andrew Neil to ask why, if the French had no aid budget for India, it could be in pole position to supply India's air force, while the British Eurofighter bid had been left stranded despite us bunging billions towards New Delhi. Immediately, we were back to the 1980s: "aid for trade", Pergau Dam and Alan Clark signing it all off. Of course, there are all sorts of solid arguments for ending our aid to India, but failing to secure arms deals is not one of them.

Nevertheless, preferred bidder status for Dassault Aviation is a wretched blow for the British defence industry. It is also a humiliating rebuff to David Cameron's ambitions for "an enhanced strategic partnership" with India. Having condemned the previous Labour government for ignoring our relations with New Delhi, shortly after his election the prime minister packed an aeroplane with high-profile businessmen to secure new contracts from the rising Bric power.

There was even talk of having the ex-head of the Confederation of British Industry, Richard Lambert, take the British high commission job. This mercantilist Anglo-Indian strategy all formed part of the government's grander ambition to turn the Foreign and Commonwealth Office into a high-end sales outfit, with ambassadors acting out the role of regional reps.

But this week it came to naught.

Perhaps this is due to a new generation of politicians, policy-makers and businesspeople in Mumbai, Chennai, and Bangalore who can sense a British political class still stuck in the past. In London, there remains a world view that somehow Britain - because of a connection with India stretching back to the Fort St George in 1640s Madras or Job Charnock in 1690s Lal Dighi (soon to become Calcutta) - has an automatic right of access. The fact we laid the railways, nurtured the bureaucracy, even designed the parliament should put us at the front of the queue. Within the Tory party and its press, it is naturally taken that these historic ties of language, culture, and kin give us an "in" above and beyond other middle-rank powers.

But any encounter with modern India instantly dispels such arrogance. Of course, London is nice to visit and an MA from Oxford is a decent degree (after Harvard, Yale, and Columbia), but the terms of trade have changed. First of all, it is Britain that is now in need of Indian investment - as Tata Motors' purchase of Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Steel's takeover of Corus proves most obviously. And, second, today's Indian elite is focused on America; they are vying with China; they are concerned about Afghanistan. What we think, how we act, who we value: these are all third-order questions.

Where India is interested in Britain is as a business partner - but, crucially, as part of a broader European Union trading bloc. Yet here the colonial mindset of the Conservative party continues. With great gusto and a lot of air miles, our Eurosceptic foreign secretary has left the tarmac to "rebuild" bilateral relations across the world. He has put in sterling work, but the truth is the UK matters much more as part of a European commercial entity rather than on its own. It is through supranational bodies, not from the Foreign Office Locarno room, that our voice is heard.

What is more, the government has so often bungled the soft-power fundamentals in India. First they tried to end the BBC's Hindi programming on the World Service and then they wildly trumpeted our new "closed-door" education policy. Even if the coalition's immigration strategy is the right one, the tone and manner in which it has been advanced has told Indian students they are not welcome in the UK. One of the greatest motors for Anglo-Indian collaboration has been needlessly undermined by a headline-chasing Home Office. In a globalised media world, domestic policy is consumed very differently abroad.

However, we should not get ahead of ourselves. The jets deal with India is not yet dead. The low bid by the French could all be election-year posturing by President Nicolas Sarkozy. But a mature reaction to the negotiation process is paramount. Any more talk of curries and cricket, Rudyard and the Raj, and we can wave goodbye to those valuable BAE jobs.

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The former environment secretary, replaced by Ed Davey, had that big beast quality that put him on a par with Clegg and Cable

It is no disrespect to Ed Davey, the new energy secretary, to say that the departure of Chris Huhne changes the political dynamics of the cabinet, and in a way many Conservative cabinet members will welcome.

Davey can do his own theatrics, once famously leading a group of Liberal Democrat MPs out of the Commons chamber in protest at the lack of a referendum on the EU. He also made it abundantly clear that he was not, as employment minister, going to jump to rightwing Tory demands to change strike laws.

He has shown in his own constituency how through strong local campaigning it is possible to eviscerate a once-strong Conservative political base. He is a not a pussy cat, and is tribal as the next Liberal Democrat.

But temperamentally he is different to Huhne, who has always openly treated the coalition as a political necessity rather than an ideological fusion.

Huhne crossed swords with not just the Conservative chair, Lady Warsi, during the AV referendum, but also the chancellor, George Osborne, and the home secretary, Theresa May.

Without being reckless, he did not shrink from battles, as attested by the large number of Conservatives and commentators cheering his departure, in some cases oblivious to the personal family tragedy being played out in public.

But Huhne also favoured the principle of the coalition, arguing for it in private inside his party before the election and acknowledging after the election that the only viable option was a deal with the Conservatives. In office he recognised that some of the alleged divisions between the Orange Bookers and social democrats were more theoretical than real.

But he had that indefinable big beast quality that put him on a par with Clegg and Cable, making him a voice on economics and Europe inside the cabinet to which people listened, even if they disagreed. He had an intellectual self-confidence as a trained economist, businessman, journalist and former MEP.

In a year in which the pressure on the deficit reduction plan is likely to increase rather than decrease, his voice will be absent. Similarly, although the Treasury hotly denies it, the pressure on government resources is putting a brake on the green agenda. Conservative policy thinkers such as Neil O'Brien are pushing back on renewable energy in favour of cheaper options, and calling for greater deregulation of the energy market.

Huhne, in three big speeches before the summer, tried to stem the anti-climate-change tide. In a clarion call, he warned that world temperatures were already on course to increase by 1.3 degrees, and a low carbon path had to be agreed worldwide by 2015 if the two-degree tipping point was to be avoided. "This is the last parliament with a chance to avoid catastrophic climate change," he warned.

Yet Davey will need time to make his mark, and green groups will watch him to see how he fights his corner. He will have to make a rapid judgment on what tactics to deploy. Clegg gave him a glowing reference on Friday, and in a speech last month signalled that he would like to see green taxes increase.

But some doubt Davey's deregulatory mettle. One angry Liberal Democrat executive member, Gareth Epps, blogged that Davey was not fit to be a cabinet minister, pointing to the way in which he had allegedly failed to stand up to the Pubcos, the big pub landlords.

Epps accused Davey of "colluding with lobbyists acting for the big pub corporations, who he allowed to write large parts of a government report in response to the BIS [business, innovation and skills] select committee".

So Davey will have to show he is his own man and, like his predecessor, capable of giving a lead inside the EU, the most important negotiating theatre for a British climate change minister. A first sensible step will be to retain Huhne's strong special advisers, Duncan Brack and Joel Kendrick.

But there is a wider worry for the Liberal Democrats. There is little evidence in the polls yet, but inside the party an opinion is slowly emerging that the path to salvation lies in being more distinctive: for instance, by setting out negotiating demands for the budget in public. Clegg is drawing together a new ideological map for his party through his recent big speeches.

The concern must be the consequences of a drawn-out court case. The trial would be of unfathomable darkness for the individuals involved, but for the public a cruel sport in which the Liberal Democrats could revert to a laughing stock, a sort of Rinka, Exmoor, Jeremy Thorpe saga all over again.

Huhne - who is innocent until proven guilty - will also have to make a judgment on whether to stay out of the political limelight pending his court case, and focus on nursing his marginal seat of Eastleigh. There has been talk of him becoming the standard bearer for the left in the party, but that seems unlikely, and unwise in his current precarious state.

Clegg - who has the powers of patronage in this area - has made it clear he is willing to contemplate Huhne's return to government if he is cleared of the charges. But he will also be hoping what has become such a combustible and tragic marriage break-up does not do more to envelop him.

The right is outraged by India awarding a fighter jet contract to the French, but it is this arrogance that damages our relationship

"What on earth do they know about cricket and curries," was the acerbic response of Tory MP Peter Bone to the news that the French firm Dassault has emerged as the lowest bidder for a $10bn (£6.3bn) contract to supply India jet fighters. And, in one crisp sentence, Bone encapsulated the problem: a lingering British attitude towards India enveloped in the language of colonialism and entitlement, which is buckling any attempt at a modern, co-operative relationship.

Of course, Bone is not the only one. This week the Sun newspaper has been running a campaign demanding Britain ends its aid programme. "Britain can no longer justify sending aid to India," it announced, since "this superpower in the making is treating us like mugs."

All of which led the BBC's Andrew Neil to ask why, if the French had no aid budget for India, it could be in pole position to supply India's air force, while the British Eurofighter bid had been left stranded despite us bunging billions towards New Delhi. Immediately, we were back to the 1980s: "aid for trade", Pergau Dam and Alan Clark signing it all off. Of course, there are all sorts of solid arguments for ending our aid to India, but failing to secure arms deals is not one of them.

Nevertheless, preferred bidder status for Dassault Aviation is a wretched blow for the British defence industry. It is also a humiliating rebuff to David Cameron's ambitions for "an enhanced strategic partnership" with India. Having condemned the previous Labour government for ignoring our relations with New Delhi, shortly after his election the prime minister packed an aeroplane with high-profile businessmen to secure new contracts from the rising Bric power.

There was even talk of having the ex-head of the Confederation of British Industry, Richard Lambert, take the British high commission job. This mercantilist Anglo-Indian strategy all formed part of the government's grander ambition to turn the Foreign and Commonwealth Office into a high-end sales outfit, with ambassadors acting out the role of regional reps.

But this week it came to naught.

Perhaps this is due to a new generation of politicians, policy-makers and businesspeople in Mumbai, Chennai, and Bangalore who can sense a British political class still stuck in the past. In London, there remains a world view that somehow Britain - because of a connection with India stretching back to the Fort St George in 1640s Madras or Job Charnock in 1690s Lal Dighi (soon to become Calcutta) - has an automatic right of access. The fact we laid the railways, nurtured the bureaucracy, even designed the parliament should put us at the front of the queue. Within the Tory party and its press, it is naturally taken that these historic ties of language, culture, and kin give us an "in" above and beyond other middle-rank powers.

But any encounter with modern India instantly dispels such arrogance. Of course, London is nice to visit and an MA from Oxford is a decent degree (after Harvard, Yale, and Columbia), but the terms of trade have changed. First of all, it is Britain that is now in need of Indian investment - as Tata Motors' purchase of Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Steel's takeover of Corus proves most obviously. And, second, today's Indian elite is focused on America; they are vying with China; they are concerned about Afghanistan. What we think, how we act, who we value: these are all third-order questions.

Where India is interested in Britain is as a business partner - but, crucially, as part of a broader European Union trading bloc. Yet here the colonial mindset of the Conservative party continues. With great gusto and a lot of air miles, our Eurosceptic foreign secretary has left the tarmac to "rebuild" bilateral relations across the world. He has put in sterling work, but the truth is the UK matters much more as part of a European commercial entity rather than on its own. It is through supranational bodies, not from the Foreign Office Locarno room, that our voice is heard.

What is more, the government has so often bungled the soft-power fundamentals in India. First they tried to end the BBC's Hindi programming on the World Service and then they wildly trumpeted our new "closed-door" education policy. Even if the coalition's immigration strategy is the right one, the tone and manner in which it has been advanced has told Indian students they are not welcome in the UK. One of the greatest motors for Anglo-Indian collaboration has been needlessly undermined by a headline-chasing Home Office. In a globalised media world, domestic policy is consumed very differently abroad.

However, we should not get ahead of ourselves. The jets deal with India is not yet dead. The low bid by the French could all be election-year posturing by President Nicolas Sarkozy. But a mature reaction to the negotiation process is paramount. Any more talk of curries and cricket, Rudyard and the Raj, and we can wave goodbye to those valuable BAE jobs.

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Prime minister and US president will discuss forthcoming Nato and G8 summits during visit in March

David Cameron and his wife, Samantha, will make an official visit to the United States next month.

The White House said Barack Obama would host the prime minister on a visit to "highlight the fundamental importance of the US-UK special relationship".

The president and the prime minister will discuss the forthcoming Nato and G8 summits as well as developments in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

A White House spokesman said: "The visit will highlight the fundamental importance of the US-UK special relationship and the depth of the friendship between the American people and the people of the United Kingdom, as well as the strong personal bond that has developed between the two leaders and their families.

"It will also be an opportunity to recall the valour and sacrifice of the US and British armed forces and their long tradition of standing shoulder to shoulder beside each other in defence of our liberties and shared values. The visit will underscore the strength of our economic links, which contribute to millions of jobs on both sides of the Atlantic."

This week Downing Street said British troops would step back from their lead combat role in Afghanistan by the end of 2013, under plans drawn up by the Nato-led Isaf alliance. The announcement followed comments by the US and France suggesting that the Isaf coalition would make a transition out of combat next year.

The White House confirmed that Afghanistan would be on the agenda when the two leaders meet. "The president and the prime minister are expected to discuss the upcoming Nato and G8 summits, as well as the broad array of global issues on which the United States and the United Kingdom co-operate closely in order to advance our common values and shared interests, including Afghanistan, the Middle East, Iran, human rights, and global economic stability and growth.

"They will also review progress in the implementation of the various initiatives launched during the president's state visit to the UK last year," the White House said.

Andrew Lansley says some trusts can no longer afford to honour PFI deals that were 'badly negotiated' by Labour ministers

Seven hospital trusts struggling with crippling private finance initiative debts are to receive £1.5bn in emergency funding from the government to help them avoid cutting patient services to pay their bills.

The Department of Health is making the £1.5bn available - in grants, not loans - to the seven hospital trusts in England with some of the heaviest PFI debts through a "stability" fund. Trusts will be able to use the money to meet PFI repayments, rather than their usual budgets, as long as they meet four conditions set out by the department.

The move will help trusts such as South London Healthcare NHS trust, which is facing a PFI repayment in 2012-13 of £66.8m under the terms of a deal agreed in July 1998, in the early days of Tony Blair's government. They will be able to access the £1.5bn over the next 25 years, until the PFI contracts end.

Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, said he had been forced to use taxpayers' money because certain NHS organisations could no longer afford to honour PFI deals that had been "badly negotiated" by Labour ministers.

"Labour left some parts of the NHS with a dismal legacy of PFI, and made them rely on unworkable plans for the future. They swept these problems under the carpet for a decade and left us with a £60bn postdated PFI cheque to deal with," Lansley said.

"The problems facing some parts of the NHS left to us by Labour now have to be sorted out. Tough solutions may be needed for these problems, but we will not let the sick pay for Labour's debt crisis."

The six other NHS trusts are Barking, Havering and Redbridge; Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS foundation trust; St Helens and Knowsley; North Cumbria; Dartford and Gravesham; and Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells.

Without the fund, there was a danger that services would be put "at severe risk" because of the weight of their PFI deals at a time of tightening NHS budgets, according to Department of Health sources.

South London faces the largest annual repayment in 2012-13. The Barking, Havering and Redbridge trust has to find £49.8m on its deal, agreed in January 2004, and the St Helens and Knowsley trust's payment will be £42.5m under the terms of its contract, signed in June 2006.

Lansley acted after 22 hospital trusts told him their PFI debts were endangering their financial or clinical future. Department of Health research established that PFI payments were one of the reasons for trusts' problems.

The department set four conditions for trusts to use the fund:

o The problems they face must be exceptional and beyond those faced by other organisations.

o The problems must be historic and they have a clear plan to manage their resources in the future.

o They must show they are delivering high levels of annual productivity savings.

o They must deliver clinically viable, high quality services, including delivering low waiting times and other performance measures.

Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, who was health secretary during Labour's time in office, has previously admitted in relation to the deals: "We made mistakes. I'm not defending every penstroke of the PFI contracts we signed."

The money will be available over the remaining lifetime of the seven trusts' PFI contracts. It will come from underspends over that time in different Department of Health budgets.

In December a report into NHS finances by the public accounts committee flagged up looming problems with PFI debt. It concluded: "The cost of private finance schemes is an additional challenge for a limited number of hospitals. Analysis commissioned by the department has identified six trusts that are unviable largely because of their PFI charges. Long-term private finance initiatives deals reduce the department's ability to establish a level playing field of financially sustainable, autonomous trusts.

"In many cases efficiency savings alone will not be enough to make unviable trusts financially sustainable. The department faces a particular dilemma about how to manage the debt of these hospitals as their long-term financial commitments make reconfiguration more difficult," it added.

Pekka Haavisto's party and sexuality make him a surprise qualifier for Sunday's runoff

He's gay and Green - not the best of combinations for candidates seeking elected office in Finland. For 30 years, Finns have picked a Social Democrat to be their president. Green and gay candidates are still something of a novelty.

But Pekka Haavisto has experienced something of an Obama moment in the election. He caused a shock in last month's first round of voting by beating more established candidates from bigger parties to qualify for this weekend's runoff vote.

Haavisto is something of a rarity in Finnish politics, an openly gay politician living in a registered partnership with a man from Ecuador. On Sunday the Finns will decide if he can beat the current favourite, Sauli Niinistö.

On a cold afternoon at Hakaniemi Square in central Helsinki, a 50-strong crowd braved the weather to hear Haavisto speak. Anu Korppi-Koskela, 31, went along with her daughter.

"Antonio would be an excellent first lady," said Korppi-Koskela, referring to Antonio Flores, Haavisto's partner, a hairdresser in Helsinki who has become a favourite subject for the Finnish tabloids.

"Twelve years ago the Finns were wondering whether a woman who wasn't married could become our president. Now, it seems almost funny that people raised those concerns. I think in six or 12 years' time we will look back and think that it was funny that this was an issue."

For many Finns, Haavisto's sexuality is a curiosity rather than a problem. Haavisto is offering an alternative to more established candidates who have done the rounds in the Finnish presidential election for years. He appeals to younger voters who feel ignored by the other parties.

Many now feel it was this unease with the political mainstream that led to an unusual result in the parliamentary elections last year, in which the rightwing Eurosceptic True Finns emerged as the third largest party.

In turn, the support for Haavisto is seen by some as a backlash against the swing to the intolerant right.

"If you can say 'my president can be gay' it means the time is right for it. It would make Finland look like a very advanced and modern country," said another supporter, 29-year-old Merja Nevala.

But Haavisto still has a long way to go if he is to win the runoff on Sunday. His opponent, Sauli Niinistö of the moderate right Kokoomus party, has widely been seen as the president-in-waiting for the past six years.

Whatever the election outcome, it will be the first time in 30 years that the Finnish president will not be a Social Democrat.

It is also the first time a Green party candidate has gained any major support in a Finnish election, perhaps because Haavisto has been downplaying his green credentials.

"The Greens are considered a bit annoying. I support the Green party myself, but I realise this," said Nevala.

"That's why you haven't seen any green colour on his posters or websites. They have kept a bit quiet about the party and I think it has been a very clever choice."

The Finnish Green party, which Haavisto helped found in the 1980s, is mainly known for campaigns against nuclear power and has often placed itself in the Eurosceptic camp during elections.

Haavisto was the party chairman in the mid 90s and has spent large parts of his career leading the UN environment programme in areas including Darfur and the Balkans, investigating the impact of war on people's living conditions.

He and Niinistö hardly differ in terms of foreign policy, an area in which the Finnish president has some power. Both are pro-EU and support the euro bailout.

Victory for Carme Chacón in leadership contest would set her on course to be country's first female PM

Spain's opposition Socialist party may set the former defence minister Carme Chacón on the path to becoming the country's first female prime minister at a nail-bitingly close contest for a new leader .

Chacón is in a two-way contest with the former deputy prime minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba to take over a party in tatters after a rout at elections in November.

Although both candidates worked closely with the former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Chacón is seen as closest to the man who governed Spain for eight years until December.

Zapatero has publicly declared himself neutral in the fight between the two career politicians, but is privately reported to back Chacón.

Rubalcaba, 60, has the open support of Felipe González, who was prime minister from 1982 to 1996. The wily veteran also has the backing of Patxi López, the popular Basque regional prime minister, and of many party veterans.

Chacón, a 40-year-old Catalan who studied part of her law degree at Manchester University, has called on the party's women to back her and appears to have the support of a younger generation of Socialists.

Her team are sure they have won enough pledged votes from delegates who have started gathering in the southern city of Seville for her to win. "She is going to get it," one of her team said.

But Rubalcaba's side also claims to be narrowly ahead in the battle for a majority of the 956 votes at the conference, with a block of up to 100 undecided delegates set to be key.

There is little difference, politically, between the two candidates. Both have veered further left since they were ejected from government in November, but neither belongs to the more rebellious wing of a party that competes for leftwing votes with the communist-led United Left coalition.

Higher taxes on the wealthy and support for the Tobin tax on financial transactions is mixed with a call for Spain to slow its austerity drive to prevent an even deeper fall into recession.

Spain's political system is mostly a two-party affair, with either the Socialists or the conservative People's party (PP) of the current prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, running the government since 1982.

Whoever wins the post of secretary general can expect to challenge Rajoy for the prime minister's job at the next elections, which are due in late 2015 or early 2016.

They can also expect to preside over a fractious party that is bitter about losing power in Madrid as well as in many regional government and town halls.

The first major electoral challenge will be a vote for the regional parliament in the traditional socialist stronghold of southern Andalucía in March. Opinion polls there show the party in danger of losing to Rajoy's PP.

The task of turning around the Socialist vote is immense. It received its lowest overall vote since 1977 at the November general election, with just 110 MPs in the 350-seat parliament. Voters punished it for the economic crisis, massive unemployment and for Zapatero's 2010 U-turn on the economy. Rubalcaba was the candidate for prime minister at that election and Chacón campaigners point to his inability to stave off disaster.

Zapatero imposed austerity, raised the retirement age, froze pensions and cut civil service pay in May 2010 as bond markets put massive pressure on Spain's sovereign debt after the collapse of Greece and neighbouring Portugal.

It is still unclear how much the two candidates can distance themselves from Zapatero - especially as both were cabinet ministers when he performed his policy turnabout.

As opposition leader, they will shadow Rajoy, who has already performed his own U-turn by raising taxes as part of his attempt to cut back a budget deficit of more than 8% last year. With unemployment at 23% and still growing, many Socialists believe Rajoy will soon become vulnerable.

Spain has just entered the second phase of a double-dip recession, with the International Monetary Fund predicting the economy will shrink 1.7% this year. Many economists see the recession stretching into 2013, and Rajoy's embrace of greater austerity will also see more job losses.

The prime minister was recently caught on camera privately admitting that his planned reforms to the labour market, to be announced next week, would provoke a general strike.

Chacón's popularity leapt in 2008 when, aged 37 and seven months pregnant, she was appointed as Spain's first female defence minister by Zapatero. His second-term cabinet, with nine women to eight men, was Europe's first majority-female cabinet.

The energy secretary's resignation may not be the end for the smart, ambitious former Lib Dem leadership contender

Fleet Street's armchair brigadiers have been poised for years to announce they'd always known Chris Huhne would come to a sticky political end. The blighter was too clever by half - and too pleased with it ever to bother to conceal the fact. That and being a radical Lib Dem, comfortably well-off (by his own efforts), and nakedly ambitious. No wonder he was so keen on such dodgy projects as the euro, windmills and that AV referendum nonsense, they have been telling each other for ages.

So the newspapers will be delighted with director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer's announcement that the Lib Dem cabinet minister has been charged over the allegation - apparently made in a moment of anger by his former wife, the economist Vicky Pryce - that he had asked someone to take his speeding points on his behalf when the then-MEP allegedly drove home too fast from Stansted airport in 2003. It was later alleged that the someone was Pryce herself.

For once the tabloids did not make the running in the alleged scandal: his former wife did. But they have been feasting on the prospect for months, especially the mid-market Tory press. Rare is the week that passes without the Daily Mail or Daily Telegraph, both keen critics of David Cameron's coalition deal, taking a poke at the energy and climate change secretary as its most obstreperous symbol. There is much too poke at.

Last spring Huhne did accuse the Tory party chairman, Lady Warsi, of making a "Goebbels-like attack" during the doomed AV referendum campaign, confronting David Cameron across the cabinet table until George Osborne called a halt.

Last autumn he did indeed try to drop two Tory cabinet colleagues, Theresa May and Philip Hammond, in the cart for alleged personal misdemeanours which he compared to his own. Only this month the Telegraph led one edition with a claim that he'd leaked against a third, Michael Gove. This time Huhne extracted a retraction from the paper, not his first such win against the Telegraph.

He is, as he admits, a "sharp-elbowed" politician. The trait was obvious in his brief, defiant statement on Friday.

What is it about him that gets some people so cross? It is not confined to the media or critics of the coalition within the Tory ranks. Some Labour and Lib Dem MPs who respect the former energy secretary's brains and drive (not all do) do not warm to him personally. He was widely seen as double-crossing Ming Campbell in running for party leader when Charles Kennedy stood down in 2006 and of undermining his brief tenure.

Born in July 1954, Christopher Murray Paul-Huhne (his surname until he went to Oxford) has always been something of a Marmite politician, attracting both loyalty and affection, as well as brickbats and disdain. The son of a west London businessman and an amateur actor (mum was once the voice of the speaking clock), he attended Westminster school, the high-powered private establishment Nick Clegg would later attend.

At Oxford, Huhne obtained a first in politics, philosophy and economics (PPE), the degree of choice for aspiring politicos, while finding time to edit the student magazine, Isis (did he then advocate the decriminalisation of many drugs, he can't remember?), and play an active role in Labour university politics. He attended the Sorbonne and went into journalism via reporting during Indira Gandhi's Indian emergency, followed by stints on the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo, later the Economist.

In the turbulent early 80s, he joined the Guardian's economics team and in 1981 joined the Labour breakaway party, the SDP. Along with Malcolm Dean, Polly Toynbee and John Torode, in the 1983 general election he was one of four staff members who contested Tory-held seats for the party. In the post-Falklands Thatcher landslide, none won. The following year he married Pryce, a divorced mother of two. The couple had three children together.

But Huhne was already more focused and ambitious than most colleagues. After further boosting his award-laden CV as business editor at both Independent titles (handling the Robert Maxwell fraud case, he took the advice that worldly politicians like Michael Heseltine or the late Peter Walker often give young men: "Make some money before you try to become an MP. It will give you more confidence and independence." It was Heseltine and Walker who most successfully stood up to Thatcher).

Huhne's route was to set up Sovereign Ratings, a City ratings company that examined the wisdom of investment in different countries; moving up through Fitch, the smallest of the big three rating agencies that allocate those vital AAA ratings and remove them from troubled firms and states. When he was elected the second of two Lib Dem MEPs for the south-east England region in 1999, he stayed on as a vice-chairman of Fitch until 2003.

As a seasoned media operator at Strasbourg he caught the attention of his former Economist colleagues, who rated him the third-highest profile UK MEP - after Glenys Kinnock and the Green, Caroline Lucas. Unsurprisingly his areas of expertise were economic and financial policy. He took on the European commission and helped open the secretive ECB to greater scrutiny.

But like many MEPs he preached Europe but had an eye on the domestic political arena. In 2005 - and by just 568 votes - he won the once-Tory Hampshire seat of Eastleigh and began his rapid ascent at Westminster. At least part of the antagonism to him arises from his unexpected rise to cabinet authority in a Lib Dem-Tory coalition few could ever have imagined happening - Huhne included.

Huhne was a Lib Dem negotiator in the Lib-Con coalition agreement, but the more emollient Clegg set the tone. It is one of the great counter-factuals of current Westminster politics to wonder whether the Clegg-Cameron love-in in the No 10 rose garden on 12 May 2010 would have taken place if the prickly and far less accommodating Huhne had won the Lib Dem leadership in 2007. It later transpired that he probably did win - once the postal votes, delayed in the Christmas mail rush, had been counted.

By then it was too late. The party establishment leaned Clegg's way, not least because they felt Huhne had earlier breached an informal deal with other potential candidates that they would give Campbell a clear run after Kennedy's drink-related resignation in January 2006. According to some accounts he went to tell Campbell of his change of mind, talked for 90 minutes and agreed not to stand after all, then came back 30 minutes later saying he would.

In 2007, after campaigning against Tony Blair's "surveillance state" and for green taxes to fund lower income tax for the poorest - the "green tax switch" - he lost by 26,628 votes to 29,697 and was promoted from No 2 in the Lib Dem Treasury team to be environment spokesman, where he developed his critique of Cameron's use of green rhetoric to detoxify the Tory brand.

The 2007 campaign was marked by dirty tricks charges against the Huhne camp by the man he (allegedly) dubbed "Calamity Clegg". But Huhne's energy remained essential and he took up the new leader's old post in home affairs with typical gusto. Despite claiming a Corby trouser press - and the Telegraph's best efforts - he survived the MPs' expenses scandals with the 418th ranking out of 650 for total expenses. His own assets - including flats which earn him a reported £80,000 a year - had been put into a blind trust.

Appointed energy and climate change secretary with the Cameron ally, Greg Barker, as his deputy, Huhne had a mixed record in office. Lib Dem colleagues speak of his focused and business-like approach and praise him as a team player. Tory colleagues who dislike him admit he is smart.

But he was seen to have executed a U-turn on the need for nuclear power and was wrong-footed when the coalition's feed-in tariff policy - part of the "green deal" package - was deemed too expensive and halted mid-track.

Friends say he squared up to problems like the expected energy gap, which Labour had ducked. But as the recession pushed Cameron's green agenda down his priority list he was also criticised.

Huhne was making enemies by his willingness to challenge Tory shibboleths in public and in his confident, abrasive way. Even among Lib Dems he lacked a fan club. "He is not a folk hero," says one MP.

Yet it was his private life that caught him out. Shortly after he saved his Eastleigh seat in 2010 it was revealed that he was having an affair with his media adviser, Carina Trimingham. Serious serial philanderers - the Alan Clark kind of politicians - handle such crises more adroitly than the amateurs. Pryce, a well-known Whitehall economist (unlike him, she, a Greek, opposed the euro) and Huhne's wife of 26 years ("I thought we were a unit," she later said), reacted with anger and filed for divorce. Shortly afterwards the claims about Huhne's alleged points switch on the M11 emerged in the media.

On BBC Radio Sc]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/03/chris-huhne-resignation-rise-fall http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/video/2012/feb/03/chris-huhne-resigns-energy-secretary-video Chris Huhne announces his resignation as energy and climate change secretary after being charged with perverting the course of justice

Former energy secretary faces prosecution over claims his ex-wife took his speeding points on her licence in 2003

Chris Huhne has resigned as energy secretary after the director of public prosecutions announced he would face a criminal charge in connection with allegedly dodging a speeding offence.

In a televised announcement, Keir Starmer said Huhne's former wife, Vicky Pryce, would also be prosecuted over allegations she took speeding penalty points on his behalf in 2003.

Huhne is to be charged with perverting the course of justice, Starmer said. Huhne said the decision to charge him was "deeply regrettable", adding: "I am innocent of these charges and I intend to fight this in the courts."

Pryce, who divorced Huhne in January last year, is also to be charged with perverting the course of justice. Huhne and Pryce were told of the decision an hour before Starmer made his announcement.

They are due to appear before Westminster magistrates court on 16 February.

Pryce said in a statement released by her lawyers: "As the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] have decided to prosecute it would not be appropriate to comment further at this stage. Obviously I hope for a quick resolution of the case. In the meantime I will be taking a little time off over the next few days to be with my family."

Huhne travelled from a Liberal Democrat awayday in Eastbourne on Thursday and was in London at the time Starmer made the announcement at 10am.

The decision will spark a cabinet reshuffle. It is the second enforced departure of a Lib Dem minister since the coalition came to power. David Laws resigned as Treasury chief secretary over expenses allegations.

Huhne had made it known he felt it necessary to resign because the battle to clear his name would be too much of a distraction to continue in office.

The charge relates to a speeding offence committed on 12 March 2003. Essex police have been investigating whether Huhne asked Pryce to take the points on her licence on his behalf.

The alleged offence is said to have taken place while Huhne was driving back from Stansted airport after flying in from the European parliament, where he was an MEP at the time. Since he already had points on his licence, Huhne would have faced a driving ban had any further penalties been imposed, it is alleged.

Last week, Essex police - who began their inquiry in May last year - took possession of emails and other material from the Sunday Times, who published an interview with Pryce, a successful economist, in which she first made the allegations.

Detectives also have access to a tape in which Pryce allegedly discusses the issue with Huhne.

The former energy secretary left Pryce, his wife of 27 years, in 2010.

UK's largest medical college says the health and social care bill will 'damage patient care and jeopardise the NHS'

The UK's largest medical royal college has called for the prime minister to scrap the health and social care bill, branding it "damaging, unnecessary and expensive".

The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) has written to David Cameron following the tabling of amendments to the controversial bill in the House of Lords this week.

They said that despite the amendments, they believed the planned reform would "cause irreparable damage to patient care and jeopardise the NHS".

The RCGP chairwoman, Dr Clare Gerada, said: "This decision was not taken lightly, but it is clear that the college has been left with no alternative.

"We have taken every opportunity to negotiate changes for the good of our patients and for the continued stability of the NHS, yet while the government has claimed that it has made widespread concessions, our view is that the amendments have created greater confusion.

"We remain unconvinced that the bill will improve the care and services we provide to our patients."

The college, which represents more than 44,000 family doctors, said three-quarters of respondents to a recent poll said they thought it appropriate to seek the withdrawal of the bill.

It wrote to the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, to voice the concerns of their members but decided to take action after receiving his response, and following the government's tabling of amendments on Wednesday.

Gerada said: "Our position has not changed, and the concerns we expressed when this bill was at the white paper stage 18 months ago have still not been satisfactorily addressed.

"Competition and the opening up our of health service to any qualified providers will lead not only to fragmentation of care, but also potentially to a 'two-tier' system with access to care defined by a patient's ability to pay."

The 20 colleges that make up the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges have been divided over the strength of the stance they should take against the bill.

Those opposing it include the Royal College of Radiologists, which said it had "grave concerns", and the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which called the bill "fundamentally flawed".

The British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Midwives have also called for the bill to be withdrawn.

The government has been criticised for failing to allay fears over an increased role for private companies in running the NHS.

A critical report from MPs on the health committee last month said the overhaul was hindering the ability of the NHS to make the savings it needs to safeguard its future.

One of the amendments laid out this week said the NHS commissioning board and clinical commissioning groups run by GPs would have new responsibilities to support education and training. Both will also have to report annually on their progress in tackling health inequalities, together with the health secretary.

Lansley said the government had been "carefully listening" to opinions about the bill and that the series of amendments would "address these remaining issues".

Gerada added: "Our view is that what is required now is to rapidly consolidate the current organisational structure, such that PCT [primary care trust] clusters remain, with GPs placed as the majority of the board so that we may address the serious issues facing our NHS.

"There should be a debate as a matter of urgency to determine what the NHS can provide, how it should be funded, and how we deal with the major health and social care problems facing our population.

"We cannot sit back. Instead, we must once again raise our concerns in the hope that the prime minister will halt this damaging, unnecessary and expensive reorganisation, which, in our view, risks leaving the poorest and most vulnerable in society to bear the brunt."

She said the college could not support a bill that would "ultimately bring about the demise of a unified national health service".

Gerada told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "This bill is a burden. It makes no sense, it is incoherent to anybody other than the lawyers. It won't deal with the big issues that we have to deal with, such as the ageing population and dementia.

"It will result in a very expensive health service and it will also result in a health service that certainly will never match the health service that we have at the moment - or at least had 12 months ago."

She rejected ministers' claims that GPs were enthusiastic about the reforms: "GPs do want to be part of the planning of services for their patients - absolutely, we have never ever been critical of that.

"But that is one thing. Delivering it through this cumbersome bill is not what GPs want. Over 90% of my members surveyed last month wanted me to ask for withdrawal of the bill.

"It will turn the National Health Service into thousands of different health services, all competing for the same patients, the same knee, the same brain, the same heart.

"Patients will find their care will be fragmented, it will be on different sites, it won't join up, it will be difficult to hand over care and it will be phenomenally expensive to keep track of all these competing parts of the NHS."

Gerada said the NHS was "one of the cheapest health services to run and one of the fairest health services" in the world.

"There is absolutely no evidence that opening up the NHS to multiple private organisations is going to result in anything other than a fragmented, expensive and bureaucratic health service for all of us, and one that will be very difficult to sort out and put back into a coherent form," she said.

o Energy secretary says CPS decision 'deeply regrettable
o Huhne and ex-wife due in court on 16 February
o Nick Clegg praises Lib Dem minister's 'trailblazing' work
o Read a summary of events so far

12.29pm: Some reaction coming through from green groups to the Huhne resignation, mostly regretful.

John Sauven, Greenpeace's director, said the former minister would be "a tough act to follow".

His achievements in getting the "green bank" and stricter legally binding carbon targets are a physical legacy of what he was able to accomplish.

He has been a vocal advocate for the green agenda in a government whose green credentials are looking more than a little tarnished."

Friends of the Earth's executive director, Andy Atkins, struck a similar tone:

Chris Huhne has championed the environment in an administration that's shown little enthusiasm for keeping David Cameron's pledge to be the greenest government ever.

He should be commended for insisting on tougher climate targets and fighting for a green investment bank - but his department's incompetent handling of solar cuts has put 29,000 jobs at risk.

The new energy secretary must stand firm against George Osborne's anti-green agenda and make the case that protecting our environment ns a way to boost not hinder our economic recovery.

12.15pm: Huhne has written a rather more expansive letter to Nick Clegg, his party leader, in which he says: "It has been a privilege to serve with you in the first group of Liberal ministers in a British government since 1945".

"The Liberal Democrats under your leadership are playing an essential role in ensuring the coalition government reflects liberal values at home and abroad."

Clegg's reply is here. He writes: "I fully understand your decision to stand down from government in order to clear your name but I hope you will be able to do so rapidly so that you can return to play a key role in government as soon as possible."

12.09pm: Cameron's letter of reply to Huhne says he has "made the right decision under the circumstances".

He adds: "Like the deputy prime minister, I am sorry to see you leave the government under these circumstances and wish you well for the future."
The full text is here.

11.58am: A quick summary of events so far:

o Chris Huhne has resigned as energy and climate change secretary, after the director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer announced he would be charged with perverting the course of justice.

o Vicky Pryce, Huhne's estranged wife, has also been charged with the same offence. The charges relate to an incident in 2003 when, it is alleged, Huhne persuaded his wife to accept a speeding penalty on his behalf.

o In a statement, Huhne continued vigorously to deny the charge, but said that "to avoid any distraction to my official duties or my trial defence" he was standing down from his post.

o Lib Dem sources say Ed Davey, the business minister, will be promoted to the department of energy and climate change as secretary of state, with Norman Lamb, the parliamentary aide to Nick Clegg, taking Davey's post.

11.50am: The full text of Huhne's resignation letter to David Cameron (pdf):

This letter is to submit with much regret my resignation as energy and climate change secretary.

I intend to mount a robust defence against the charges brought against me, and I have concluded that it would be distracting both to that effort and to my official duties if I were to continue in office.

It has been an honour to negotiate and then serve in the first coalition government of modern times which has substantial achievements both in reducing the economic dangers faced by our country, and in making progress with policies to tackle climate change and provide energy security.

Internationally, we have helped to build a coalition of ambitious countries in Europe and beyond to put the United Nations process back on track.

It has been a privilege to be a minister in the coalition government, and I wish the administration every success with the environmental and economic challenges that lie ahead.

11.40am: Huhne will be entitled to a severance payment of more than £17,000 after resigning, PA is reporting.

"Under the 1991 Ministerial and Other Pensions and Salaries Act, the Liberal Democrat is allowed three months worth of his £68,827 annual ministerial pay, the Cabinet Office said.

That entitles Mr Huhne to £17,207, if he chooses to accept it."

11.29am: My colleague Rajeev Syal in Westminster has more on the historical context of the resignation.

According to the reference book British Political Facts by David Butler and Gareth Butler, not a single cabinet minister has resigned as a result of being charged with a serious criminal offence since
modern records began in 1903.

A junior minister resigned in November 1958 after being charged with gross indecency. Lt Colonel Ian Harvey, who was the parliamentary under-Secretary of state at the Foreign Office, was charged with gross indecency after being found with a member of the Coldstream Guards in the bushes in St James's Park.

When apprehended, Harvey tried but failed to escape, and attempted to give a false name on arrest. Both men were charged with gross indecency and breach of the park regulations. When tried on 10 December, the indecency charge was dropped and both were fined £5.

Bloomberg has interviewed Philip Cowley, professor of politics at Nottingham University, who said: "I can't think of a comparable case in British politics where a cabinet minister is charged by the police for an offence for which they potentially face jail if convicted.

11.26am: Here is Huhne's resignation letter (pdf).

10.57am: While some have remarked on the DPP's decision to give a press conference about the charges, Sandra Laville writes,

Statements live to camera are not as unusual as [some] think. Ken McDonald [Starmer's predecessor] made a statement live to camera on the death of Alexander Litvinkenko.

Sue Hemmings, the CPS lead on terror cases, made a live statement with the then head of counter-terrorism, Peter Clark, over the airline bomb plot, and on a regional level, prosecutors also make live statements.

10.53am: HUHNE HAS RESIGNED.

Here is his statement, which he has just made in person outside his London flat.

The CPS's decision today is deeply regrettable.

I am innocent of these charges and I intend to fight them in the courts and I am confident a jury will agree. To avoid any distraction to my official duties or my trial defence I am standing down as secretary of state for energy and climate change.

I will of course continue to serve my constituents in Eastleigh.

10.51am: A little from Sandra Laville on what happens next in the case.

Huhne and Pryce have been summonsed to attend magistrates court on 16 February when the charges will be put to them.

It is likely the case will then be adjourned and the pair will probably be bailed to return at a later date. It is likely that pleas will be taken at a later date - and then there will be a further adjournment to prepare for a trial in a crown court.

The maximum penalty for perverting the course of justice is life, but those found guilty can also be given a fine.

10.48am: Some LibDem reaction coming in. Benjamin Lamm, editor of the Liberal, has issued a statement in which he says:

This is a major loss for the Lib Dems in coalition. Perhaps the greatest success for the party in government has been securing the UK pledge to cut carbon emissions in half by 2025 - a move strongly opposed by many in the Conservative parliamentary party. Environmental issues remain a priority for Lib Dem members and activists.

Chris Huhne will fight for his reputation and to restore his role as a frontline politician. He is savvy and highly intelligent, capable of corralling support among the party's grassroots, and potentially destabilising the leadership (see: 'Calamity Clegg').

With Simon Hughes co-opted by the cabinet - despite not being a minister - and left-leaning Tim Farron bound to loyalty by his role as party president, Huhne may yet become a figurehead for the dissenting grassroots.

10.39am: Vicky Pryce has issued the following brief sta]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2012/feb/03/chris-huhne-speeding-penalty-energy-secretary-live-updates http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/interactive/2012/feb/03/david-cameron-huhne-resignation-letter David Cameron's reply to Chris Huhne's resignation letter

The changes proposed by the Lords go some way to securing a sustainable health service, safeguarded from marketisation

The government's proposed amendments to the health and social care bill prior to the report stage, which begins on 8 February, represent a major concession, the outcome of efforts by representatives of all parties and the crossbenchers in the Lords.

The original amendment on the secretary of state's powers and accountability was tabled last year by Lady Margaret Jay, chair of the Lords constitution committee, and me (I began the campaign to restore the constitutional authority of the secretary of state in spring 2010, with the support of the Liberal Democrat spring conference). Lord Mackay of Clashfern, the former Conservative lord chancellor, had tabled a separate amendment on the accountability of the secretary of state to parliament for the health service. The government negotiated with peers of all parties and the crossbenches.

We have managed to persuade the government that the secretary of state must continue to be fully accountable to parliament and to the public for a universal, comprehensive health service free at the point of need, and that clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) must be accountable to the secretary of state in fulfilling this duty. The clause in the bill on autonomy has also been fundamentally changed. The autonomy of providers will now be subsidiary to the overriding duty of the secretary of state. Alternatively, there may be amendments to eliminate clause 4 altogether.

A further crossbench amendment requires the secretary of state, in exercising functions in relation to the health service to have regard to the NHS constitution.

What these constitutional amendments add up to is a cross-party agreement that the comprehensive health service will continue, a solid foundation for the health service after the upheavals and uncertainties of recent years.

Other changes already conceded by the government include the role of Monitor, which has been changed from the pursuit of competition to acting in the interest of patients, and will now have to ensure that competition in the health service is limited entirely to competition on quality and not on price. Monitor will also now be responsible for making sure that every foundation hospital must use any profit made from income from private patients for the benefit of NHS patients.

At report stage, further significant amendments will be tabled. Liberal Democrat amendments would require the National Commissioning Board and the clinical care groups to ensure that no one is left out of comprehensive healthcare, including homeless people, travellers and other vulnerable groups.

Other amendments we are putting forward promote transparency in the health service by making sure that anyone responsible for commissioning or providing healthcare services is legally obliged to declare any material interest to prevent any conflict of interest.

We also want a health service based on quality not price, and so we have proposed changes to the bill designed to limit the application of competition law. In certain circumstances, competition based on quality not price can encourage innovation and best practice. We propose that CCGs must ensure that the interests of patients are always paramount in their commissioning decisions. These changes include enshrining in law that provision of healthcare is a "service of general economic interest".

We propose to remove the Competition Commission as the adjudicator of Monitor and the body responsible for reviews.

We also seek a requirement on each provider of healthcare services to co-operate with other providers of health and social care services and other services which contribute to patient wellbeing.

Working with the crossbenchers in particular, Phil Willis and others have secured commitments from the government on future research, medical education and training.

We will also seek to maintain Monitor as the regulator of foundation trusts beyond 2016, thereby minimising the threat that foundation trusts would be deemed "undertakings" and be open to the applications of EU competition policy.

We believe these changes uphold Liberal Democrat aims of securing a comprehensive and sustainable health service. Our proposed amendments also aim to safeguard the NHS from the loopholes left in Labour's 2006 and 2008 legislation, which left the health service open to marketisation.

o Follow Comment is free on Twitter @commentisfree

The capital's polluted atmosphere is an issue that must not be sidelined in the mayoral contest. Plus the Guardian on London and buglary in Stoke Newington

The Campaign for Clean Air in London has launched a London elections manifesto. I quote:

Clean Air in London calls on all the Mayoral candidates to promise in their manifestos to end the biggest public health crisis for decades. We need a Mayor who will: lead the fight to improve London's air; clean up London's transport; build a low emission city; protect the most vulnerable; and ensure a legacy from the Olympic Games. Clean Air in London intends to rank Mayoral candidates on their commitment to measures in this manifesto before the Mayoral election.

We need more of this kind of thing: scrutinising and ranking candidates' polices on individual issues is much better way of getting their measure than judging a mud-slinging contest.

Which of the four main candidates - Ken, Boris, Jenny and Brian - will produce the most persuasive policy in this area? The clean air campaign - CAL for short - has been critical of Boris's record. Ken hasn't said a great deal about the subject so far, though environmentalists will undoubtedly be expecting him to trump his Tory rival. The influential Liberal Democrat London Assembly member Mike Tuffrey has long argued for the introduction of a central London clean air zone. Will Brian do the same? As for Jenny, it would be a surprise if a Green Party candidate didn't produce the boldest prescription of all.

The air pollution issue shouldn't be forgotten amid the two front-runners' headline trench war over fares and budgetary competence. Read CAL's full manifesto here.

The Guardian on London
Jenny Jones: Safety comes first if we want a cycling revolution

The politics of cycling safety

London slow to become the 'electric car capital of Europe'

London 2012: campaign seeks to cut commuter numbers during Games

Why Boris Johnson talks down fears of Olympics 'transport chaos'

Union leaders reject £500 Olympics deal for tube staff

Ken Livingstone ahead on points in fight for London voters

Ken Livingstone: It's policies that matter this time, not personalities

London mayoral race: policy rainbows

Silicon London is first choice of base for Google, Facebook and others

Boris Johnson's council tax cut is tiny but ushers in a big campaign attack

Ministers accused of 'negligence' for ruling out third Heathrow runway

Turnpike Lane shooting: victim was targeted in his car, say police

Spurs set to redevelop White Hart Lane after council deal

Photographers' Gallery to reopen in May after £8.9m facelift

Real-life Charles Dickens characters traced

London blogosphere
From Londonist:

Stoke Newington has come top of a list of national burglary hotspots, according to a financial comparison website. The site looked at 3m quotes for home insurance made over a year and found that 33.6% of applicants living in N16 declared a previous claim for theft.

This could mean various things: maybe Stokey residents are more honest and own up to previous incidents, or it shows that people who have had a burglary are more likely to need to switch insurers (bye bye to the no claims discount that made your old policy so cheap) or maybe, indeed, the mung bean capital of North London is thief heaven.

It's a more thorough analysis than mine, which is that in Stokey a lot of middle-class people who aren't put off by complex claim forms and a lot of crooks live cheek by jowl. Read the rest. You get a funny film clip too.

Coming up
Expect further bad-tempered exchanges over Boris's budget on Thursday, following his announcement of a very, very small yet deeply symbolic cut in his portion of council tax. That and the rest of the week's London Assembly public meetings are listed here. I'll be blogging and tweeting. Keep in touch.

Energy secretary and his ex-wife will be charged for allegedly trying to avoid speeding penalty, CPS confirms

10.57am: While some have remarked on the DPP's decision to give a press conference about the charges, Sandra Laville writes,

Statements live to camera are not as unusual as [some] think. Ken McDonald [Starmer's predecessor] made a statement live to camera on the death of Alexander Litvinkenko.

Sue Hemmings, the CPS lead on terror cases, made a live statement with the then head of counter-terrorism, Peter Clark, over the airline bomb plot, and on a regional level, prosecutors also make live statements.

10.53am: HUHNE HAS RESIGNED.

Here is his statement, which he has just made in person outside his London flat.

The CPS's decision today is deeply regrettable.

I am innocent of these charges and I intend to fight them in the courts and I am confident a jury will agree. To avoid any distraction to my official duties or my trial defence I am standing down as secretary of state for energy and climate change.

I will of course continue to serve my constituents in Eastleigh.

10.51am: A little from Sandra Laville on what happens next in the case.

Huhne and Pryce have been summonsed to attend magistrates court on 16 February when the charges will be put to them.

It is likely the case will then be adjourned and the pair will probably be bailed to return at a later date. It is likely that pleas will be taken at a later date - and then there will be a further adjournment to prepare for a trial in a crown court.

The maximum penalty for perverting the course of justice is life, but those found guilty can also be given a fine.

10.48am: Some LibDem reaction coming in. Benjamin Lamm, editor of the Liberal, has issued a statement in which he says:

This is a major loss for the Lib Dems in coalition. Perhaps the greatest success for the party in government has been securing the UK pledge to cut carbon emissions in half by 2025 - a move strongly opposed by many in the Conservative parliamentary party. Environmental issues remain a priority for Lib Dem members and activists.

Chris Huhne will fight for his reputation and to restore his role as a frontline politician. He is savvy and highly intelligent, capable of corralling support among the party's grassroots, and potentially destabilising the leadership (see: 'Calamity Clegg').

With Simon Hughes co-opted by the cabinet - despite not being a minister - and left-leaning Tim Farron bound to loyalty by his role as party president, Huhne may yet become a figurehead for the dissenting grassroots.

10.39am: Vicky Pryce has issued the following brief statement via her lawyers:

As the CPS have decided to prosecute it would not be appropriate to comment further at this stage.

Obviously I hope for a quick resolution of the case. In the meantime I will be taking a little time off over the next few days to be with my family.

10.30am:
According to Patrick Wintour at Westminster, Lib Dem sources say Ed Davey, the business minister, will be promoted to the department of energy and climate change as secretary of state, with Norman Lamb, the parliamentary aide to Nick Clegg, taking Davey's post.

Huhne, meanwhile, is expected shortly to announce he is resigning from the government, making an statement outside his flat in central London. He had considered whether it was possible to remain in cabinet to fight his innocence in court, but he recognises this is not tenable.

Huhne's departure weakens the climate change lobby, Patrick writes

Since he has been willing to fight the Treasury hard over a range of issues.
If he is found innocent in the court case, something that could take many months, he will have to decide the kind of role he plays inside his party.

An economist and political pugilist, he could take the helm of the Social Liberal Forum, the group that is pushing a more leftist agenda inside the party, but both Huhne and the SLF will think carefully about a figure facing a criminal charge leading a political faction at this stage.

Pryce is a leading economist and has acted as an occasional informal adviser to the business secretary, Vince Cable. She was at one point the chief economist at the Business Department, but now faces the charge of perverting the course of justice.

She will be considering whether it was in her long term family interest to co-operate with the Sunday Times to make the allegation that she had taken points on behalf of her husband.

10.22am: The statement in full from Starmer.

This statement is made by the Crown Prosecution Service in the interests of transparency and accountability to explain the decisions reached in the cases of Mr Christopher Huhne and Ms Vasiliki Pryce and to explain the time taken in arriving at these decisions.

A criminal complaint was made to Essex police in May 2011, alleging that Ms Pryce had accepted responsibility for a speeding offence committed by Mr Huhne in 2003. That complaint was investigated by Essex Police and a file was passed to the CPS in late July 2011.

The CPS advised that further investigations should be made, including obtaining certain material from a national newspaper. Those further investigations were made and, in October 2011, an order was made for the newspaper to produce material to the police. The newspaper appealed that order, as it was entitled to do, but subsequently consented to producing the material in question just before the appeal was due to be heard, on 20 January this year.

All the available evidence, including the new material, has now been carefully considered by the CPS and we have concluded that there is sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against Mr Huhne and Ms Pryce for perverting the course of justice.

The essence of the charges is that between March and May 2003, Mr Huhne, having allegedly committed a speeding offence, falsely informed the investigating authorities that Ms Pryce had been the driver of the vehicle in question, and she falsely accepted that she was the driver.

Accordingly, summonses against both Mr Huhne and Ms Pryce have been obtained from Westminster magistrates' court and those summonses will now be served on them. They are due to appear in court on 16 February this year.

The decision in this case was taken by Mr Rene Barclay, a senior and very experienced prosecutor, in consultation with Sue Hemming, the Head of special crime division and in consultation with me as DPP.

Can I remind all concerned that Mr Huhne and Ms Pryce now stand charged with criminal offences and that they each have a right to a fair trial. It is very important that nothing is said, or reported, which could prejudice their trial.

10.18am: Political journalists are gathering outside a venue in Eastbourne, where the Lib Dems have been holding a retreat, hosted by Nick Clegg.

Huhne left the away day yesterday when he learned an announcement on the potential charges was imminent.

No formal statements yet from Huhne, Clegg or Cameron.

10.05am: Huhne will be charged, Starmer confirms.

Starmer: "We have concluded that there is sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against both Mr Huhne and Miss Pryce for perverting the course of justice."

Both Pryce and Huhne are to appear in court on 16 February. Huhne is now expected to leave the cabinet.

Starmer said:

All the available evidence, including the new material, has now been carefully considered by the CPS and we have concluded that there is sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against Mr Huhne and Ms Pryce for perverting the course of justice.

"The essence of the charges is that between March and May 2003, Mr Huhne, having allegedly committed a speeding offence, falsely informed the investigating authorities that Ms Pryce had been the driver of the vehicle in question, and she falsely accepted that she was the driver.

Mr Huhne and Ms Pryce now stand charged with criminal offences and that they each have a right to a fair trial. It is very important that nothing is said or reported that could prejudice their right to a fair trial.

10.03am: Keir Starmer is speaking now.

He says the statement is being made "in the interests of transparency and accountability".

Starmer has become the DPP who gives his decision live on camera. It is part of the Crown Prosecution Service's move to be more open about the decision-making processes lawyers go through to reach their judgment to charge or not to charge.

CPS lawyers had a full file of evidence by the end of August last year. What held up a decision was the legal battle with the Sunday Times over emails held by their political editor Isabel Oakeshott.

The police were granted a production order but appealed the decision through the courts and it was not until two weeks ago that]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2012/feb/03/chris-huhne-speeding-penalty-energy-secretary-live-updates http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/03/chris-huhne-expected-resign-charges-speeding

The energy secretary faces prosecution over claims his ex-wife took his speeding points on her licence in 2003

Chris Huhne has resigned as energy secretary after the director of public prosecutions announced he would face a criminal charge in connection with allegedly dodging a speeding offence.

In a televised announcement, Keir Starmer said Huhne's ex-wife, Vicky Pryce, would also be prosecuted over allegations she took speeding penalty points on his behalf in 2003.

Huhne is to be charged with perverting the course of justice, Starmer said. Huhne said the decision to charge him was "deeply regrettable" and he insisted: "I am innocent of these charges and I intend to fight this in the courts."

Pryce, who divorced Huhne in January last year, will be prosecuted for allegedly perverting the course of justice. Huhne and Pryce were told of the decision an hour before Starmer made his announcement.

They are due to appear before Westminster magistrates court on 16 February.

Pryce said in a statement released by her lawyers: "As the CPS have decided to prosecute it would not be appropriate to comment further at this stage. Obviously I hope for a quick resolution of the case. In the meantime I will be taking a little time off over the next few days to be with my family."

Huhne travelled from a Lib Dem awayday in Eastbourne on Thursday and was in London at the time Starmer made the announcement at 10am.

The decision will spark a cabinet reshuffle. It is the second enforced departure of a Liberal Democrat minister since the coalition came to power. David Laws resigned as Treasury chief secretary over expenses allegations.

Huhne had made it known he felt it necessary to resign because the battle to clear his name would be too much of a distraction to continue in office.

The charge relates to a speeding offence committed on 12 March 2003. Essex police have been investigating whether Huhne asked Pryce to take the points on her licence on his behalf.

The alleged offence is said to have taken place while Huhne was driving back from Stansted airport after flying in from the European parliament, where he was an MEP at the time. Since he already had points on his licence, Huhne would have faced a driving ban had any further penalties been imposed, it is alleged.

Last week, Essex police - who began their inquiry in May last year - took possession of emails and other material from the Sunday Times, who published an interview with Pryce, a successful economist, in which she first made the allegations.

Detectives also have access to a tape in which Pryce allegedly discusses the issue with Huhne.

The former energy secretary left Pryce, his wife of 27 years, in 2010 for Carina Trimingham.

Energy and climate change secretary has faced a turbulent scene since taking over

Soaring energy bills, falling investment in green energy, rising fuel poverty, the impact of the Fukushima nuclear accident, fractious climate change negotiations, veiled attacks from the chancellor - even without the tumult in his personal life, Chris Huhne has faced a turbulent scene since taking over as energy and climate change secretary, one of the most senior cabinet roles taken by the junior partners in the coalition.

But the suave Huhne won plaudits from many in the green movement who saw him fight for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) against sceptics in the Treasury and secure vital funds for key projects despite dismal government finances.

"Most greens think he has done well," said Bryony Worthington, an environmental campaigner. "He has held his own in the battles against the Treasury, secured funding for renewable heat and the green investment bank, and he has been very approachable, which is a good thing in a cabinet minister."

Andrew Raingold, of the Aldersgate Group of businesses with an interest in greening the economy, said: "His biggest success has been winning the argument with cabinet colleagues on the fourth carbon budget [which strengthened the UK's carbon-cutting targets up to 2027] - demonstrating that ambitious carbon cuts through the 2020s can benefit both the environment and the economy. He has also managed to get major concessions from the Treasury regarding the green investment bank, ensuring that it will have £3bn in initial funding in spite of severe fiscal constraints."

Huhne has also won plaudits for his performances abroad, both in Europe, where he has attempted to build a coalition of member states to push for a toughening of EU-wide carbon targets, and in the long-running international climate change negotiations where he helped to broker a surprise global deal at the end of last year's talks in Durban.

Margaret Ounsley, head of public affairs at WWF-UK, said: "Chris Huhne understands the very complex issue of climate change, and his negotiating skills were key in helping to get the climate change talks back on track."

Some of the problems Huhne has faced were not of his own making - energy bills rose largely on the back of international gas prices, the Fukushima accident sent the global nuclear industry into a spin, and outright hostility to green policies from the rightwing media was stoked by the chancellor's public statements scorning green taxes.

But there have also been several own goals: Decc pursued a damaging policy U-turn over renewable energy through the courts, to be defeated when its slashing of feed-in tariffs for solar power was ruled unlawful, and the flagship "green deal" policy to encourage the take-up of insulation and other low-carbon technologies has been derided by many experts as too weak.

Andrew Simms, fellow at the New Economics Foundation, said: "A major failure was allowing George Osborne to set such a medieval tone for environmental policy - possibly the most regressive proclamation by such a senior figure for decades. The green deal is pitifully small, and Huhne must take some responsibility for the feed-in tariffs fiasco."

Clare McNeil, senior research fellow at IPPR, added: "Electricity market reform was a big missed opportunity, as he could have taken a much firmer stance on the issue of competition [among the big six energy suppliers]."

Craig Bennett, director of policy at Friends of the Earth, said: "Leaving consumers to compare energy tariffs as a way to tackle soaring bills is woefully inadequate. What we really need is decisive action from government to get us off the hook of expensive fossil fuels and invest in clean British energy instead."

It was not just solar power businesses, complaining of thousands of jobs lost and millions of pounds of investment forgone when the feed-in tariffs were slashed last year, who criticised Decc under Huhne's leadership. His push for a toughening of the EU emissions-cutting target, from 20% to 30% by 2020, drew the ire of some, and the government angered many companies when it reformed a key policy, the carbon reduction commitment, so that the money raised from it flowed to the Treasury rather than returning to businesses.

Praise from some sections of business was lukewarm. Neil Bentley, deputy director general of the CBI employers' organisation, said: "Chris Huhne has led some significant long-term policies to help shift the UK to a low-carbon economy, such as the green deal and reform of the electricity markets. But other short-term decisions, like those on the carbon reduction commitment and solar feed-in tariffs, have caused greater uncertainty among businesses and investors."

David Porter of the Association of Electricity Producers added: "At first I was concerned about his past position on nuclear power [which the Lib Dems opposed before the coalition], but in office he seemed to cope with that and help bring [nuclear power] forward."

But Gareth Stacey, of manufacturers' organisation EEF, said Decc under Huhne was "very interested in working together with industries and manufacturers in partnership to achieve its aims", which he said was positive. He said: "What we'd like to see is Decc taking a more strategic approach to further developing the policies within its portfolio rather than use a sticking-plaster approach."

Huhne's successor cannot expect a much easier ride. Probably the biggest difficulty he or she will face is the increasingly vociferous campaigning from sections of the media and free-market thinktanks against policies to encourage green growth, such as renewable energy subsidies and levies on carbon. Claims that green taxes could add thousands of pounds to energy bills by 2020 were refuted by the government, which argues that its analysis shows rising oil and gas prices will mean consumers see a net gain.

But Simon Less, head of environment and energy at the thinktank Policy Exchange, laid out his challenge for the new minister. "Huhne oversaw the dismantling of the competitive electricity market - a UK policy success emulated across the world - through the ill-thought-through electricity market reform and failed to challenge Labour's hugely and unnecessarily expensive approach to reducing carbon emissions through an excessive focus on deploying very high cost renewable technologies (offshore wind), squandering resources which could be much better spent delivering lower cost short-term carbon reduction and doing more to stimulate low-carbon innovation for the longer term," he said.

"The next secretary of state for energy comes in time to alter course to reshape energy policy [by] reining back unnecessary costs while delivering more to mitigate climate change, and stopping the slide back to a risky and costly world of central planning the electricity system."

Sir Philip Hampton admits taxpayer-owned bank underestimated scale of public reaction to award of 3.6m shares to chief executive - which he has since waived

Royal Bank of Scotland's chairman has defended the near-£1m bonus awarded to its chief executive Stephen Hester by insisting he was doing a "great job" and paid less than his peers.

Sir Philip Hampton admitted the bank had underestimated the scale of the public reaction to the award of 3.6m shares to Hester - which he has since waived - but said the decision to award the bonus had been made earlier than usual in an effort to avert speculation about the size of the payout.

"I understand the concern about pay," Hampton said on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, acknowledging that the chief executive's pay was "high". But he said Hester "has one of the most challenging demanding jobs in the world of business".

Hester was parachuted in to run RBS after its taxpayer bailout - which eventually amounted to £45bn - in October 2008, a year in which it reported the biggest loss in British corporate history, of £24bn.

Hampton acknowledged that bankers' pay in general was an issue that needed to tackled.

"Pay has been high for too long ... particularly in the banks, particularly in the investment banks, shareholders have done pretty badly and employees have done pretty well certainly over the last 10 years," said Hampton.

"That needs to be corrected. It actually isn't a society or fairness issue, it's a straightforward business issue. Too much of the money has not been going to the right place," he added.

"I recognise absolutely that some of the pay levels are very high, very difficult for people to understand, but by the standards of this market they are not high."

The RBS chairman, who has also waived a potential payout of shares worth £1.5m, said: "It was certainly my decision that Stephen Hester should get his bonus."

"I think it's true that we underestimated the scale of the public reaction to the bonus award," added Hampton.

Hester - described by Hampton as a "tough character ... extremely able chap" - waived the award of shares late on Sunday night after a weekend of political pressure and a move by Labour to call a parliamentary vote on the matter. RBS is now facing the prospect of paying out bonuses to its investment bankers, from an estimated bonus pool of £500m, at the same time that three-year bonus deals also fall due. The head of the investment bank, John Hourican, is in line for as many as 21.3m shares - worth around £5m.

Hampton also insisted the board had never threatened to resign but he admitted the bank was a "very strange beast" - stock market-listed but yet 82% owned by the taxpayer. "Nobody would set out to design a business of that nature. It's a difficult construct to manage," he said.

Hampton said the aim was to get bank "absolutely safe and sound and back on the public markets".

"Every penny on the share price is £900m on the market capitalisation. Stephen Hester and his team are doing a great job," Hampton said. At the current share price, the taxpayer is losing around £25bn on its stake.

Energy secretary learns whether he will face charges over allegations he avoided speeding penalty

9.20am: Good morning. The energy secretary, Chris Huhne, will learn this morning whether he will face charges over allegations he avoided a speeding penalty.

Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, will make a televised announcement at 10am on whether Huhne and his former wife, Vicky Pryce, are to be prosecuted.

Huhne has insisted he is innocent of allegations he had persuaded Pryce to accept penalty points for speeding, in an incident in March 2003.

He has indicated, however, that he would resign his cabinet post if charged, while battling to clear his name.

Patrick Wintour writes today that the Prime Minister has been drawing up plans for a cabinet reshuffle should Huhne step down. Before Starmer's announcement is made, the cabinet secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, will be told, to give the civil service time to finalise contingency plans for a reshuffle, Patrick writes. Last night Cameron was rearranging a regional tour to be able to take swift decisions.

Sandra Laville has more on the background to the police investigation here.

We'll be following developments and reaction here.

.

They could be just the thing for the north according to Michael Heseltine. And we should listen with respect to the man who gave us the regional offices of government. Sam Sims of the Institute of Government makes the mayoral case.

Mayors offer big benefits for Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield, but the bigger prize on offer to the cities of West Yorkshire this year is serious devolution to a proper, city regional government.

If the Yorkshire Post is to be believed then the people of Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield are not particularly animated by the idea of directly electing their political leaders. A recent editorial begged somebody, indeed anybody, to set up a yes (or no) campaign so that the cities could have a proper debate before the May referendum arrives.

The people of Kirklees, which neighbours both Leeds and Wakefield. held a referendum on having an elected mayor in 2001. An overwhelming 73% voted no. Neighbouring Doncaster voted yes in the same year but the mayor has a terrible reputation and hasn't managed to turn around the council, which has been performing poorly since well before his arrival.

This is unfortunate, since directly elected mayors offer several advantages over the current system. Mayors are more directly accountable than council leaders. Outside of Keith Wakefield's ward, the other 97% of Leeds voters never have, and never will, get a chance to vote for or against the leader of Leeds council. And mayors are more visible too: a poll for the New Local Government Network found that only 25% of those asked could actually name their council leader. In areas with a mayor this more than doubled, to 57%.

Mayors are better able to take tough decisions in the interest of their cities. Their four year term of office (council leaders can be, and regularly are, removed at any point) helps them stay focused on the big, strategic priorities. Mayors city-wide mandate incentivise them to resist NIMBY opposition to crucial infrastructure development. For councillors, the pressure to oppose any development in their particular ward can be overwhelming.

Mayors also have greater influence and soft power, and are better able to represent and negotiate on behalf of their cities. Michael Heseltine recently warned that unless northern cities acquire strong, visible leaders they will find themselves financially squeezed between a vocal First Minister in Scotland and an equally demanding mayor in London. IPPR North research highlights the north is already failing to obtain its fair share of infrastructure funding.

Lastly, mayors increase the talent pool for city leadership. With direct election local business hotshots and respected voluntary sector leaders will have a fighting chance of leading Leeds, Wakefield or Bradford.

But even if there is a NO vote in May, all is not lost. The biggest prize currently on offer for the area is in fact city-region governance. The new City Deals announced by Nick Clegg and Greg Clarke mean that a robustly governed city-regional authority could attract serious devolution of powers from Whitehall. This could give the Leeds City Region additional powers over transport, skills, local spending, taxes and perhaps, culture and allow it shape its own economic destiny. The area covered by the Leeds City Region, with its multiple big cities, centred round the Leeds transport hub, already behaves like a city region; it just isn't governed like one.

Regional cooperation in the area has, however, always been a case of close-but-no-cigar. West Yorkshire has an Integrated Transport Authority but lack of agreement meant that it doesn't include York and thus falls short of the natural economic area. Greater Leeds was also awarded pilot City Region Status but has failed thus far to capitalise on this with a serious Manchester-style Combined Authority. The potential gain from acquiring powers to invest in the transport network and skills provision is hard to underestimate. The question is: will the city region fulfil their side of the 'deal' and put in place the robust , highly accountable, city-regional governance arrangements that are the precondition for devolution?

Sam Sims is a researcher at the Institute for Government

It seemed to be a great big yawn. But the notion that individuals might bang the local drum more effectively than cabinets or committees is showing signs of catching on. The Guardian Northerner's political columnist Ed Jacobs ponders...

The 3rd of May 2012. Ring any bells?

No? Well it's the date the Government has set for a referendums on whether some of the country's largest cities want to see the establishment of Boris Johnson-style elected Mayors. Included will be Bradford, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and Wakefield. If voters say yes, then Mayors will formally be elected on 15th November.

Given the lack of any major campaigns so far, my guess is that readers of this blog are not exactly filled with a sense of burning excitement and anticipation about the proposal, although I stand ready to be corrected.

If that is your position, however,consider this - on many occasions those who have commented on this column have complained, fairly or otherwise, that the Government simply doesn't 'get' the north - that a Government full of MPs representing affluent areas of the South seems to be ignoring the needs of Yorkshire, the North East and the North West.

With the Minister for Decentralisation, Greg Clark having declared that elected mayors "provide cities with the strong, visible leadership that can help them prosper nationally and internationally" could they be a revolution in local democracy?

Just imagine having strong directly elected figures from the North's major cities, able to bang the drum for the needs of the communities they serve; able to embody and articulate both our hopes and concerns. With Salford having already said yes to the idea and the Labour Leader of Wakefield Council, Peter Box, having declared his intention to stand to be Mayor if Wakefield says it wants one, the contest seems to be hotting up.

But is this all just an obsession among the political hacks that the public simply aren't engaging in? In Salford, the turnout was just over 18% whilst the Yorkshire Post has described apathy across the region towards the idea of a Mayor. Indeed, even members of the governing coalition have issues with the idea. Take David Ward for example. The Lib Dem MP for Bradford East told his local paper, the Telegraph and Argus, last year:

My view on elected mayors is very clear. The issue of the government of a local authority should be for elected members of that local authority to determine.

In a guest article for the Guardian Northerner today, posted immediately after this one, Sam Simms of the Institute for Government makes the case for elected Mayors, declaring them to be "better able to represent and negotiate on behalf of their cities" and in the process best placed to improve prospects for economic growth for the UK's major cities.

But what do you think?

Are elected Mayors a revolution in local democracy? Are they likely to improve the prospects for the North's major cities? If you're in an area having a referendum in May, have you seen any visible evidence of campaigns either for or against their introduction?

Ed Jacobs is a political consultant at the Leeds-based Public Affairs Company and devolution correspondent for the centre-left political and policy blog, Left Foot Forward.

Share breaking news, leave links to interesting articles online and chat about the week's events in this open thread

I'm not writing my Politics Live blog today but, as an alternative, here's Politics Live: the readers' edition. It's intended to be a place where you can catch up with the latest news and find links to good politics blogs and articles on the web.

Please feel free to use this as somewhere you can comment on any of the day's political stories - just as you do when I'm writing the daily blog.

But it would be particularly useful for readers to flag up new material in the comments - breaking news or blogposts or tweets that are worth passing on because someone is going to find them interesting. A lot of what I do on my blog is aggregation - finding the good stuff and passing it on - and you can do this, too (as I know, because it happens every day when I'm blogging).

All today's Guardian politics stories are here, and all the politics stories filed yesterday, including some in today's paper, are here.

UK's largest medical college says the health and social care bill will 'damage patient care and jeopardise the NHS'

The UK's largest medical royal college has called for the prime minister to scrap the health and social care bill, branding it "damaging, unnecessary and expensive".

The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) has written to David Cameron following the tabling of amendments to the controversial bill in the House of Lords this week.

They said that despite the amendments, they believed the planned reform would "cause irreparable damage to patient care and jeopardise the NHS".

The RCGP chairwoman, Dr Clare Gerada, said: "This decision was not taken lightly, but it is clear that the college has been left with no alternative.

"We have taken every opportunity to negotiate changes for the good of our patients and for the continued stability of the NHS, yet while the government has claimed that it has made widespread concessions, our view is that the amendments have created greater confusion.

"We remain unconvinced that the bill will improve the care and services we provide to our patients."

The college, which represents more than 44,000 family doctors, said that three-quarters of respondents to a recent poll said they thought it appropriate to seek the withdrawal of the bill.

They wrote to the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, to voice the concerns of their members but decided to take action after receiving his response, and following the government's tabling of amendments on Wednesday.

Gerada said: "Our position has not changed, and the concerns we expressed when this bill was at the white paper stage 18 months ago have still not been satisfactorily addressed.

"Competition and the opening up our of health service to any qualified providers will lead not only to fragmentation of care, but also potentially to a 'two-tier' system with access to care defined by a patient's ability to pay."

The 20 colleges that make up the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges have been divided over the strength of the stance they should take against the bill.

Those opposing it include the Royal College of Radiologists, which said it had "grave concerns", and the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which called the bill "fundamentally flawed".

The British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Midwives have also called for the bill to be withdrawn.

The government has been criticised for failing to allay fears over an increased role for private companies in running the NHS.

A critical report from MPs on the health committee last month said the overhaul was hindering the ability of the NHS to make the savings it needs to safeguard its future.

One of the amendments laid out this week said the new NHS commissioning board and clinical commissioning groups run by GPs would have new responsibilities to support education and training. Both will also have to report annually on their progress in tackling health inequalities, together with the health secretary.

Lansley said the government had been "carefully listening" to opinions about the bill and that the series of amendments would "address these remaining issues".

Gerada added: "Our view is that what is required now is to rapidly consolidate the current organisational structure, such that PCT [primary care trust] clusters remain, with GPs placed as the majority of the board so that we may address the serious issues facing our NHS.

"There should be a debate as a matter of urgency to determine what the NHS can provide, how it should be funded, and how we deal with the major health and social care problems facing our population.

"We cannot sit back. Instead, we must once again raise our concerns in the hope that the prime minister will halt this damaging, unnecessary and expensive reorganisation, which, in our view, risks leaving the poorest and most vulnerable in society to bear the brunt."

She said the college could not support a bill that would "ultimately bring about the demise of a unified national health service".

Gerada told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "This bill is a burden. It makes no sense, it is incoherent to anybody other than the lawyers. It won't deal with the big issues that we have to deal with, such as the ageing population and dementia.

"It will result in a very expensive health service and it will also result in a health service that certainly will never match the health service that we have at the moment - or at least had 12 months ago."

She rejected ministers' claims that GPs were enthusiastic about the reforms: "GPs do want to be part of the planning of services for their patients - absolutely, we have never ever been critical of that.

"But that is one thing. Delivering it through this cumbersome bill is not what GPs want. Over 90% of my members surveyed last month wanted me to ask for withdrawal of the bill.

"It will turn the National Health Service into thousands of different health services, all competing for the same patients, the same knee, the same brain, the same heart.

"Patients will find their care will be fragmented, it will be on different sites, it won't join up, it will be difficult to hand over care and it will be phenomenally expensive to keep track of all these competing parts of the NHS."

Gerada said the NHS was currently "one of the cheapest health services to run and one of the fairest health services" in the world.

"There is absolutely no evidence that opening up the NHS to multiple private organisations is going to result in anything other than a fragmented, expensive and bureaucratic health service for all of us, and one that will be very difficult to sort out and put back into a coherent form," she said.

David Cameron planning cabinet reshuffle if the CPS decide to charge the energy secretary over speeding penalty points

David Cameron has been making contingency plans for a limited cabinet reshuffle as the Crown Prosecution Service disclosed that it will announceon Friday whether it will charge the energy secretary, Chris Huhne, over allegations he avoided a speeding penalty.

Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, will give his decision on Huhne, and his former wife, Vicky Pryce, in a televised announcement at 10am.

Huhne has let it be known that if he is prosecuted he will declare his innocence but resign his cabinet post to fight the case, admitting the battle to clear his name would be too much of a distraction to continue in office.

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, has made it clear his cabinet members must be seen to behave with the highest standards of probity.

Huhne was at a Lib Dem awayday in Eastbourne when he heard the news of the CPS announcement, and left to prepare himself at his London flat. He and Pryce will be told of the decision about an hour before it is announced publicly.

The cabinet secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, will be told, to give the civil service time to finalise contingency plans for a reshuffle. Cameron was rearranging a regional tour to be able to take swift decisions.

In an interview with Politics Home website released on Thursday night, Clegg said he did not know if Huhne would be prosecuted. He said: "I don't have a crystal ball. All I can tell you is that he has made it very clear to me privately and he's said it publicly that he denies any kind of wrongdoing."

Lib Dem sources insisted they had no insight into the CPS decision, but if Huhne is prosecuted, it will largely be for Clegg to tell Cameron who he would like to succeed Huhne.

It would be the second enforced departure of a Lib Dem from the cabinet since the coalition came to power. David Laws resigned as Treasury chief secretary over expenses allegations.

In his Politics Home interview Clegg praised Laws and said he would like him near the centre of power. "I'm not wildly hierarchical and David certainly isn't. It's one of the many things which I like so much about David, he's a sort of an unusual combination of being a politician but actually quite a modest character, which you don't find very often in politics. David is not after status."

But on Thursday night the party was indicating that Laws will not rejoin the government. Instead, he has adopted a backroom role for Clegg, fixing issues across the government.

If Huhne does resign, it will mean the loss of one of the party's heavy hitters, prepared to stand his ground in public against the Conservatives.

He has fought a rearguard action in Whitehall to keep green politics at the centre of government thinking at a time when the recession has made climate change a more difficult cause to sell.

Huhne has crossed swords with a succession of Tory cabinet ministers, including the chancellor, George Osborne, the Conservative co-chairman, Lady Warsi, and the home secretary, Theresa May.

Few tears will be shed in parts of Downing Street if he is prosecuted, even though Cameron is temperamentally opposed to reshuffles.

There has been repeated Conservative-led speculation that the business minister responsible for employment relations and the Post office, Ed Davey, would be given Huhne's job. Vince Cable, the business secretary and a former Shell economist, has been interested in the energy post in the past.

Since July, the CPS has been assessing evidence assembled by Essex police over whether Huhne asked his then wife to take speeding points on his behalf. The police began an investigation after claims emerged that Pryce had allegedly accepted speeding penalty points relating to an incident in 2003 that should have been given to her husband.

The alleged speeding offence is said to have taken place when Huhne was driving from Stansted airport after flying back from the European parliament, where he was an MEP at the time. If convicted of a speeding offence, he would have lost his licence.

Huhne, who left Pryce, a successful economist, for Carina Trimingham in 2010, has denied any wrongdoing.

Last month it was reported that Essex police had recommended that Huhne and Pryce be charged in the files they passed to the CPS.

It was reported that detectives believed they had given the CPS enough evidence to charge the energy secretary.

Police delivered an initial evidence file to the CPS in July, but a decision on charges was held up by legal proceedings in which the police attempted to obtain evidence from the Sunday Times.

Essex police obtained a production order to seize emails between Pryce and Isabel Oakeshott, the Sunday Times's political editor, but lawyers for the paper decided to seek a judicial review of the move.

Earlier this month, the newspaper dropped its challenge and said the production order would be complied with soon. It is understood police visited Oakeshott shortly after the hearing.

The CPS has to believe it has a more than 50% chance of conviction to proceed, and it has to be in the public interest to prosecute.

Police have already had access to a tape in which Pryce appears to discuss with Huhne the way in which he allegedly asked her to take the speeding points on.

Huhne has said he welcomed the police investigation as it would "draw a line under the matter". He and Pryce divorced in January last year.

Ed Lester's pay structure, said to save him tens of thousands a year, leads to review of tax affairs of top civil servants

The chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, is to be questioned by MPs on why the head of the Student Loans Company is being paid via a firm without tax being deducted.

An urgent question tabled by the Labour backbencher Nick Brown in the Commons demands "a statement on the government's policy on use of tax avoidance devices by government departments and public servants".

The SLC chief executive, Ed Lester, is said to be saving tens of thousands of pounds in tax by having his £182,000 salary paid gross to his private service company.

The Treasury has asked Whitehall to review all the tax affairs of top civil servants after the arrangement emerged.

Entered into in 2010, the arrangement was disclosed in a HM Revenue and Customs letter obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Exaro News and BBC's Newsnight programme. It may cause dismay among ministers if they are seen to have presided over a system in which senior civil servants have been able to minimise tax payments.

It is embarrassing specifically for the Treasury, which is committed to tackling tax avoidance and is planning to bring in a general tax avoidance rule in the budget.

The arrangement is also likely to be examined by the Commons public accounts committee, its chair, Margaret Hodge, said. She has the support of senior Tory on the committee, Richard Bacon.

Newsnight alleged that the arrangement was known to the higher education minister, David Willetts, but the department had been desperate to hire someone capable of sorting out the SLC after years of inefficiency. Alexander was said to be unaware of the arrangement although he was required to sign off Lester's pay deal, in common with all public sector salaries of more than £142,500.

Alexander said: "I have asked Treasury officials to urgently review the appropriateness of allowing public sector appointees to be paid through an agency by a personal service company.

"I have also written to my cabinet colleagues asking them to carry out an urgent internal audit to ensure that all senior consultancy appointments provide value for money.

"As I have said before, I believe everybody should pay the right tax at the right time ... that is why I've taken this action."

His aides believe this kind of arrangement is not appropriate in the public sector and that tax avoidance is wrong.

Bacon said he was concerned that HMRC had approved the arrangement. "It is simply inappropriate for a full-time civil servant and accounting officer for the Student Loans Company to be paid gross of tax through a personal services contract," the MP said.

"My understanding is that this arrangement saves Lester tens of thousands of pounds each year, some of which would otherwise be paid in income tax."

The payment method allows Lester to pay corporation tax of 21%, rather than up to 50% income tax on his earnings.

Accountants estimated that the overall pay arrangements, known to have occurred with some BBC executives, may have saved Lester £40,000 a year, according to Newsnight.

Lester, who lives in Buckinghamshire, also receives £550 a week to pay for his travel and living expenses and cover his costs of getting to the company's offices in Glasgow.

In emails, a letter and memos, one civil servant at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills described the arrangement as tax efficient for Lester.

A Treasury spokesman said Alexander had approved Lester's pay, though reduced by about £13,000, in continuation of terms agreed on a previously interim basis.

"The chief secretary to the Treasury is required to approve senior civil service appointments where the salary exceeds £142,500," he said. "Terms and conditions are negotiated by the appointing department, and presented to the chief secretary for approval of the salary level.

"In the case of the chief executive of the Student Loans Company, the chief secretary approved the overall pay, at a reduced rate and in a continuation of the interim arrangements previously agreed.

"The chief secretary was not made aware of any potential tax benefit to an individual."

Departments have been told that any appointments which do not provide value for money should be unwound as quickly as possible, the spokesman said.

Thinktank slashes outlook, predicting UK economy will shrink by 0.1% and urging infrastructure investment to create jobs

The UK will slide into recession this year as the government continues to "deliberately" damage the economy with its unwavering fiscal squeeze, a respected thinktank has forecast.

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) has slashed its outlook for the UK economy and predicts it will contract by 0.1% this year. In a blow to the coalition government, official figures last week indicated the UK already contracted in the final quarter of 2011.

NIESR says a return to recession, technically defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction, would be driven by squeezed families cutting back further, tight credit conditions and businesses' reluctance to invest amid uncertainty over domestic and foreign demand.

The thinktank is forecasting a significant rebound in 2013, with growth of 2.3%, but NIESR's Simon Kirby said the outlook was very hard to call. "That the economy is in poor shape is obvious. The degree to which this persists is uncertain," he said.

NIESR urging the government to loosen its fiscal stance and shore up faltering demand. It argues the government could easily afford to invest enough money, for example in infrastructure projects such as road-building, to avert recession this year without denting its credibility in financial markets or doing any long-term damage to the public finances.

Jonathan Portes, the NIESR's director, said not wavering from the government's path was "accepting a significant degree of long-term economic and social damage" and that investing to boost demand was as much about creating jobs as boosting growth. "It's not primarily about bigger growth next year. It's about the long-run economic and social damage ... that we are deliberately doing," he said.

UK unemployment at 8.4% is at its highest since 1995. NIESR predicts a peak of 9.1% in late 2012 and averaging 8.9% over the year, equivalent to some 3 million people.

That forecast for lengthening dole queues is accompanied by predictions of a slight rise in net trade, but merely because of a drop in imports from a faltering economy rather than any upturn in exports. Consumer spending is expected to make a slight contribution to the overall economy, however, as easing inflation boosts families' disposable incomes.

Adam Posen, a Bank of England policymaker, warned separately that the central bank may need to pump more electronic money into the economy if the outlook remained depressed. He argued that quantitative easing had helped the recovery and that he was prepared to vote for more if it became clear the UK economy was entering another recession.

At a conference organised by the TUC to discuss the future of banking, Posen also raised concerns about credit constraints on businesses. He had put forward plans last year for a new agency or bank to offer credit to small and medium-sized businesses, which was endorsed in principle by the chancellor, George Osborne. But yesterday he said he was disappointed that the momentum behind the proposal, which aimed to kickstart growth among smaller companies, had dissipated in recent months.

NIESR shares the view of most economists that there is more QE to come against the backdrop of what it sees as a virtually flat economy in 2012. That economic outlook is a stark downgrade from the thinktank's October forecast for 0.8% growth, which was based on the assumption that the eurozone debt crisis would be resolved sooner rather than later. At the time it also published a 0.2% growth forecast based on a scenario in which eurozone policymakers "muddle" through the crisis through much of 2012.

It now sees such a "muddle through" scenario as more likely and forecasts recession for the eurozone, with contraction there of 0.2% this year. That assumes a "delayed but ultimately successful resolution" to the crisis. But there are upside and downside risks to that forecast, NIESR's economists stressed, notably that a disorderly breakup of the euro would likely lead to a "considerably more severe downturn".

For the wider world economy NIESR predicts relatively modest growth of 3.5% in 2012, with the US and Canada enjoying slightly stronger prospects than Europe and Japanese growth being supported by post-earthquake reconstruction projects.