Councils are turning off some of their street lights in an effort to save money. Opponents say the move will increase the number of accidents. Supporters welcome the relief from nocturnal light pollution. Would you turn them off?

Malcolm Jack says legislation could mean courts would 'be drawn into matters of acute political controversy such as whether an election should be held'

A major potential flaw in the coalition's bill to introduce fixed-term parliaments was exposed when the clerk of the Commons today warned it would open the way for repeated legal challenges if parliament passed a vote of no confidence in a government, leading to a general election.

Malcolm Jack, parliament's most senior legislative expert, said the bill could mean the courts would "be drawn into matters of acute political controversy such as whether an election should be held".

It is rare for the clerk of the house to stray into criticism of the government, and only happens if he feels legislation will undermine parliament.

In evidence to the political and constitutional reform select committee, Jack said the legal challenges could be passed to the European court of justice.

In a memorandum to the committee, he argued that the fixed-term parliament bill - due to have its second reading next week - gives powers to the Speaker to issue a certificate declaring that a vote of no confidence in the government had been passed, prompting a general election before the planned five year fixed-term ended.

He said these certificates would be open to legal challenge, potentially bringing the courts and parliament into conflict and undermining parliamentary privilege.

Jack warned that any interested party could challenge whether a motion of no confidence had been correctly worded or processed, whether the decision had been correctly reached and recorded and whether the casting vote of the Speaker had been used appropriately.

He also criticised the government for failing to produce such complex legislation in draft form and revealed he had not been consulted before the bill was published, and said it was not wise for the government to be introducing piecemeal reform to parliamentary privilege when it also had plans to introduce a major bill reforming the law on privilege.

He suggested the bill needed to be recast so the plans for motions of no confidence were taken out of it and put into standing orders, making them less available to legal challenge.

Jack Straw, the shadow justice secretary, said: "A matter of months after entering office, Nick Clegg is presiding over a constitutional shambles.

"The legislation providing for fixed-term parliaments has been severely criticised by the Clerk of the Commons.

"The Deputy PM needs to get back to go back to the drawing board and work with all sides to achieve genuine, fair, progressive political change. The opportunity is still there."

Tristam Hunt, a Labour MP on the committee, said the cler's comments "show the bill has not been thought through, since it opens up the calling of a general election to judicial review, and putting judges in charge of our democracy, including the date of a general election".

The Cabinet Office challenged Jack's view, saying they did not think it was a realistic prospect that confidence motions would be subject to legal challenge in the courts.

Some government sources said constitutional reform often came up against individuals opposed to change.

Jack warned that the provisions as currently constructed in the bill "make the Speaker's consideration of confidence motions and the house's practices justifiable questions for determination by ordinary courts".

Ministerial sources also said inserting the provisions into standing orders was wrong because such orders could be ventured by a simple majority.

The government has already changed the bill to clarify the procedure when the Commons passes a motion of no confidence so that it is clear parliament must be dissolved if no new government can be formed 14 days after the motion is passed.

Previously, the bill simply said a fixed-term parliament could only be brought to by a two-thirds majority of MPs.

The bill is intended to end the considerable advantage a governing party enjoys by virtue of the prime minister being able to tactically plan and choose an election date most favourable to his party.

o Cuts of up to 25% in public sector will take estimated £2bn out of Northern Ireland's economy
o First minister Peter Robinson calls on power-sharing executive to unite to protect jobs

Northern Ireland's economy will be devastated by George Osborne's cost-cutting programme, the first minister predicted today.

Peter Robinson's grim warning comes as an estimated £2bn is to be taken out of the local economy after cuts of between 20 and 25% in the public sector.

Robinson, the Democratic Unionist leader, said that local devolved ministers were going to have to make difficult decisions over the next few months.

He predicted that the cuts would have a "devastating impact, bogging Northern Ireland down in a recession for a prolonged period". The power-sharing executive at Stormont should unite to face the latest economic challenges, he said, in the same way that it had united against the threat posed by dissident republicans.

The first minister warned against the temptation to play politics with the cuts, insisting that this would be seen by the public as cynical opportunism.

"Dealing with the Conservative-Liberal coalition cuts will present the executive with its biggest policy challenge to date," he said.

"While the executive is not responsible for the economic downturn or the spending cuts, it is our responsibility to do what we can to tackle the problems they create.

"In these difficult economic conditions the executive's main priority must be to keep people in work and put people back to work. If necessary, budgets should be skewed to maximise the effect of public expenditure in keeping the economy moving forward."

At the end of June, George Osborne's first budget as chancellor detailed a package of tax increases and spending cuts intended to cut the UK's £155bn deficit.

The Northern Ireland executive was told last May that it must save an extra £128m on top of £393m of other savings already planned for this year. The province is highly dependent on the public sector, which makes up about 70% of the workforce.

As London's underground rail workers take industrial action over the loss of 800 jobs, passengers use roads, pavements and even the Thames to get to work

TUC calls on public to join unions in defending public services and jobs against 'volatile cocktail' of coalition policies

Unions are preparing to mobilise public opinion against the government's "volatile cocktail" of measures including job losses and spending cuts, the head of the TUC said today.

Brendan Barber told journalists that next week's TUC congress in Manchester was set to be the most important in decades, with Britain facing government policies that will do "great damage" to the country.

He warned that there could be "difficult disputes" ahead in the wake of the public sector wage freeze, continued privatisation of services and pension cuts.

But he said the centrepiece of the 142nd gathering of unions allied to the TUC would be the launch of a campaign calling on the public to join the unions in defending public services and jobs.

The campaign is intended to mobilise people across the country to support an economic alternative based on "a more sensible timetable for deficit reduction, a fair tax system, and policies to stimulate green growth".

It will include a lobby of parliament the day before the spending review is announced, and a national demonstration next March.

Barber said the TUC wanted to "win political change", adding: "The [government's] programme of cuts, privatisation and redrawing the state is far more radical and dangerous than we have seen since the 1930s. Almost no part of the country, our economy or society will be left untouched.

"The spending cuts threaten to choke off what is an extremely fragile recovery. At worst, we face a double-dip recession, at best, we will have years of jobless growth and a dire start in life for a generation of young people."

Barber said the prospect of industrial action would hinge on the announcements made in the comprehensive spending review, due on 20 October - when the government sets out its programme of cuts - and how different groups of workers react.

"We have a pretty volatile cocktail of issues, such as the public sector pay freeze, threats of further privatisation, restructuring of public services and major worries about security of pensions," he added.

"It is a pretty potent mixture, and there could be difficult disputes as a result."

Barber accused the Conservatives in the coalition government of being on an "ideological mission" to shrink the state.

Saying that ministers were "hacking away" at public services, he added that the government was acting out of "political choice" rather than fiscal necessity, backed by a "fair wind" from the media.

"Particularly in the case of the Conservative party, they see this as an opportunity to recast the relationship between the citizen and the state and to make cuts that are for the long term to significantly shrink the state," he said.

"So we think that is an ideological mission that is being pursued that we strongly resist and oppose."

Barber cited figures showing that the public sector wage bill makes up 25p of every pound raised by the government through tax, while 38p is spent directly on private sector goods and services.

The TUC leader said that, with public and private sector staff facing job losses and companies losing orders as a result of spending cuts, it was "absurd" to pretend private sector growth would fill the jobs gap.

But a spokesman for the prime minister, David Cameron, said: "We have the largest peacetime deficit and we need to get that under control ... it is important to get the level of public spending down.

"It is our objective to do that in a way that would take people with us, which is why we have tried to be open about the scale of the challenge and to engage people in informing those choices.

"We would look to all people to engage in a constructive way in the process we are having to undertake."

Barber said he expected a TUC delegation to have "a serious opportunity" for a discussion with the chancellor, George Osborne, about the government's economic policy prior to the publication of the comprehensive spending review.

He likened the current situation to the bitter row over the poll tax when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister. The poll tax was replaced by the council tax following widespread protest in the early 1990s.

Barber said the spending cuts were likely to offend British people's sense of fairness in the same way the poll had two decades ago.

"Every coalition MP with a small majority and every coalition MP who fought an election to oppose deep early cuts needs to feel the pressure from their constituents to change course," he said.

Its biggest investor takes a pragmatic approach to Sudan's affairs - and is keen that the independence vote runs smoothly

China has more to lose than most if things fall apart in Sudan this winter, where a potentially explosive national referendum on southern independence is due in January. Beijing is the country's biggest investor while for its part, Sudan is a significant oil supplier. Renewed instability could also adversely affect China's expanding interests in neighbouring countries such as Ethiopia, Chad, Libya and Egypt.

Mindful perhaps that the stakes are high, Liu Guijin, China's special representative for Africa and Beijing's point man on Darfur, is pushing hard to ensure the vote happens peacefully and on time. Speaking in London at the end of a European tour, Liu said Sudan was fast approaching an important crossroads and urged the international community to do all it could to avoid a pile-up. "If the situation in southern Sudan gets out of control, it will affect the peace and stability of the whole region," he warned.

Liu said the referendum, widely expected to result in southern secession and the creation of a new sovereign state, was crucial to full implementation of the 2005 comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) that ended decades of north-south conflict. While China would be happy to see the country's unity maintained, it would respect the outcome of a "transparent and credible" vote. But like the UN and some western powers, he said Beijing was worried that key agreements were not yet in place.

"Time is the pressing issue," he said. "The international community must make an effort on two tracks. One is to ensure the referendum takes place on time, that there is the needed infrastructure, for instance there are enough ballot papers printed. It also needs to push the two sides [the ruling parties in Khartoum and Juba] to resolve their differences." Outstanding issues included demarcation of the north-south border, wealth sharing, and the status of each other's nationals should the south secede.

Western officials have also expressed concern at the slow pace of preparations for the referendum, amid suspicions that the ruling National Congress party of President Omar al-Bashir is deliberately dragging its feet. In a report published this week, the independent International Crisis Group urged a swift settlement of the boundary issue "to avoid future complications, including a return to conflict ... As the country's oil resources are concentrated in these areas, the political and economic implications of border demarcation have been amplified, and some border areas remain dangerously militarised".

China's political and commercial embrace of Bashir's national unity government has been much criticised in the west. Khartoum is accused by American pressure groups and Christian organisations of causing tens of thousands of deaths in Darfur, where rebel groups and tribal militias have fought government forces and their janjaweed proxies since 2003 - though the figures are much disputed. External pressure has increased since the international criminal court (ICC) charged Bashir with genocide and war crimes.

Liu rejected such criticism, saying China had contributed millions of dollars to alleviate suffering in Darfur and fully supported the UN and African Union-sponsored peace talks. The importance of the talks has been underscored in recent days by an upsurge in fighting in west Darfur state's Hamidiya camp. But Liu said their potential to bring peace to Darfur was undermined by the continuing boycott exercised by two of the main rebel factions, which he said should end immediately.

More controversially, Liu argued the referendum and Darfur must take precedence over attempts by the ICC and its supporters to arrest Bashir. "The international community has to be pragmatic ... We understand the importance of the immunity issue ... It is not ignored. But the priority is a holistic solution of Darfur and the CPA." Bashir's arrest would make solving these problems "more difficult" and on that, he said, there was "a kind of consensus" between China and the US (both non-ICC signatories) and countries that backed the court, such as Britain and France.

Liu said China supported statements by the African Union and the Arab League urging members not to cooperate with ICC attempts to arrest Bashir. ICC signatory Kenya was reported to the UN security council for hosting Bashir in Nairobi last month, a move the EU decried as "totally unacceptable". But Liu said he agreed with African leaders who accuse the court of operating "double standards" when it comes to Africa, compared to its approach to western actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

China strongly supported the sovereign right of all African nations to run their affairs without outside interference, he said - a principal reason why overall China-Africa trade plus bilateral investment and resource-backed development loans in numerous countries in addition to Sudan were booming.

It was not a case of China propping up dictators, Liu said. It was a case of helping Africans to make their own way. As for Bashir, he added, his fate was primarily a matter for the Sudanese themselves: "No one has the right to take away the immunity of a head of state, not even the UN security council."

Strategy institute challenges idea that troops are needed in Afghanistan to stop export of terrorism to west

The threat posed by al-Qaida and the Taliban is exaggerated and the western-led counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan risks becoming a "long, drawn-out disaster", one of the world's leading security thinktanks warned today.

According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the west's counter-insurgency strategy has "ballooned" out of proportion to the original aim of preventing al-Qaida from mounting terrorist attacks there, and must be replaced by a less ambitious but more sensible policy of "containment and deterrence".

The critique of the US- and British-backed military policy is contained in the latest strategic survey from the IISS, a respected but usually uncontroversial body. IISS officers made clear today they have departed from their normal practice because of the serious threat to the west's security interests in pursuing the current Afghan strategy.

In an effort to ignite a fresh debate and bring about a new approach towards Afghanistan, they challenge claims, not least from David Cameron, that the presence of thousands of British troops in Afghanistan is necessary to prevent al-Qaida from returning and thus increasing the threat to the UK.

"It is not clear why it should be axiomatically obvious that an Afghanistan freed of an international combat presence in the south would be an automatic magnet for al-Qaida's concentrated reconstruction," the IISS director-general, John Chipman, said.

Al-Qaida is now "engaged in Pakistan in very small numbers", not remotely comparable to the situation in Afghanistan pre-September 2001, Nigel Inkster, an IISS director and former deputy chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, said. No such threat is likely to come from al-Qaida elsewhere, including Yemen and Somalia, he added.

Metropolitan police assistant commissioner tells home affairs select committee ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson will face police questions

Tell us what our future readers' panels should be about, or contribute to our upcoming one about strikes

Tube strikes are currently causing travel chaos for millions of commuters in London. Unions say safety and security will be compromised by staff cuts and reductions in ticket office opening hours. Is the action just? Are commuters right to complain? Ahead of next week's Trades Union Congress, we decided to follow opinionatedgirl's suggestion and organise our next readers' panel around the topic of strikes and industrial action. Last week's Cif people's panel about vegetarianism was a great success, with more than 500 comments and a big debate going on in the thread - we'd welcome more of the same on the thorny issue of strikes.

Have you ever taken part in industrial action, from picketing to more robust ways of protesting against the actions of employers? Have you ever mediated on behalf of a union or a company in an attempt to avoid industrial action? Are you affected by this week's tube strikes, or industrial action in the past? What are the effects of prolonged striking on your community and family life? Do you defend the right of union members to strike, or do you resent it?

If you are a reader of Cif and would like to participate, please send an email to Jessica Reed (jessica.reed@guardian.co.uk) with a few lines about your experience and your Cif username. Please note that we may not be able to use all submissions.

Please also take the time to suggest ideas for our future panels as well. What hot political or personal issues would you like Cif readers to write about? Share your thoughts and experiences with us.

John Yates, the assistant Metropolitan police commissioner, tells MPs that police are likely to interview the prime minister's director of communications

David Cameron's PR chief faces police questioning over the phone tapping affair, MPs were told today.

John Yates, the assistant Metropolitan police commissioner, told the home affairs select committee that police were likely to interview Andy Coulson, the prime minister's director of communications and former editor of News of the World, and "take stock after that".

During his evidence session, Yates gave the first sign of a concession that the Met's original phone hacking inquiry four years ago could have been more thorough. He said it may have been better if the officers had interviewed "the Neville person" - Neville Thurlbeck, the News of the World's chief reporter, who was named on correspondence relating to phone hacking.

He told MPs police were considering new material following the "very serious allegations" made last week by Sean Hoare, a former reporter at the News of the World.

Yates was giving evidence the day after Labour MP Tom Watson warned that British democracy risked becoming a "laughing stock" around the world unless allegations about phone hacking on behalf of the News of the World were fully investigated.

But he refused to be drawn on whether the criminal investigation was being reopened, telling MPs that the suggestion of an ongoing live investigation was "a matter of semantics".

The Met has come under renewed pressure over its handling of the original case amid fresh claims that the force's 2006 investigation into phone tapping by the Sunday tabloid had lacked rigour and missed the scale of intrusion into people's privacy.

The hacking scandal blew up again last week after the New York Times published a lengthy article including the claim that Coulson freely discussed the use of unlawful news-gathering techniques during his time as editor of the tabloid.

Coulson resigned as editor of the News of the World after its royal reporter and a private investigator were jailed. He has repeatedly denied any knowledge of phone hacking.

But Hoare, a former reporter who used to be a close friend of Coulson, told the NYT that when he worked with Coulson at the Sun, he personally played recordings of hacked voicemail messages for him and that later, when he worked for Coulson at the News of the World, he "continued to inform Coulson of his pursuits". Coulson "actively encouraged me to do it", Hoare said.

Yates said Hoare's claims represented new material and said police would see him "at some stage in the near future and consider what he has to say".

The police would then consider the necessity of seeing Coulson, he said.

"But at some stage I imagine we will be interviewing Mr Coulson," Yates told MPs.

Yates said Scotland Yard's attempts to seek help from the New York Times had been rebuffed. The US title had already indicated they were not prepared to help the police, citing journalistic privilege, he said.

Yates told MPs that colleagues had written to the NYT again to urge them to waive that privilege because of the "quite exceptional circumstances" surrounding the case, though he admitted he was "not hopeful".

He refused to say who was on the list of people who may have had their phones hacked, but confirmed that Lord Prescott was not on the list.

MPs were told that being on a list did not mean someone's phone had been hacked. Yates told them that the police only found evidence of crimes being committed in about 12 cases.

Committee chair Keith Vaz suggested that the committee might open a full inquiry into the affair.

Why should sex, alone among all forms of human interaction, be thought to spawn malignant magic when money changes hands?

Power corrupts. Even the high ethical standards of prostitutes would probably plunge down to near-politician levels if they wielded legal authority over their fellow citizens. Since politicos actually do, they turn the mighty power of the state not just on legitimate threats to the commonweal, but anything they find annoying or distasteful.

Which is why, if you visit the Craigslist website, you'll find the links to their "adult services" section gone, replaced by the word "censored". You can't blame Craigslist for caving under pressure, not when the attorneys general of 18 different states all threatened legal action at once. Craigslist might win if it countersued on free-speech grounds, but they can't afford the long, costly legal battles such victory would require.

"Adult" services, of course, is a euphemism for "sexual" services. Lawmakers hated Craigslist from the get-go because sex workers used it to advertise their services. Yet if you listen to politicians praise themselves now that the ads are gone, you won't hear much talk about banning activity between consenting adults. No, politicos prefer to invoke The Children. In a statement her office released Saturday, California congresswoman Jackie Speier blamed websites such as Craigslist for child prostitution. "We can't forget the victims, we can't rest easy. Child sex trafficking continues and lawmakers need to fight future machinations of internet-driven sites that peddle children."

No argument there: forcing children into prostitution is an utterly abhorrent crime. Forcing anybody into prostitution is, and when callous sociopaths turn innocent victims into sexual slaves for their own profit, it's undeniably good when police shut down these loathsome enterprises.

Yet when attorneys general started crusading against Craigslist, it wasn't kidnapping rapists they worried about, but adults who made money selling consensual services. In my own state of Connecticut, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (now a Senate candidate) has been on the Craigslist warpath since at least 2008. That March, his office put out a press release saying: "As a small step in response to my concerns, Craigslist now requires anyone posting a listing in the erotic services section to provide a phone number. This step, however, will hardly deter the prostitution problem on the site, and may indeed make it worse. Many of the most graphic solicitations already include a telephone number to enable prospective patrons of their services to contact them."

But now it's about the children. Why do so many politicos cling to the fiction that the best way to stop coerced sex acts is to criminalise consensual ones? Maybe that's an unfair question; it's not just lawmakers who claim this. Anytime you suggest legalised prostitution might be better than the dangerous, illegal status quo, opponents always raise the spectre of sexual slavery.

And it's not only prostitutes whose opponents blur the line between coercion and consent; any sex-themed work inspires such dishonesty. I've faced it personally: in my university days I worked as a stripper and now, years later, occasionally wax nostalgic about it on websites like this. Without fail, whenever I write on the theme "Ich bin ein ex-go go dancer," a subset of the commentariat insists I was exploited, whether I knew it or not. Contributed to the oppression of others. And what about enslaved women forced to become strippers, huh?

The protests are exponentially more heated when ex-prostitutes write to defend their trade. Too many otherwise sensible people believe sex, alone among all forms of human interaction, spawns some malignant magic whenever money changes hands. It's still perfectly legal to search for sex on Craigslist; you just can't exchange cash for it.

In other news from last week, prosecutors in Maricopa County, Arizona, decided there is insufficient evidence to charge prison guards over the May 2009 death of inmate Marcia Powell, who was serving a 27-month sentence for prostitution when officials locked her in an outdoor cage under the 107-degree desert sun for four hours. She died in hospital later that evening. Guards deny allegations they refused her requests for water; witnesses say otherwise, and the autopsy shows Powell died of complications from heat exposure, and had no signs of hydration. Her corpse had a core temperature of 108 degrees, plus burns and blisters all over her body, which is not to say her captors did anything criminal. At least she wasn't selling herself on some filthy street corner or sleazy website, right? Ask anyone who supports the Craigslist crackdown: they'll tell you laws against prostitution are needed to protect women like Powell from dangerous and degrading circumstances.

How would America be different if consensual prostitution were legal? On the plus side, Marcia Powell probably wouldn't have broiled to death. As a minus, she would have continued exchanging sex for money, and the Craigslist brouhaha is merely the latest anecdote showing how lawmakers utterly abhor people who do that. America is determined to knock out prostitution, and our legal system never pulls its punches.

Labour's leadership hopefuls are dispiritingly quiet on education policy and Gove's scrapping of 700 new school buildings

It was gratifying to read about Elaine Costigan, the Tory councillor who defected to Labour over her party's education policies and the shoddy way in which her own government withdrew funding for new school buildings.

Maybe she could encourage a bit more frankness among her new colleagues. Following the Labour leadership election from a distance has been interesting but at times dispiriting. If you want to know how to acquire a Twibbon, organise a house meeting, or hear what the candidates had for lunch, the camp followers are expansive. But don't hold your breath if you want to know what they would do if elected. Some policies have been relatively well aired; the living wage, aspects of deficit reduction, the universal but unsurprising endorsement of community activism. But education - and schools in particular - hasn't just been the dog that didn't bark. It has been a dog that has been locked in the cellar for three months. Why has a subject that is so close to the electorate's heart and such a key element of the coalition's plans been so studiously avoided?

Personal choices made by individual politicians may be one reason. Even the usually garrulous Diane Abbott was lost for words in one interview when asked about her choice of a private school for her son.

A more likely reason is that all the candidates are in a bind. On the one hand, they face Tony Blair hailing Tory policy and claiming anyone who deviates a millimetre from New Labour is a loser who doesn't "get aspiration". On the other, the central thrust of the coalition's "schools revolution", built almost entirely on legislation passed by the last Labour government, is causing dismay among thousands of Labour and Lib Dem members and already proving divisive between parents in many communities.

Some individual issues have popped up. Ed Miliband has promised to look at academic selection, and talked about a role for local authorities. His brother has floated curriculum reforms and charitable status for private schools. Andy Burnham has been refreshingly robust in his defence of comprehensive education and Ed Balls has made waves attacking the Tories.

But even the shadow education secretary has no big forward-looking plan. You would need to be completely inept not to put Michael Gove through the shredder once he scrapped 700 new school buildings. And some of the decisions Balls made as secretary of state undermine his assertion that the New Labour academies were only in deprived areas. One of his last acts in government was to approve a brand new academy, sponsored by an elite university, in one of the most affluent parts of my local area - a school that is now going to be funded by the coalition at the expense of all the others, to the dismay of local parents.

The crude caricatures of some candidates as old Labour luddites have rightly been treated with contempt. Even with the absence of detail, most appear fully signed up to fairness, responsibility, social justice and an understanding of people's desire to make a better life for themselves.

In education, translating those values into fresh, distinct policies must mean resolving the contradiction between investment in high-quality, non-selective neighbourhood schools, with a role for local authorities, especially when it comes to managing admissions, or the promotion of potentially divisive independent state schools with freedoms and funding other schools don't have.

Whoever gets the job, it will be a tough call, demand deft political footwork and a willingness to offload baggage from the past. Of all the candidates Ed Miliband seems the most prepared to do this, even if the details of what he would actually do are hazy.

By this time next year, the Tories' education policy will, I predict, be deeply unpopular. Gove has squandered massive political capital on what turns out to be 16 schools. The next stage will be the spending cuts that affect the rest.

Labour won't win again by offering a poor copy of the Tories' half-baked gimmicks. It needs a strong confident plan of its own. It's just a shame we haven't had a chance to debate it in this contest.

Cornish clotted cream's long journey, JK Rowling's wizard donation and the colossus of the Commons feature this week in Britain

Michael Gove, the education secretary, has a vision: a new generation of schools run by parents and voluntary groups. The so-called free schools - free, that is, of bureaucratic controls and targets set by central government - are due to spring to life next September. The transformed education network, Gove has boasted, could feature up to 700 free schools and up to 1,000 similarly autonomous academies.

Back in the real world, it has emerged that as few as 20 free schools will open next September, while only 32 new academies are opening this month. This watery version of the Gove masterplan has been gleefully condemned by the Labour opposition as a shambles but the secretary of state's vision is apparently undimmed. A loyal source says that, although the take-up of free schools has been limited, there are lots of proposals in the pipeline.

There had better be if Gove is to keep his job. School reform is a central feature of the prime minister David Cameron's pet vision of a "big society" in which power is devolved from government to the grass roots.

While he struggles to nourish the grass, Gove is gamely proposing a top-down reform of school exams, to counter the widespread, though contested, view that they are now too easy. He wants to introduce a kind of baccalaureate qualification for 16-year-old GCSE pupils who have completed a broad course of studies. Though no Tory minister would admit it, it is a system widely used elsewhere in the EU.

Long road to Rodda

Most of us are aware of the idiocy of transporting our daily bread by air, sea and lorry hundreds, sometimes thousands, of kilometres. But occasionally an example is so barkingly mad it is worthy of note. Such is the case of Rodda's Cornish clotted cream, a product so splendid the company makes 80m splodges of the stuff every year.

Happily for the Cornish, the clotted cream is available not only nationwide but in the Tesco supermarket at Redruth, 3km from the Rodda creamery in Scorrier. But to make that journey, it is first trucked by Tesco to its distribution centre in Avonmouth and returned to Cornwall the next day - a round trip of 547km. Planet-threatening journeys are made by other Cornish produce, including the popular Ginster's brand of savoury pastries. It's worth pointing out that we still have butchers and bakers, greengrocers and markets who still sell locally produced food. And it tastes better than most supermarket-packaged pap.

Spell of good fortune

JK Rowling has made squillions out of her magical creation, Harry Potter, and good luck to her. Book snobs may sneer, but children love her work, as do lots of grown-ups, and we ought not to grudge her the reward of her creativity.

Indeed, we should be grateful to a woman who has resisted the temptations of fame and celebrity, and instead put her good fortune to work for others.

The latest example of Rowling's philanthropy is a cool £10m ($15m) donation to establish a clinic at the University of Edinburgh to research possible treatments for multiple sclerosis (MS), the degenerative disease that killed her mother at the age of 45.

The clinic will also investigate the causes and the possible remedies for other neurological conditions and diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Rowling has previously made large donations to multiple sclerosis charities and researchers, and to the Labour party. But the new Anne Rowling regenerative neurology clinic is clearly the cause closest to her heart.

A jolly populist giant

Sir Cyril Smith, who has died at the age of 82, did not bestride British politics like a colossus. He was simply colossal - at 190kg, he was almost certainly the biggest-ever member of the Commons and for obvious reasons stood out in any crowd.

It was that, perhaps, that made him one of the most popular of MPs. He loved his own carefully burnished image as a jolly giant; a man of the people who rose from working-class obscurity to success in politics and business, without every losing his splendid Rochdale accent. But Smith was not always as nice or straightforward as he seemed. Populist as well as popular, he supported capital punishment, was generally well to the right of Liberal colleagues, and made himself thoroughly disagreeable with his bluntly expressed views and comments.

Smith was undoubtedly a self-made man of the people. When he became mayor of his beloved Rochdale, he enjoyed making his mum, Eva, his mayoress, when she was still employed as a town hall cleaner.

Fit for a Bard

For more than three years, the lovely Warwickshire town of Stratford-upon-Avon has been without its best-known residents, the actors, directors, stagehands and spear-carriers of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). But now the main theatre has been transformed from a frankly rather ugly red-brick culture warehouse into a cutting-edge auditorium with all the latest bells and whistles of the playmaking arts.

Had the refurbishment been delayed, it might have been imperilled by the government's obsessive cost cutting. As it is, it has cost £112.8m ($173m) for which, as artistic director Michael Boyd says, it has become "the best auditorium for performing Shakespeare anywhere". With £5m still to be raised, the RSC is hoping that the crowds will flock to the theatre when it reopens in November. And also to the shop, restaurant, cafe and bar.

Heinz's latest variety

From the sublime to the ridiculous, but still pursuing a cultural theme, we can report a dramatic development in the wacky world of salad cream. Heinz, which introduced the stuff to Britain 96 years ago, has got round to developing a new variant: lemon and black pepper salad cream.

A grateful nation will doubtless reward the US food giant by flooding its salads, and indeed its chips, with the yellow stuff. After all, salad cream was developed for the UK market, though how they knew we would take to something so unlike anything else beggars imagination.

Ten years ago there was a consumer hullabaloo when Heinz threatened to withdraw salad cream, blaming falling sales on a move towards factory-made mayonnaise. But recently the mayonnaise tide has turned, as shoppers return to the lower fat and cheaper salad cream.

NHS has a word for it

Foreign nurses, of whom there are a great many, in the National Health Service are to be given a crash-course in Britain's more bewildering everyday words and phrases. They will learn, for example, that patients who want to spend a penny are not necessarily looking for a bargain in the hospital shop.

The language lessons are being offered by the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Norfolk, mainly to its large contingent of Portuguese staff. All of the overseas recruits speak excellent English, says the hospital, but still can't fathom what patients mean when they say they feel under the weather, can't find their jim-jams, or are tickled pink. Given Norfolk's proximity to the eponymous Broads, patients too could perhaps benefit from language tuition, and be told never to refer to their waterworks.

As with benefit errors or tax credit miscalculations by officialdom, my instinct is that people - especially poor people - should be let off when the mistake is not theirs

It's a funny state of affairs when the BBC wheels on Paul Lewis, a tax expert from Radio 4's highly-respectable Moneybox programme, to point out ways in which taxpayers can resist a new claim on their wallets from HM Revenue and Customs. It happened this morning.

You expect this sort of behaviour from the sharper end of the accountancy profession and publicity-hungry members of that walk of life who really should have gone on the stage or become Tory MPs.

But "if they ask you for money, I think you should challenge it" from Moneybox is fighting talk. If HMRC made the mistake, "it's outrageous that they should be asking for it", Lewis says. The Mail is on the case, too - but that's more what we'd all expect.

What we're talking about here is the failure of HMRC's new computer to get its PAYE calculations right to the tune of a £2bn underpayment, offset by a £1.8m overpayment.

Some 5.7 million people are affected and (here's the good news) 4.3 million of them will get a rebate, leaving 1.4 million to face a demand for extra payments to be deducted from their pay packets at around £100 a month from next April.

Naturally, the Mail's splash headline on Saturday - "Six million caught in tax debacle" - stressed the minority losers' plight, not the good news heading towards the majority, as most papers did. That's what makes the Mail so successful - it stokes the fear and resentment lurking inside most of us.

I'm always interested in outbreaks of popular resistance to the authorities, especially when fomented on the political right, which can often bit ambiguous on law and order when it runs counter to its own interests (think speed cameras).

The left is rarely very good at this sort of populism. I suppose you could count the new campaign to move Tony Blair's memoirs to the crime section of book shops, though it seems a bit too larky to count as a grown-up activity. All too often, the left's default position is unpopulism.

MPs, victims of another inept new computer programme to handle their expenses, aren't too good at it, either.

Mind you, not even the Mail always gets it right. It had a "dump the pump" campaign in, I think, 2000, which tried to derail petrol price increases. It caught on only after the summer holidays - inspired by French truckers militancy that year? - and panicked the Blair government into abandoning Ken Clarke's fuel escalator policy, which tried to curb consumption via the price mechanism.

Around the same time, the murder conviction against the Norfolk farmer Tony Martin for shooting a 16-year-old burglar dead (it was reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility on appeal), fomented a surge of anger about the right of homeowners to defend their property from the criminal underclass.

I have a lot of sympathy with that point of view, and a bit even for Tony Martin, but it doesn't survive a five-minute reading of the Mail or its slower, more brutish rival, the Express. "Reasonable force" is the critical component - we can't all be given the green light to batter people. The Tories promised to make the law less restrictive, but I suspect their hopes will be thwarted by a clash with reality.

Which brings us back to HMRC. Ministers are reported to have thought about writing the loss off, but realised they couldn't do so easily in a financial crisis. In any case, HMRC, as reluctant to be pushed around as Scotland Yard, has statutory duties requiring it to go after the money it is owed. So it should, if you think about it: all those tax-deducted yachts.

Labour ministers with coastal seats were anxious that HMRC write off an earlier mistake when it messed up the business rates levied on ports some years ago.

They found it difficult - as the coalition is doing to fulfil a similar pledge - though I seem to remember that Labour did prevent precipitate action to reclaim taxes from football clubs which might have put them out of business. Not very popular.

As with benefit errors or tax credit miscalculations made by officialdom, my instinct is that people, especially poor people, should be let off if the mistake is not theirs, by accident or design.

As the great Sir Max Hastings - who can write 1,500 words on pretty well anything at short notice - complains in today's Mail, no tax official ever gets fired for making a mistake. The risk is always on our side. I fear the taxman more than I do the Taliban, says fearless Max, liberator of Port Stanley.

That's where Moneybox's Lewis and other respectable folk are making a useful point today. The the first wave tax letters arriving on doormats this week are calculations, not demands, they stress, adding a useful tip: always WRITE to the taxman and treat emails purporting to come from HMRC as the scams they are.

If you have provided HMRC with details of your changing circumstances - for instance, a new job - and 12 months have passed without them changing your code, you can cite what is known as an "A19 extra statutory concession" and insist on being let off.

That sounds fair enough, and it isn't breaking the law - just using it in the same way HMRC officials use it against us.

Hastings complains that the HMRC website has nothing visible to guide worried punters about the taxman's own computer errors, which were announced on Friday.

I have just checked and - not for the first time either - he is right. In the course of a busy day, chancellor Osborne should politely ask them to try a bit harder.

Unions 'compiling evidence' of safety breaches as London Underground operates some services on disrupted network

Up to 40% of tube trains were running in London today despite the tube strike as unions claimed that London Underground broke safety rules to keep the network working.

Millions of tube passengers struggled through the capital as all but one of the lines faced disruption.

But Transport for London (TfL) insisted the network had not been "paralysed" as unions had hoped and that it helped keep London moving by laying on extra buses, boats, and marshalled bike rides.

Today, there were suspensions and delays on all the tube lines apart from the Northern line. Four lines were suspended this morning but by the afternoon only the Circle line was completely shut.

Bob Crow, general secretary of RMT union said support for the strike was "rock solid" as he thanked members of his union and those of the Transport and Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) for taking part in the walkout.

The union claimed that a number of safety rules imposed after the King's Cross fire in 1987 were breached during the strike. It claimed that trains on the Bakerloo and District lines were allowed to pass through three closed stations in a row, and that 150 passengers had to climb over fences on Central lines after being forced off a train at Leytonstone, east London.

Crow said: "We are also compiling evidence of breaches of post King's Cross safety regulations that are being given the green light by management. Those regulations are there for a purpose, breaking them is a lethal gamble with passenger safety to maintain a PR front and that's a scandal."

London Underground accused the union of "scaremongering". Mike Brown, managing director, said: "The RMT and TSSA leaderships have chosen to disrupt Londoners for no good reason. The safety argument they now deploy - which has never been raised in any formal forum - is completely without foundation."

He added: "We are doing everything possible to keep as many tube services operating today, and to keep Londoners moving by providing extra buses, river services, and other alternatives."

The first wave of strikes began at 5pm yesterday, when maintenance workers staged a walkout, followed at 9pm by drivers, station staff and signallers at the RMT and TSSA unions.

The main bone of contention is the axing of 800 jobs, including hundreds of ticket office posts, which union officials claim is a threat to safety.

The disruption is expected to last until tomorrow morning, as services return to normal.

London's mayor, Boris Johnson, who cycled to work, criticised the industrial action as a "trumped-up and politically motivated" attempt to attack the coalition government.

He said: "Londoners are a hardy bunch and I am sure a tube strike will not deter us from getting around. I have asked TfL to pull out all the stops, but we must be clear that the RMT and TSSA plan to inconvenience Londoners for no good reason."

Further one-day walkouts are scheduled on 3 October, 2 November and 28 November. The RMT and TSSA fear that the staffing reductions will be followed by deeper cuts in TfL's 27,000-strong workforce if the Department for Transport seeks reductions in the organisation's £39bn funding settlement, which lasts until 2018.

The transport secretary, Philip Hammond, wants Johnson to preserve a multibillion-pound upgrade of the tube network, which would require the mayor to cut costs though reduced staffing levels on the underground and bus networks, as well as raise tube and bus fares.

Hammond said: "At a time when public finances are under pressure, any strike by Tube workers will be seriously damaging - undermining the case we are making within the spending review for continued investment in the tube."

The UK is matched only by the US in the comprehensiveness of its scholarly research capability. A historic retreat looms

In 1960, Harold Macmillan announced the abandonment of Britain's colonial aspirations with his famous "wind of change" speech. The empire had become too expensive, it was time to withdraw. This Wednesday, Vince Cable is poised to signal an equally historic retreat, this time from the empire of knowledge.

Britain has an unusually comprehensive capability across all the disciplines of scholarly research. Only the US can match our diversity of expertise. Everywhere else has concentrated on disciplines directly relevant to their commercial ecosystem. Germany is famously strong in engineering, Japan spectacularly weak in the social sciences.

Our expertise resides largely in our universities and has been irrigated for decades by increasing funding for research under both Conservative and Labour governments. The water of funding has allowed academics to spend time exploring the frontiers of knowledge, maintaining British outposts in many far-flung realms. Now the Treasury is considering cuts of 35% in research funding, turning off the tap to many fields. If that happens, expertise will rapidly wither, and our empire will fragment.

To understand the coming drought, consider just one of the government's two main channels of funding for academic researchers, the quality-related (QR) fund provided by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce). Hefce's QR budget is over £1.6bn a year. In recent years it has ringfenced the part of QR given to science and engineering disciplines. So when funding has been squeezed, it has been the social sciences and humanities that have borne all the cuts. If that policy is maintained in the face of cuts of 35%, there will be virtually no money left for the humanities or social sciences. Huge swathes of scholarship will lose half their irrigation. Many outposts will be abandoned. It will not be a case simply of trimming here and there.

Fear of such devastation is why learned societies, usually the most cordial of allies, have started attacking each other's turf. The Royal Academy of Engineering, for example, has recently advised ministers to make cuts in physics.

So as Vince Cable comes to make his first major speech on research on Wednesday, the stakes are high. It is of course inconceivable that the business secretary will say anything as frank as that he wants us to abandon much of our empire of knowledge. But then, Macmillan was also diplomatic in his language.

In his speech, the strongest Macmillan came up with was: "The wind of change is blowing through this continent, and whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our national policies must take account of it."

On Wednesday, it is quite possible that the heart of Cable's speech will be something similar - perhaps: "The need to reduce the budget deficit is pressing, and whether we like it or not, the cuts required are a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our policies on science and research must take account of it."

If so, then we will know the battles with the Treasury are over, deep cuts are coming, and that Britain has finally given up trying to maintain expertise across the entire empire of knowledge. The chill wind of history will have arrived. And the only question left will be which outposts to abandon first.

Giving way to nationalist groups from Scotland, the Basque country or Flanders would only highlight old differences

The prevailing view seems to be that the idea of Europe as a cultural, political, and even economic institution is under threat. What threatens Europe? A glib response would be: "It's the UK, stupid!" We will find more than a grain of truth in this response. The UK straddles Europe's margins - at once a major economy dependent on European trade, adapting its legal institutions to a transnational European legal order where EU law has direct effect; but refusing the common currency, and resisting further political integration. But the deeper threat to Europe is the very thing that it was designed to overcome - nationalism as the root of political unity and commonality.

The European project was inspired by the injunction "never again". Never again would European nations allow virulent and competitive nationalism to tear them apart as they had done in two disastrous wars. Never again would the fate of minorities be left to national parliaments, and racist and populist sentiments. According to Europe's founding myth, a new commonality, beginning with a European common market, respect for democratic institutions, human rights, and the rule of law, would define the European project.

These lofty ambitions were of course a far cry from the xenophobia and racism experienced by many migrant and refugee communities in Europe after the second world war. Nonetheless they provided a juridical framework within which discrimination was contested, and a liberal-democratic social project of tolerance and diversity was advanced. This was facilitated by the highly integrationist jurisprudence of the European court of justice in the early 1960s.

The impact of juridical unification was starkly brought home to Margaret Thatcher's government when a British court granted an injunction to stop the application of the Merchant Shipping Act 1988 (MSA) while its compatibility with European laws was tested. The MSA had sought to introduce a qualifier of nationality for fishing licenses in UK waters. Spanish fisherman challenged the legislation. The courts decided that nationality would not be allowed to interfere with the freedom of inter-European trade and commerce.

What, then, are the perceived threats to this new European order? The greatest perceived threat has been from the so-called "return of religion". Recall the furore in February 2008 when the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, gave a highly nuanced speech about the need to be open to the application of sharia law in certain limited circumstances. It was a speech explicitly addressed to lawyers, with a sophisticated analysis of particular laws and the theories on which they are based.

The irresponsible silence of the legal community when the archbishop came under attack was a low point that should shame all lawyers. He was only articulating what is currently a fact - that Christian, Jewish, and Islamic law does play a significant role in people's lives, and regulates family life and marriages in particular. Moreover he noted that a sense of wider religious belonging, such as with Muslims and the umma, coexists with citizenship in many nation states. Where there is an inconsistency between religious law and the putatively secular "law of the land", the latter would usually prevail. This is not different from a range of other jurisdictions such as India and South Africa where customary and state law coexist. Political and religious plurality is consistent. Citizenship does not mean that the citizen need accept "civil religion" alone. But such discussions about the return of religion are a distraction when nationalism is on the march in Europe again.

I would argue that we have more to fear from nationalism than from religion. And the paradox of European integration is that closer institutional ties with Europe, the principle of subsidiarity, and the apparent obsolescence of the modern nation-state are the calling cards of resurgent nationalism. The Scottish National party's white paper on Scottish independence carries this headline quote from the Dundee summer cabinet of 2009: "In my view the most cogent argument for independence for Scotland is the need for separate representation at the European Union." Scottish independence looms large as a major constitutional issue facing the UK.

At the heart of the European project, in Belgium, the viability of the nation-state that is the home of Europe's capital is now in question. As Nationaal Vlaamse Alliantie (National Flemish Alliance), a democratic nationalist party, put it in its programme for the European elections in 2004: "Europe became of essential importance for Flanders. The future of our people is more and more situated in Europe. From now on our identity will be projected in a European framework."

So what's the problem, some might ask? What does it matter if the constituent elements of the European Union are drawn from Scotland, England and Wales rather than the UK; from Flemish, Catalan, and Basque nations rather than Belgium or Spain? It matters a great deal, as the nation-state is not just a neutral differentiation. While the UK, Spain, Germany, Italy etc are the unions of previously rival regions, principalities, or remnants of imperial formations, they are also the sedimentation of decomposed differences. These nation-states have evolved into commonwealths where national differentiation is not the only unifying characteristic. Do we want a Europe where the Flemish cannot bear to hear French spoken within earshot, let alone Urdu? Will a Scotland with a higher per capita GDP be more open to foreigners or more likely to protect its relative affluence?

The neo-nationalists will try to sell nationalism to us in the name of economics, better corporate tax rates, greener government, and better energy policies. Here is what the SNP white paper on independence has to say about the Basque country: "[Basque] GDP per capita is approximately 30% higher than the Spanish average, and at the start of 2009 the Basque country government enjoyed a higher credit rating than the Spanish federal government." A coalition of better credit raters is not one of the grander political ideas. But this banality signals a radical reversal of what the European project envisioned, albeit in the name of closer ties to Europe.

Simply register with the School of Old Wives' Traditional Medicine and we'll give you a big impressive certificate

*no medical training required

Do you remember the traditional way to treat burns? Or what would happen to your face if the wind changed? If you think you can answer these questions, why not become a registered practitioner of Old Wives' Traditional Medicine?

Tomorrow at 11.30am outside the Department of Health in London, a new professional registration scheme for practitioners in the medical tradition of Old Wives' Tales will be launched. A group of junior medics and scientists from the Voice of Young Science (VoYS) network will form the new VoYS School of Old Wives' Traditional Medicine (pdf). They will hand out diplomas for people to practise Old Wives' Traditional Medicine, registering members of the public who can correctly answer questions about traditional cures and advice. The assessment is free of charge and absolutely no medical training or understanding of human physiology is required.

Hang on a moment. Surely it is better to stop people practising medicine that isn't evidence-based rather than encourage it? Well, according to the Department of Health, to be worthy of a professional registration scheme all that really matters is for practitioners to be following traditional methods. In a Department of Health steering committee report, and a later consultation to look into how the government should regulate traditional medicine practitioners, a professional registration scheme was proposed.

Just like the VoYS scheme, it would register practitioners for everything except whether a practitioner has medical training or whether the field is based on proper evidence.

The VoYS School of Old Wives' Traditional Medicine is delighted with this proposed scheme, as it flatters practitioners just for following traditional methods, and does away with the need for any of that difficult medical training. And while Trading Standards and other schemes already regulate practitioners for standards of hygiene, English fluency and criminal records, a Department of Health stamp of approval is far more glamorous.

But hang on a minute. What if you want little Johnny to be treated by someone with professional medical training? Could that lump that's appeared on the side of his face be indicative of something more serious than the wind changing while he pulled a face?

Sense About Science and a group of professional societies including the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges, the Royal College of Pathologists and the Institute of Biomedical Sciences are indeed concerned about the risks of misdiagnosis (pdf), dangerous drug interactions and the problems of blurring the line between what is and what is not medicine.

But the new scheme has the Department of Health's approval, so there can't be anything to worry about, can there? And as the previous health minister Andy Burnham said:

I believe that the introduction of such a register will increase public protection, but without the full trappings of professional recognition which are applied to practitioners of orthodox healthcare."

Dr Tom Dolphin, deputy chairman of the British Medical Association's junior doctors committee, objects:

Providing regulation that looks like the kind of regulation that real medicine gets adds an undeserved veneer of respectability to essentially unproven therapies ... If they are proper treatments then they will be covered by the existing medical regulations; if they're not, then there is no benefit to dressing them up as being on a par with actual medical practice."

Come and show the Department of Health your enthusiasm for more registration schemes that don't require medical training. Take the test tomorrow, 8 September, between 11.30 and 12.30 at the Department of Health on Whitehall to see if you too can get a diploma in the medical tradition of Old Wives' Tales.

Julia Wilson is the VoYS Coordinator at Sense About Science

The Science: So What? campaign is a classic example of how bad science is ignored when agencies are only interested in audience impact

Under the previous government, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) ran a campaign called Science: So What? So Everything (SSW). It was designed to encourage young people via websites, media reports and special events, to be inspired by the contributions of science to their lives.

The SSW campaign was not without problems. The project included a website that was expensive and inefficient and got little traffic for a campaign of this type. And then there were serious concerns about the quality of some of the research that BIS was promoting. In particular, a report on future jobs in science by the Fast Future consultancy was heavily promoted during the campaign despite failing to meet some basic standards.

Both the department and its SSW campaign have come under fire from researchers in public and in private. We were interested in how BIS responded internally to these criticisms, which sought to improve their activities. So we submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to find out.

Good quality research depends upon robust, critical appraisal. As BIS is a major player in the UK's research work - and as the SSW campaign was intended to promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics - we hoped the department would reflect the standards that contribute to the UK's reputation for excellent research. We hoped, for example, that since the department plays a role in assessing the quality of research in UK universities the studies it commissioned itself would be robust. Our findings are not encouraging. They suggest BIS did not respond appropriately to concerns about the SSW campaign and that their way of measuring success was questionable.

The report on future jobs in science was commissioned and promoted as part of the SSW campaign by BIS, under the former business secretary, Lord Mandelson . The report was garlanded with supportive statements from the former science minister, Lord Drayson, and even the former prime minister, Gordon Brown.

As soon as the report was released, major concerns were raised by bloggers and academics about such things as the methodology, the inappropriate use of Wikipedia and implausible claims about nanotechnology. These serious issues were largely missed by the mainstream media, beyond a blog on the Guardian's science website and an article in the Times Higher Education Supplement that criticised the report.

The Conservative party - then in opposition - failed to challenge the report effectively. It even issued a press release that added further errors. For example, it argued that a worldwide survey used for the report "determined that 'Virtual Lawyer' is the fantasy job which people in Africa, Peru and Pakistan think is 'likely to be the best paid'." But as the Fast Future report makes clear, this was based on responses from only one person in Peru and one in Pakistan. It would be rather tenuous to assume their compatriots share their views. It is unfortunate that the Conservative party's criticisms of such a flawed document were themselves so ill conceived. More worryingly, the press release went out with David Willetts's name in the headline along with a lengthy quote. Willetts is now minister for universities and science.

When BIS evaluated the success of the future jobs report, it used media coverage as a gauge and all but dismissed any criticisms. Our FOIA request shows that the PR agency Kindred (which worked for BIS on the project) noted that the report achieved "178 pieces of coverage across national, regional, consumer and online media ... A combined OTS [opportunities to see] of 60,985,597 ... An AEV [Advertising Equivalent Value] of £2,248,866". This is a poor measure of success in science communication. Public understanding of and engagement with science cannot usefully be measured by column inches in the press, without also considering the accuracy and efficacy of the project in question.

There were also crude attempts to assess the online impact of coverage of the Future Jobs report. Kindred said the story "generated a seven-fold increase in volume of traffic to the campaign website". The increase raised the traffic to "7,733 website hits during the six days after the launch of the activity (compared to 1,167 website hits for the same period before the activity launch)". For a campaign aimed at millions of young people and backed by a £1m-plus budget, this trumpeted increase is pathetic.

In dealing with criticisms, BIS and Kindred focused on managing negative publicity rather than on correcting mistakes or meaningful engagement with critics. For example, when the nanotechnology blogger James Hayton criticised the Fast Future report, an email exchange supplied in response to our FOIA request argued that "James' blog isn't particularly well known ... Not that this means his criticisms aren't well-founded, but I doubt appeasement will be a worthwhile strategy". The emails are so heavily redacted it is impossible to know whether the comment was from a civil servant or a BIS contractor. In deciding whether to respond to Hayton's blog, these email exchanges gave considerably more attention to whether Hayton's criticisms would appear on the Guardian's science blog and how to distance BIS from any criticism than was given to the accuracy and significance of his points: "Given the reach of the Guardian blog, we believe that it is a worthwhile exercise for Rohit [Talwar, the author of the Future Jobs report] to provide some form of response." The email exchange states that "while tacitly looking over Rohit's response, it needs to come from him (rather than Kindred, and certainly not BIS)".

Responses to mainstream media criticism of BIS's practice were no better. In response to the Times Higher Education Supplement article, BIS emphasised the "speculative" nature of the research behind the future jobs report. It was left to Talwar to claim that the approach taken is "accepted best practice in horizon scanning". The importance of the THES article was downplayed, with one email exchange citing a single tweet stating that "Jonathan Mendel [quoted in the THES article criticising the future jobs report] is a prat" as evidence that there was little interest in the story. Substantive criticisms from the THES article and elsewhere were not addressed in the documents supplied to us.

When preparing a statement on the response to the future jobs report for then science minister, Lord Drayson, a draft saying that the "vast majority" of coverage of the campaign was positive was revised with the effect of marginalising criticism further. The final version simply stated that the campaign "has generated a great deal of positive coverage". Failures by BIS to uphold basic standards raise concerns about how they engage with the professions within their remit and are frankly embarrassing for those of us who work within and are keen to promote the UK's excellent research sector.

While BIS failed to redact Hayton's name from the documents rel

Tell us what our future readers' panels should be about, or contribute to our upcoming one about strikes

Tube strikes are currently causing travel chaos for millions of commuters in London. Unions say safety and security will be compromised by staff cuts and reductions in ticket office opening hours. Is the action just? Are commuters right to complain? Ahead of next week's Trades Union Congress, we decided to follow opinionatedgirl's suggestion and organise our next readers' panel around the topic of strikes and industrial action. Last week's Cif people's panel about vegetarianism was a great success, with more than 500 comments and a big debate going on in the thread - we'd welcome more of the same on the thorny issue of strikes.

Have you ever taken part in industrial action, from picketing to more robust ways of protesting against the actions of employers? Have you ever mediated on behalf of a union or a company in an attempt to avoid industrial action? Are you affected by this week's tube strikes, or industrial action in the past? What are the effects of prolonged striking on your community and family life? Do you defend the right of union members to strike, or do you resent it?

If you are a reader of Cif and would like to participate, please send an email to Jessica Reed (jessica.reed@guardian.co.uk) with a few lines about your experience and your Cif username. Please note that we may not be able to use all submissions.

Please also take the time to suggest ideas for our future panels as well. What hot political or personal issues would you like Cif readers to write about? Share your thoughts and experiences with us.

As with benefit errors or tax credit miscalculations made by officialdom, my instinct is that people, especially poor people, should be let off if the mistake is not theirs

It's a funny state of affairs when the BBC wheels on Paul Lewis, a tax expert from Radio 4's highly-respectable Moneybox programme, to point out ways in which taxpayers can resist a new claim on their wallets from HM Revenue and Customs. It happened this morning.

You expect this sort of behaviour from the sharper end of accountancy profession and from publicity-hungry members from that walk of life who really should have gone on the stage or become Tory MPs.

But "if they ask you for money, I think you should challenge it" from Moneybox is fighting talk. If HMRC made the mistake "it's outrageous that they should be asking for it", says Paul Lewis. The Daily Mail is on the case too, but that's more what we'd all expect.

What we're talking about here is the failure of HMRC's new overdue computer to get its PAYE calculations right to the tune of a £2bn underpayment, offset by a £1.8m overpayment.

Some 5.7 million people are affected and - here's the good news - 4.3 million of them will get a rebate, leaving 1.4 million to face a demand for extra payments, to be deducted from their pay packets at around £100 a month from next April.

Naturally the Mail's splash headline on Saturday, "Six Million Caught in Tax Debacle", stressed the minority losers' plight, not the good news heading towards the majority, as most papers did. That's what makes the Mail so successful: it stokes the fear and resentment which lurks inside most of us.

I'm always interested in outbreaks of popular resistance to the authorities, especially when fomented the political right, which can often bit ambiguous on law and order when it runs counter to its own interests: think speed cameras.

The left is rarely very good at this sort of populism. I suppose you could count the new campaign to move Tony Blair's memoirs to the crime section of book shops, though it seems a bit too larky to count as a grown-up activity. All too often the left's default position is unpopulism. MPs, victims of another inept new computer programme to handle their expenses, aren't too good at it either.

Mind you, not even the Mail always gets it right. It had a "dump the pump" campaign in, I think, 2000 which tried to derail petrol price increases. It caught on only after the summer holidays - inspired by French truckers militancy that year? - and panicked the Blair government into abandoning Ken Clarke's fuel escalator policy which tried to curb consumption via the price mechanism.

Around the same time the murder conviction against Norfolk farmer Tony Martin for shooting a 16-year-old burglar dead (it was reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility on appeal), fomented a surge of anger about the right of homeowners to defend their property from the criminal underclass.

I have a lot of sympathy with that point of view - and a bit even for Tony Martin - but it doesn't survive a five-minute reading of the Mail or its slower, more brutish rival, the Express. "Reasonable force" is the critical component; we can't all be given the green light to batter people. The Tories promised to make the law less restrictive, but I suspect their hopes will be thwarted by a clash with reality.

Which brings us back to HMRC. Ministers are reported to have thought about writing the loss off, but realised they couldn't so do easily in a financial crisis. In any case, HMRC, as reluctant to be pushed around as Scotland Yard, has statutory duties which require it to go after the money it is owed. So it should, if you think about it: all those tax-deducted yachts.

Labour ministers with coastal seats were anxious that HMRC write off an earlier mistake when it messed up the business rates levied on ports some years ago. They found it difficult - as the coalition is doing to fulfil a similar pledge - though I seem to remember that Labour did prevent precipitate action to reclaim taxes from football clubs which might have put them out of business. Not very popular.

As with benefit errors or tax credit miscalculations made by officialdom my instinct is that people, especially poor people, should be let off if the mistake is not theirs, by accident or design. As the great Sir Max Hastings - who can write 1,500 words on pretty well anything at short notice - complains in today's Daily Mail, no tax official ever gets fired for making a mistake. The risk is always on our side. I fear the taxman more than I do the Taliban, says Fearless Max, liberator of Port Stanley.

That's where Moneybox's Paul Lewis and other respectable folk are making a useful point today. The the first wave tax letters arriving on doormats this week are calculations, not demands, they stress, adding a useful tip: always WRITE to the taxman and treat emails purporting to come from HMRC as the scams they are.

If you have provided HMRC with details of your changing circumstances - for instance, a new job - and 12 months has passed without them changing your code you can cite what is known as an "A19 extra statutory concession" and insist on being let off.

That sounds fair enough, and it isn't breaking the law, just using it in the same way HMRC officials use it against us. Max Hastings complains that the HMRC website has nothing visible to guide worried punters about the taxman's own computer errors - announced on Friday.

I have just checked and - not for the first time either - Max is right. In the course of a busy day Chancellor Osborne should politely ask them to try a bit harder.

MPs to quiz chairman of Migration Advisory Committee amid concerns caps on skilled labour could drive business abroad

Government plans to introduce a cap on the number of skilled workers coming to the UK from outside the EU will come under scrutiny today.

Professor David Metcalf, the chairman of the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), will give evidence to MPs after business leaders voiced concern that the government had got its policy wrong and caps on skilled labour could threaten the recovery, driving business abroad.

Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Commons home affairs select committee, has said the cap should pass the scrutiny of parliament before it is brought into force because it risks placing "restrictions on friendly countries like India".

An immediate 5% reduction was imposed earlier this year to prevent a rush of applications while the independent MAC consults on where the limit should be set from April.

The business secretary, Vince Cable, raised concerns about the proposed caps during a visit to India this summer, admitting there was a "debate" in the cabinet about the plans.

Cable said he was pushing for a light touch regime, saying he wanted to encourage trade and inward investment.

Some business leaders are worried the cap might have an impact on Indian companies which heavily invested in the UK, as well as UK-based companies relying on workers from the south Asian peninsula, particularly in services such as IT, food and hospitality.

The home affairs committee will hear from Anwar Hasan, the managing director of Tata, the UK's largest foreign investor - which employs a total workforce of 47,000 - and Som Mittal, the president of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), the body representing India's IT industries.

Hilton Dawson, the chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers (BASW), will also give evidence after the organisation said it was concerned a cap could prevent local authorities from accessing skilled social workers from countries outside the EU.

Last night, the immigration minister, Damian Green, admitted an annual limit on the 50,000 workers that arrive from outside the EU each year would not be enough to reduce net migration levels from last year's figure of 196,000 to "tens of thousands".

He said it would be "not just wrong, but self-defeating" to pull up the drawbridge, but added that skilled workers should not include people running takeaway restaurants and production line workers.

"We cannot assume that everyone coming here to work has skills that the UK workforce cannot offer," he said in his first major speech since the coalition government took office.

"We will not make Britain prosperous in the long term by telling our own workers: 'Don't bother to learn new skills, we can bring them all in from overseas.'"

Under the interim cap, the numbers of highly-skilled workers allowed has been limited to last year's levels, at 5,400, and higher entry requirements were imposed under the points-based system.

The number of second-tier skilled workers was reduced by 1,300 to 18,700.

The 12-week MAC consultation closes today, and its advice will be presented to the government by the end of the month.

Have you received a letter from the tax man demanding extra payments? Want to know if you can get the bill written off? Ask our tax expert for advice

HM Revenue & Customs sent out the first batch of letters today informing tens of thousands of people that, because of mistakes it made in tax coding, they have underpaid tax and will now have to pay extra - in some cases up to £5,000. Over the next few months around 1.4 million people will be told they owe an average of £1,400.

But tax experts are advising people who receive these letters to double check whether they are really liable to pay the outstanding bill. Those who owe tax from the 2008/2009 tax year or earlier could be eligible for the bill to be written off; others may be able to claim clemency on the grounds of financial hardship.

Have you received a letter? Are you confused about why you are being asked to pay more and want to know if you are entitled to have the tax written off? How do you go about persuading the Revenue that you shouldn't have to pay any more money?

Angela Beech, a partner with chartered accountants Blick Rothenberg will be online at 12.15 today to answer your queries about the latest HMRC debacle. Please post your questions below.

UK plummets from third to 15th place in OECD university listing, behind Slovakia and Czech Republic

The UK's position in the graduate league table rankings has fallen sharply in less than a decade, with a higher proportion of young people now getting a degree in Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic, a report released today revealed.

Vice-chancellors and unions warned that the UK risked being left behind in the economic recovery, as analysis by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) showed the UK had gone from having the third-highest graduation rate among industrialised countries in 2000 to 15th place in 2008.

The percentage of students finishing university was below the OECD average, according to its annual Education at a Glance report, and the UK also lagged behind competitors in public investment in higher education.

The figures come amid an intensification in the debate concerning the importance of higher education ahead of next month's publication of the Browne review into finance and funding and after a strict cap on student numbers this year left tens of thousands without a place.

The sector is facing cuts of more than £1bn between now and the end of 2013, and some believe Britain may have reached a peak of university participation.

In 2000, the UK had the third-highest graduation rate among OECD countries, with 37% of young people getting a degree compared with an average of 28%. Denmark and Norway scored the same and only Finland (41%) and New Zealand (50%) were higher. But in 2008 the proportion had fallen to 35%, below an average of 38% and behind countries including Iceland, Portugal and Ireland.

The level of public investment in higher education is 0.7% of GDP, below the OECD average of 1% and behind countries such as the US, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Poland and Slovenia. The OECD said governments had to aim for world-class quality in their education systems to ensure long-term economic growth, with experiences during the economic downturn, when young people with lowest levels of education were hardest hit, proving the value of investment.

Putting public resources into university education also paid off in bringing in extra tax revenues, it argued, calculating that on average, a man with a degree would bring in $119,000 (almost £77,500) in income taxes and social contributions over his working life than one who had only school-level education.

"Even after taking account of the cost to the public exchequer of financing degree courses, higher tax revenues and social contributions from people with university degrees make tertiary education a good long-term investment," the OECD said.

It added: "Labour market demand for highly qualified workers has grown significantly and countries with high graduation rates at the tertiary level are also those most likely to develop or maintain a highly skilled labour force."

Announcing the results in London, Andreas Schleicher, head of the OECD's indicators and analysis division, said Finland, Canada and Japan were now major players in higher education. "For many years the UK was very much at the forefront," he said. "But now you do not see that competitive advantage."

Schleicher added: "The current flattening out in higher education participation means that in the long term the growth potential is more limited."

The vice-chancellors' body, Universities UK (UUK), questioned how long the country's higher education system could maintain its world-class position in the field given its comparative "under-investment".

Steve Smith, president of UUK, said: "At a time when many of our competitors are investing in higher education and research as a way out of the recession, we cannot afford to be left behind. The UK still shows below average levels of total investment in higher education institutions ... we must question the sustainability of this position."

The National Union of Students said the UK was being outpaced by countries who had recognised the importance of funding colleges, universities and students to produce a highly skilled workforce and further the economic recovery.

The general secretary of the University and College Union, Sally Hunt, said: "Today's report shows a worrying decline in the UK's standing in the world of education. We have plummeted down the graduate league table, going from a major player to a relegation candidate in less than a decade."

Wendy Piatt, of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities, said the UK "risks jeopardising the competitive advantage which has made its universities the envy of the world".

Originally published in the Guardian on 7 September 1974

Mr Jenkins's White Paper on Equality for Women is the right move in the right direction. Its timing, of course, is a political matter. White Papers published on the eves of elections always are political matters; but this one has merits of its own which ought not to be lost in the jeering. In the first place, as Mr Jenkins said yesterday, the title "Equality for Women" also implies equality for men. Its aim is not to exalt women into a privileged world of their own but to forbid and if possible to eliminate the domination of one sex by the other. This is not something that can be done by law alone. Anyone who tries to raise the standards of public behaviour by legislation must run the gauntlet of some fearsome precedents. There was the public school headmaster who told his boys to be pure of heart or he would flog them. Threats do not purify hearts. And in any case how did he know whom to flog?

Mr Jenkins is wiser than the headmaster. He did not claim yesterday that legal sanctions could enforce equality. This could only be achieved by a change in the attitudes of people. On the other hand, Government intervention, he thought, was necessary in order to "push along" the process by which prejudices have been eroded over the past 70 years. The law cannot do the trick alone, but it can help.

The trick is to change society's frame of mind into the concept of a society of equal people free to use their talents as they wish. The problem is more complicated than one of equal pay for equal work. Equal opportunity is just as important as equal pay. The White Paper advances into several fields which have so far only been discussed - education, terms of employment apart from pay, the granting of credit, and the provision of housing. In all these fields women are worse off than men.

In raising a loan or a mortgage, women are at a disadvantage either because of their sex or because of their marital status. The White Paper says, in effect, that banks and building societies must accept that a woman's money is as good as a man's. Which it is.

There are, of course, many more creeping injustices which no law can do anything about. Because less than one seventh of Britain's doctors are women, many people suppose that women make bad doctors. Because there are only 46 female professors and nearly 3,000 male ones, many people suppose that women are stupid.

People take the effect to be the cause. And the women suffer.

These are disadvantages which no law can wipe out.

New poll finds that 38% of people who voted Lib Dem on 6 May would not do so again if a general election were held today

Labour is reaping the benefit from the Liberal Democrats' decision to enter into coalition, according to a poll published today which shows Nick Clegg's party has lost the support of almost four in 10 of people who backed it in May.

Research by ComRes for the Independent shows that just 62% of those who supported the Lib Dems on 6 May said they would do so again if a general election were held today.

The proportion saying they switched allegiance to Labour has risen from 15% to 22% since last month, while 7% said they would back the Conservatives.

The polling suggests that men are more opposed than women to the Liberal Democrats' decision to form a government with the Conservatives, with just 15% of men saying they would vote Liberal Democrat in a general election today, compared to 21% of women.

But the Lib Dems appear to have arrested the slump in their overall poll standing after receiving 22% of votes at the election.

Clegg's party was up two points on 18% this month, while the Tories were down one on 38% and Labour up one on 34%.

The Independent poll suggests that Labour is fighting to stay above the 30% mark among more affluent voters, while lower income groups appear to be shunning the Liberal Democrats, with just 12% of the bottom DE social group and 11% of C2 manual workers backing the party.

The findings are published as Labour leadership contender Diane Abbott warns that the budget will "bear most heavily" on women and the poor.

The findings were published as Clegg, the deputy prime minister, yesterday cleared the first Commons hurdle to push through controversial plans for a referendum on changing the Westminster voting system - a key Lib Dem demand in the coalition pact.

But although the legislation paving the way for a referendum on 5 May next year was passed with a majority of 59 last night at the bill's second reading, there were signs of the tensions to come between the coalition partners as Tory backbenchers made clear the bill is likely to come under serious pressure during its committee stages in October.

Tory backbenchers lined up to speak against changing the first-past-the-post system at the bill's second reading, with one claiming the referendum was the "high price we have to pay" for the alliance with the Liberal Democrats - who have long demanded electoral reform.

Clegg, who opened the debate on the parliamentary voting system and constituencies bill, insisted the legislation would restore faith in the way MPs were elected.

He conceded there were "different views" in the coalition over the arrangements for the referendum, and what outcome it should deliver.

However, he said, "where we emphatically agree is that the final decision should be taken not by us but by the British people".

Most Conservative MPs, including the prime minister, David Cameron, are opposed to reforming how MPs are elected, but the party conceded a referendum in the coalition agreement, linked with a boundary review.

Even though Labour supports moving to AV, the party has opposed the bill because it will also reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 and equalise constituency sizes.

The shadow justice secretary, Jack Straw, challenged the timing of the plebiscite, claiming the chances of a yes vote will be diminished by the "deep unpopularity" of the government by May.

And he condemned the changes to the number and size of parliamentary constituencies as the "worst kind of political skulduggery".

Experts give their view on the appointment of Bob Diamond at Barclays and the departure of Stephen Green, who is to be trade minister, from HSBC

The appointment of Bob Diamond as the next chief executive of Barclays has been warmly welcomed in the City today. Diamond, who currently runs Barclays' investment banking arm, will replace John Varley in March 2011. Analysts say his appointment underlines the growing importance of Barclays Capital, whose profits have soared in recent years. However, there is concern that the banking sector still faces problems.

There is also speculation about the future of HSBC, with chairman Stephen Green expected to step down to become Britain's new trade minister.

At 322p, Barclays shares are up by six times from their 51p low [in January 2009], so now might seem as good a time as any for the chief executive to announce his departure. Presumably this shows confidence in the outcome of the US court case [into the acquisition of some assets from Lehman Brothers] which has not yet been decided. If there were short-term concerns with the revenue outlook of Barclays Capital or the Lehman acquisition, then surely Bob Diamond would not have been handed the reins. Longer term, we have deep reservations about the "global universal banking" strategy, due to government bailouts, since very little capacity has been removed from global financial services. Fourteen years ago when Bob joined Barclays in 1997, BarCap's total assets were £132bn, they are now £1.2 trillion. Our recommendation remains hold, with a target price of 356p.

Bob Diamond is highly respected in the industry, with an exceptional track record at Barclays Capital, developing it into a top-tier global franchise over the past 14 years. We believe his appointment as group CEO reflects progress delivered at BarCap and the importance of the investment banking operations in the group's future strategy.

The headline grabber this morning is the unexpected appointment of Bob Diamond to succeed John Varley as CEO of Barclays in March 2011. This is such good news for the UK banking sector. It will send a strong message out to government and to Sir John Vickers's independent banking commission that the banking sector in the UK is strong, robust and in no mood to surrender its sovereignty to either bureaucrats or politicians. Though Bob Diamond comes from an investment banking background, above all else he is brilliant delegator; and let's face it the art of good management is delegation. He is also a supreme motivator and a bold man. If the head of retail banking at Barclays or at Barclaycard are not doing their job to the standard required, trust me, they will be replaced.

It is fair to say that Barclays Capital has contributed a minimum of 40% of Barclays' profits in recent years. Barclays have been blessed in having a tremendous chairman in Marcus Agius, a thoroughly respected CEO in John Varley and a major innovator in Bob Diamond. I would be fairly comfortable that this is now a strong bank which will hopefully take a lead in the recovery of the UK's economy. Three years ago the market felt that Barclays had been economical with the truth over the state of its balance sheets and its impairment charges. They stood four square behind the defence of their position with courage and refused entry into the government lifeboat. Their accounts were audited according to their comments. Well done to them even though they had to raise expensive capital from the Middle East. Barclays pulled off a real coup in buying the remnants of Lehman Brothers New York for beans. Provided there is not too much of a hefty bill to pay over claims on Barclays for Lehman this could prove to be the deal of the decade.

HSBC was clearly not going to be muscled out of the headlines by Barclays. It was announced this morning that Stephen Green, the chairman, would be taking up an appointment in the government as trade minister. This is good news for Britain. However, it is generally agreed that HSBC is the best run bank in the world and I hope the UK government appreciates that fact and bewares the possibility that HSBC may relocate head office to Hong Kong or Sydney if business conditions become too draconian. There will be any number of candidates delighted to fill Stephen Green's boots. How about Lord Mervyn Davies for starters? He ticks every box having been CEO and chairman of Standard Chartered Bank.

The appointment of Mr Diamond comes as no surprise. His leadership in acquiring Lehman Brothers' assets at the height of the global banking crisis was both brave and, with hindsight, positive, with the strengthened investment bank leading the group's subsequent recovery.

Nonetheless, a recent veiled profits warning from Australian investment bank Macquarie provides a reminder that challenges still exist, whilst the debate over the correct structure of the banking industry continues to rumble on. Furthermore, in times of austerity, industry compensation continues to sit uncomfortably with politicians and the electorate, while questions over broader European banking strength have resurfaced.

In all, whilst the bank has been rewarded with a significant recovery in its share price following its successful navigation through the banking crisis, larger industry and economic concerns remain, concerns which have seen market consensus opinion move from a buy to a strong hold over recent months.

Foreign secretary posts message on Twitter describing reports of an improper relationship with former special adviser Christopher Myers as a 'big lie'

William Hague said today he hoped he had "nailed" the rumours that he had an improper relationship with a former special adviser.

The foreign secretary described the reports about him and Christopher Myers as a "big lie".

Last week, Hague released a deeply personal statement about his relationship with his wife, Ffion in a bid to kill off rumours of an affair with the 25-year-old adviser. He also announced Myers's resignation.

Hague wrote on Twitter last night: "Thanks for another day of very supportive comments. What was said about me was a big lie which I hope has been nailed. I am enjoying my work."

Hague first spoke out last week after rumours had been circulating about his relationship with Myers. Photos of Hague and Myers walking together in casual clothes were published in the Mail on Sunday, and the Guido Fawkes political website made a freedom of information request about the appointment of Myers, who has little apparent expertise in foreign affairs. The website also disclosed that the adviser and Hague had shared a hotel room at least once.

The foreign secretary's tweet may raise further questions about his handling of the allegations made against him. When he issued his statement last week it was picked up by media that had ignored the story up to that point. The public relations guru Max Clifford said that the statement had turned a "small problem into a huge problem".

Hague admitted last week that he had "occasionally shared twin hotel rooms" with Myers but said: "Any suggestion that his appointment was due to an improper relationship between us is utterly false."

In the statement he also revealed that his wife had "suffered multiple miscarriages and indeed are still grieving for the loss of a pregnancy this summer".

Many Tories are uncomfortable with Hague's handling of the affair and believe it was wrong to appoint Myers as his third special adviser when he has little expertise in foreign affairs. Cabinet ministers usually have just two special advisers.

John Redwood, the former cabinet minister and failed Tory leadership contender, wrote on his blog that Hague had shown "poor judgment" in sharing a hotel room Myers.

Labour leadership contender says £5.8bn of the £8bn to be raised from cuts and taxes will come from women

Labour leadership contender Diane Abbott claimed yesterday that the coalition government's budget will "bear most heavily" on women and the poor.

She used a Commons debate to accuse George Osborne of delivering an "unfair and aggressive" budget that will hit women through its package of welfare and public spending cuts.

Equalities minister Lynne Featherstone insisted the government's tax and spending plans were fair and included protection for the most vulnerable in society.

Abbott (Hackney N and Stoke Newington) said: "This is a budget, these are a package of public expenditure cuts, which will bear most heavily on the poorest, bear most heavily on women.

"George Osborne, our chancellor, has cut and frozen too many programmes which were aimed largely at women in one of the most unfair and regressive budgets that I have seen in 23 years in parliament.

"His decisions to freeze child benefit, scrap the child trust fund, stop Sure Start maternity grants, abolish the health in pregnancy grant, cap housing benefit, freeze public pay will all have a greater impact on women than men."

House of Commons library research had shown that women will shoulder "the biggest burden of the cuts".

Abbott said of the £8bn to be raised from cuts and taxes, £5.8bn will come from women.

Featherstone sparked protests from Abbott and her colleagues on Labour benches by criticising the impartial and respected House of Commons library.

She said: "I would say that the library findings were biased in their budget analysis; it was not robust; it only included selected measures."

Abbott questioned whether it was in order to "impugn the professionalism and integrity" of the library staff.

Featherstone said: "No integrity was being impugned but the Commons library research paper itself notes that it's not a detailed assessment based on individual tax and benefit data and therefore remains a rough and ready approximation."

She added: "We are absolutely committed to a fairer future for women and their families."

People should walk more. I got from Clapton Pond in Hackney to Whitechapel Road in 45 minutes without undue exertion. My first thought about the crowd of fellow Londoners struggling for sardine status inside a pair of rammed number 25 bendy buses from Straford as if, well, trying to climb aboard a rush hour Tube, was, why didn't they just stride off down the wide pavement towards the looming Gherkin instead? The City-bound traffic was clogged enough to mean they'd probably reach their destination faster as pedestrians. If the walk seemed too much, there was a large cycle hire docking station at the junction with New Road with plenty of "Boris Bikes" available. Ah well.

Meanwhile, steady streams of human beings were coming in and out of Whitechapel station. Many would have been Overground passengers, unaffected by the strike. The rest had taken their chances with a disrputed Distrcit Line service, or in some cases deciding against. Inside, a whiteboard said there was no service eastbound to Barking while westbound, where most passengers are heading in the morning, from Mile End or Upminster, it seemed you could only go all the way to Wimbledon. But a patient LU lady was explaining to people that they could get off at Embankment and either walk or take a bus from there. And in a while a male colleague was using the cuff of his jumper to wipe the whiteboard clean and update the information accordingly. Seems that by then you could alight at Victoria too. "The trains are alright, they're coming every ten minutes," the patient lady was saying, "it's just that the stations are closed."

A fluid situation, then, at least on this evidence. How's the big picture looking? As I write (from a cafe down the road) TfL's website says the Circle is suspended, the Northern service is good while every other line is part suspended, some with "minor delays". That's an improvement, from their viewpoint, on what the station information was saying half an hour ago. A TfL source has texed to say that the District, Victoria, Bakerloo and Northern and now the Waterloo and City are all "running through central London" and that most people are getting to work OK, though as the Guardian reports many are having to vary their routines.

I'm off now to conitune varying mine, by walking across Tower Bridge to City Hall. It'll be faster than the bus, that's for sure.

Rolling coverage of all the day's developments including Metropolitan police assistant commissioner John Yates at the home affairs committee

9.06am: William Hague has used Twitter to describe the allegations made about his sexuality as "a big lie". This is what he posted last night:

8.31am: David Cameron has suffered his first proper rebellion in the Commons. As Patrick Wintour reports in the Guardian, the alternative vote referendum bill was passed last night at second reading by a majority of 59.

But a glance at the division list shows that 10 Tory MPs voted against the government. For the record, they were: Brian Binley (Northampton South), Peter Bone (Wellingborough), Bill Cash (Stone), Christopher Chope (Christchurch), Philip Davies (Shipley), Philip Hollobone (Kettering), David Nuttall (Bury North), Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills), Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle) and Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight).

This probably won't alarm the prime minister too much as he returns to work after his two weeks' paternity leave. Cameron is chairing a meeting of the cabinet at 9am. Other items on the diary for today include:

9.15am: Frank Field, the Labour former minister who is now advising the government on poverty, is speaking at an Institute for Fiscal Studies seminar on child poverty.

12.30pm: John Yates, the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner, is giving evidence to the Commons home affairs committee. He is due to speak about counter-terrorism and royal protection, but he is also going to be asked about the News of the World phone hacking investigation.

And we'll probably also hear more about Stephen Green, the HSBC boss. The BBC is reporting that he is about to join the government as a trade minister. Downing Street is refusing to confirm the appointment, but the BBC seems pretty sure of its story.

Cameron has been trying for ages to find a high-profile trade minister. According to the Press Association, Green could be ideal. "HSBC was one of the few major banks to emerge from the recent financial crisis relatively unscathed, and was not forced to seek a government bail-out like some of its rivals," it says.

"An ordained Church of England minister, Green has spoken publicly since the financial crisis about the need for the banking sector to rediscover its ethics and make corporate social responsibility a priority."

EU finance ministers are set to approve three new pan-European watchdogs to oversee the banking, insurance and securities markets across Europe

George Osborne will today endorse sweeping European supervisory powers over banks and financial institutions in response to the economic crisis.

EU finance ministers meeting in Brussels are set to approve three new pan-European watchdog bodies to oversee the banking, insurance and securities markets across Europe.

The aim is better coordination of national financial services watchdogs as an early warning signal of any future economic disasters.

Osborne has backed the move since taking office, insisting that the new system will still leave day-to-day financial supervision within the UK in the hands of national authorities.

Conservative MEP Vicky Ford also insisted the outcome would give added protection to consumers - who bore the brunt of the crisis - without ceding sovereignty.

"National governments and national regulators keep their frontline responsibility to protect national taxpayers' interests," she said.

But Open Europe, campaigning for EU reforms, said the plan represented a clear shift in power from the UK, giving EU officials a mandate to "interpret, apply and even enforce EU laws at the expense of national regulators", according to the Open Europe director, Mats Persson.

Unveiling a new Open Europe report which warns of a risk to the City of London, Persson said: "This proposal is moving substantial control over financial services away from national authorities and governments.

"Once established, the EU supervisors are likely to extend their powers incrementally, since the proposal is designed to allow for more and more laws to come under their authority.

"While a single rulebook could benefit the City of London, the voting arithmetic within the supervisors leaves the UK in an unusually weak position to block unwelcome proposals. This, in turn, could expose the City to interventions from countries which don't share the UK's view of financial markets."

But a government spokesman insisted the new supervisory arrangements were "a good deal for us", adding: "We are happy with this. Once it has been agreed by finance ministers, the technical details will be sorted out by national officials later this week or next week.

"But day-to-day supervision [of British banks and financial institutions] remains at national level - that is what we have said all along."

Osborne and his colleagues will also discuss another post-crisis plan to tighten control on banks - a possible EU-wide levy on all finance houses to go to a central pot to fund any future wind-up of failing institutions, avoiding any repeat of the financial fall-out being absorbed by customers.

Osborne has already announced that he will introduce a British levy at the start of next year, but with the proceeds going into general UK Treasury revenue.

Britain is against setting up a fund to raise money for winding up banks.

"If such a fund were created, it would encourage banks to indulge in risky behaviour, knowing that a bail-out fund was available," said the government spokesman.

Agreement on a levy is still months away, with no detailed proposals likely to be tabled by the commission until next year.

Meanwhile, John Monks, general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, urged the ministers today to consider, in addition to the planned bank levy, a "financial transaction tax" (FTT) on all transactions between banks.

In a letter to the Commission and the ministers, Monks said: "Workers and their families are paying a triple bill for a crisis they have no responsibility for: as job-holders who are facing high and rising unemployment; as taxpayers who are facing social austerity and higher taxes for less public sector services; and as parents who are facing less quality in education, training and good quality jobs for their children.

"In stark contrast to this, the crisis for banking institutions and their managers seems to be over. The huge bail-out programmes have not given rise to any more socially-responsible behaviour in the banking sector but have, in fact, added to moral hazard and widespread self-service mentality.

"The ETUC believes that an FTT on all transactions can contribute to re-pay the costs of the crisis and fund other public good objectives."

Constultants (the analyst kind, not the doctors) cost the NHS millions. Find out which health authority spends what
o Get the data

The NHS spent almost £314m on consultancy services in the last year of the previous government, according to a detailed breakdown obtained by the Guardian. Health secretary Andrew Lansley said that across the country, spend on consultancy services was virtually the same as spending on skin cancer and lung cancer services combined or equivalent to almost 10,000 nurses.

In London the spending on consultancies amounted to a levy of £15 a patient. By comparison Yorkshire and the Humber health bodies managed by spending less than 20% that amount per patient. Two years ago in the North West spending amounted to £26m but now that is over £40m.

Lansley has already spelt out plans to clamp down on excessive management spend - spelling out in June that health trusts would have to reduce their management costs by more than 45% over the next four years.

He said: "I am staggered by the scale of the expenditure on management consultants in the NHS. Even at a time when it became clear that the nation's borrowing was out of control, Labour allowed wasteful spending to blossom. In contrast, I have asked Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities have to reduce their management costs by 46% over the next four years. This will root out unnecessary bureaucracy and any expensive duplication of functions. Every penny saved will be reinvested in improving patient care, meeting demand and driving up quality"

However the Management Consultancies association said that the figures should be taken in context. "This level of spending still only represents around 0.3% of the NHS's budget of over £100bn," said Alan Leaman, chief cxecutive of the association. "To dismiss this work - and there are many more examples - as 'wasteful' is folly.

Lansley claimed in your report that he is "staggered by the scale of
the expenditure on management consultants in the NHS". He shouldn't
be. First, it is cost effective. Second, given the right brief, consultancies bring an invaluable external perspective, focus and discipline, with knowledge and
understanding that cannot be generated in-house".

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Stephen Green to leave HSBC to take up role in coalition government after reports David Cameron had been struggling to persuade a major City figure to take up the post

Stephen Green, chairman of HSBC, is expected to step down from the bank to take up the role of trade minister in the coalition government.

Green's departure, which is likely to be announced today, would end a 28-year career at the bank. With Barclays also today naming a new chief executive, Bob Diamond, the move heralds a major shake-up at the top of British banking.

Hiring Green as trade minister will be seen as a coup for David Cameron. Britain has been without a trade minister since the general election, amid reports that the prime minister was struggling to persuade a major City figure to take up the post. As trade minister, Green will be responsible for representing British business overseas and encouraging exports.

Green, a lay preacher, has been executive chairman of HSBC since 2006 and steered the bank through the ravages of the financial crisis. Although HSBC made massive writedowns, mainly on its US mortgage business, it avoided taking money from the UK Treasury. Green had previously worked as chief executive at the bank for three years.

Back in May there were reports, denied by HSBC, that Green was planning to step down. Former Goldman Sachs director John Thornton was named at the time as a likely replacement.

Since the credit crunch struck, Green has spoken of the need for bankers to take a more responsible approach to pay and bonuses. He is understood to donate a substantial amount of his own salary to charity. However, many top executives at HSBC still receive massive pay packets, with five bankers sharing a £38m bonus pot last year.

Green has also been criticised for his role in the banking crisis, with some shareholders calling for his resignation at HSBC's annual meeting in May 2009.

He is not expected to take a salary as trade minister, but is likely to get a peerage. By tradition, government ministers are virtually always members of the House of Commons or the House of Lords.

The previous incumbent, Lord Davies, was also a former banker, having chaired Standard Chartered Bank. Some reports have suggested that Cameron tried without success to persuade Davies to stay in the job.

Share your experiences of getting around London today as a 24-hour strike over job losses causes major disruption on the London Underground

Transport for London predicted it would be a "difficult day" if the strike was well supported today. That seems to be putting it mildly. TfL's handy widget for services updates (below) shows a snapshot of the disruption. At the time of writing it showed delays and suspensions on all but the Northern line.

That's the overview, but how was it for you? Please help us tell the story by sharing your experiences of getting around London today. Perhaps you took one of the extra buses laid on by the mayor of London Boris Johnson, or did you beat the strike by bike or even by boat? Did you share a car journey, or just walk, or are you working from home?

Please post your stories and views in the comments section below, or send photos to matthew.weaver@guardian.co.uk.

Party and union members have begun voting in the Labour leadership election, but Imran Khan is none the wiser about the candidates' intentions for science and engineering

The ballot papers are out and the Labour leadership election is entering its final straight. What will the result mean for science and engineering?

To find out, the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE) teamed up with Scientists for Labour (SfL) to ask the five leadership candidates a series of questions focusing on science and the economy, the use of expert advice, and training the researchers of the future. This followed CaSE's own examination of Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg just before the general election.

As well as giving us a new leader of the opposition, whose role it will be to hold the coalition to account, the contest will potentially give us a future prime minister. So it's vital that whoever wins appreciates the role of science and engineering to the economy and society.

The bad news is that three of the candidates - Diane Abbott, Ed Balls and Andy Burnham - failed to respond to Scientists for Labour, despite having seven weeks in which to do so. The fact that SfL are a highly engaged group for scientists within the Labour party makes the unanswered questions all the more disappointing.

But the responses from David and Ed Miliband were promising - if a little vague. You can read the full answers here.

David clearly understands the "multiplier effect" of spending on research, development and education, whereby private-sector spending is leveraged by public spending, and he talked up schools specialising in science and engineering.

Ed also gets the "false economy" of cuts in research funding, recognising the importance of science and engineering to economic growth, and said he wants to ensure that "policy is thoroughly evidence-based".

There will be more specific issues that Labour will have to deal with in detail. Does it still want all students to be able to study GCSE physics, chemistry and biology as three separate subjects? Is it committed to raising the proportion of GDP that the UK spends on research and development?

Largely thanks to the efforts of two former science ministers, the widely respected and independently minded Paul Drayson and David Sainsbury, Labour has enjoyed a reputation of being friendly to science. This was tarnished by the sacking of Professor David Nutt towards the end of Labour's final term, but it's a reputation that CaSE hopes the new Labour leader will reinvigorate.

Imran Khan is director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering and blogs at The Science Vote

Main bone of contention is axing of 800 jobs, including hundreds of ticket office posts, which unions claim threaten safety

Millions of London Underground passengers began their scramble for space on London's buses, boats and pavements this morning as a series of 24-hour strikes by tube workers disrupted the capital's transport system.

Today, there were suspensions and delays on all the tube lines apart from the Northern line. There were no services at all on the Circle, Piccadilly, Victoria and Waterloo and City lines.

The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has ordered marshalled bike rides, 100 more buses and room for 10,000 extra boat passengers, but sources admitted that many of the 3 million commuters who rely on the tube would be reaching for their walking boots.

"If the strike is well supported then it will be a challenging and difficult day for a lot of people," said a source at the mayor's Transport for London body.

The first wave of strikes began at 5pm last night, when maintenance workers staged a walkout, due to be followed at 9pm by drivers, station staff and signallers at the RMT and TSSA unions.

The main bone of contention is the axing of 800 jobs, including hundreds of ticket office posts, which union officials claim is a threat to safety. TfL's promise that all of the jobs would be eliminated by voluntary redundancy was dismissed by the RMT union today.

Its general secretary, Bob Crow, who will join a picket line at Euston station this morning, said: "We have laid out the clearest possible evidence to the mayor and his officials that if he breaks his promises and slashes station staffing numbers he will be giving the green light to disaster, and yet he is failing to take any account of the hard facts of these three recent incidents - each of which could have had lethal consequences.

He accused TfL of "playing fast and loose" with safety by seeking volunteers to help run services. "It is about time that the mayor and his officials took the safety issues at the heart of this dispute seriously, removed the threat of these savage cuts from above our members' heads and cleared the way for meaningful talks aimed at protecting safety and safe staffing levels," said Crow.

The disruption is expected to last until tomorrow morning, as services get back to normal. TfL said some of London's 11 underground tube lines might be able to run limited services, but the network could be severely disrupted if the strike was well supported by RMT and TSSA members.

Johnson criticised the industrial action as a "trumped-up and politically motivated" attempt to attack the coalition government.

He said: "Londoners are a hardy bunch and I am sure a tube strike will not deter us from getting around. I have asked TfL to pull out all the stops, but we must be clear that the RMT and TSSA plan to inconvenience Londoners for no good reason."

Further one-day walkouts are scheduled on 3 October, 2 November and 28 November. The RMT and TSSA fear that the staffing reductions will be followed by deeper cuts in TfL's 27,000-strong workforce if the Department for Transport seeks reductions in the organisation's £39bn funding settlement, which lasts until 2018.

The transport secretary, Philip Hammond, wants Johnson to preserve a multibillion-pound upgrade of the tube network, which would require the mayor to seek cost cuts in London Underground staffing levels and the bus network, and higher tube and bus fares.

Main bone of contention is axing of 800 jobs, including hundreds of ticket office posts, which unions claim may threaten safety

Millions of London Underground passengers began their scramble for space on London's buses, boats and pavements this morning as a 24-hour strike by tube workers disrupted the capital's transport system.

Today there were suspensions and delays on all the tube lines apart from the Northern line. There are no services at all on the Circle, Piccadilly, Victoria and Waterloo and City lines.

The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has marshalled escorted bike rides, 100 more buses and room for 10,000 extra boat passengers, but sources admitted that many of the 3 million commuters who rely on the tube would be reaching for their walking shoes.

"If the strike is well supported then it will be a challenging and difficult day for a lot of people," said a source at the mayor's Transport for London body.

The first wave of strikes began at 5pm last night when maintenance workers staged a walkout, due to be followed at 9pm by drivers, station staff and signallers at the RMT and TSSA unions.

The main bone of contention is the axing of 800 jobs, including hundreds of ticket office posts, which union officials claim is a threat to safety. TfL's promise that all of the jobs would be eliminated by voluntary redundancy was dismissed by the RMT union today.

Its general secretary, Bob Crow, who will join a picket line at Euston this morning, said: "We have laid out the clearest possible evidence to the mayor and his officials that if he breaks his promises and slashes station staffing numbers he will be giving the green light to disaster, and yet he is failing to take any account of the hard facts of these three recent incidents - each of which could have had lethal consequences.

He accused TfL of "playing fast and loose" with safety by seeking volunteers to help run services. "It is about time that the mayor and his officials took the safety issues at the heart of this dispute seriously, removed the threat of these savage cuts from above our members' heads and cleared the way for meaningful talks aimed at protecting safety and safe staffing levels," said Crow.

The disruption is expected to last until tomorrow morning as services get back to normal. TfL said some of London's 11 tube lines might be able to run limited services, but the network could be severely disrupted if the strike was well supported by RMT and TSSA members.

Johnson criticised the industrial action as a "trumped-up and politically motivated" attempt to attack the coalition government.

He said: "Londoners are a hardy bunch and I am sure a tube strike will not deter us from getting around. I have asked TfL to pull out all the stops, but we must be clear that the RMT and TSSA plan to inconvenience Londoners for no good reason."

Further one-day walkouts are scheduled on 3 October, 2 November and 28 November. The RMT and TSSA fear that the staffing reductions will be followed by deeper cuts in TfL's 27,000-strong workforce if the Department for Transport seeks reductions in the organisation's £39bn funding settlement, which lasts until 2018.

The transport secretary, Philip Hammond, wants Johnson to preserve a multibillion-pound upgrade of the tube network, which would require the mayor to seek cost cuts in London Underground staffing levels and the bus network, and higher tube and bus fares.

Citizenship is not just an academic subject, but a way of life that children must learn, says Peter Mortimore

I hope you enjoyed the summer holiday. Good luck for the new school year - whether you are a pupil, teacher, parent, governor, academic, civil servant, minister or simply an interested citizen. With a new - and differently composed - government in charge, we will witness a number of battles over our education service. Different ideologies, practical considerations and the need for economies will be used to promote change. Whether the outcome will be a better or worse experience for the majority of pupils will only become apparent when new policies - and their unplanned consequences - have been fully experienced.

Changes of policy direction are a consequence of living in a democracy and, imperfect though this is, no one has yet invented a better system of government. So preparation for participation in a democratic society should have been one of the major tasks of schooling since the days of Aristotle. Sadly, it hasn't been.

Despite the pioneering work of political scientists such as Bernard Crick, citizenship was only introduced into the English national curriculum in 2002. And many schools, rather than being democratic, are still lauded for being authoritarian institutions. Of course, schools cannot be democratic all the time: five- or six-year-olds cannot be expected to appreciate what citizens will need to function successfully as adults; a carefully structured, incremental approach is necessary.

But our society probably underestimates young children's ability to work for interests other than their own. This summer, I have attended three events that illustrate how well young pupils understand fairness and can participate effectively in democratic projects.

The first was the summer Youth Assembly organised by London Citizens - a non-partisan group that brings together community, religious and trade union organisations to work for the common good. Many school and youth groups participated in the assembly, demonstrating their understanding of, and commitment to, topics as diverse as making inner cities safer for young people, the need for a living wage and the desirability of keeping the children of asylum-seekers out of prison settings. Each group reported on how it had pursued these goals and on the successes it had achieved. In a masterstroke of adventurous planning, the assembled young people enjoyed an insight into some of the "difficult questions" of political philosophy given by Harvard professor Michael Sandel, last year's BBC Reith lecturer.

The second event was lunch with student council representatives at a secondary academy. When academies were introduced by the last government, I expressed reservations, not about providing the most generous resources for the neediest pupils, allowing freedom for innovation or creating exciting school buildings, but about the over-powerful role of sponsors, the secrecy of deals and the potentially divisive impact on other schools.

The new government has expressed its intention to offer the possibility of academy status to all schools. I hope sponsors will use their powers to enhance democracy in schools (rather than, as currently feared, reduce the number of parent governors). I detected a small, but hopeful sign that some might do so at a summer lunch I enjoyed with six young academicians. These - popularly elected - young people demonstrated that they had learned the skills of negotiation and how to take responsibility. Participation in the academy's mentorship programmes and leadership courses had nurtured articulate and confident young people and contributed to the obviously very good pupil/teacher relations.

The third event was attendance at the annual grandparents' day at my grandsons' school. If you have never been quizzed by a class of lively eight-year-olds about what life was like when you were a child, be warned: it can be testing. But, in seeing grandparents questioned by children about the differences in social norms and school conditions between the 1950s and today, I was reminded of how much more democratic, for most people, life is today.

So, minister, please ensure that any new policies you introduce take seriously the need for young people to learn how to participate in a democracy. That means promoting citizenship - not just as an academic subject, but as a way of life.

The BBC is helping convince viewers that spending cuts are inevitable. It's a large-scale version of peer pressure

Last Thursday was a great day for conspiracy theorists. The story goes like this: the head of the BBC, Mark Thompson, went into Downing Street to meet one of David Cameron's top lieutenants, Steve Hilton.

Walking in, he was snapped with a briefing note from the BBC's head of news, which suggested lines defending the Corporation's coverage of the government's spending cuts.

For members of the grassy-knoll brigade, this little sequence of events had it all: an unpublicised meeting between two of the men who run Britain, a snatched photo of an internal email, and the suggestion that BBC staffers would now have to tone down their Spending Review season that begins this week. Cue arched eyebrows and indignant tweets all round.

And it's true that the episode raises some questions. Why on earth was a BBC manager discussing its coverage of spending cuts with Number 10?

How much pressure has the BBC been put under already by the Conservative-led coalition? And why doesn't Mark Thompson get himself a nice satchel to keep his private notes private?

After that point, though, I part company from the X-Files gang. For one thing, conspiracies surely come better than this. More importantly, Cameron surely couldn't ask for a bigger favour from the BBC than the one it's already doing him - by running a six-week long series of programmes softening up the public for his government's spending cuts.

On 20 October, George Osborne will stand up in parliament and lay out the most savage spending cuts in more than 60 years. The typical government department will have a third of its budget lopped off. Some will be cut by as much as 40%. Whole areas of public service will either be axed or handed over to big private firms to run at a profit. The austerity will be on a scale similar to that which the Greeks have had imposed on them; except here it has been enthusiastically adopted by the government. And when the cuts are finally made, they are likely to arouse more domestic discontent than Tony Blair's decision to go to war with Iraq. There is nothing consensual, let alone inevitable about these actions - they amount to an extreme political choice and a massive gamble to boot.

So what is the BBC doing? Why, running a series on TV, radio and the web between now and the big day called The Spending Review: Making it Clear. This strand was dreamed up by Thompson's deputy, Mark Byford, and in a blog published this weekend he promises: "We'll look at where and at what level the cuts may be made and why they are happening now, ask what the key issues are, how the government is dealing with them and what the implications of the cuts could be." In other words: through special debates, big-number editions of Newsnight and the Today programme, we'll treat these cuts as a fact of life, and show you how much this will hurt.

Which is not to say that the entire strand will be credulous. The BBC has too many good journalists to allow that to happen, and in any case its management will be far too anxious not to cover the subject from all angles. There will be due consideration given to the wisdom of cutting so deep and so fast; there will probably also be case studies of other countries that managed their debt crises rather differently.

But, these will inevitably be presented as caveats to the main argument, which is that the spending cuts are coming. And by doing that, the BBC will help convince watchers and voters that they are inevitable. Psychologists refer to this phenomenon as social proof - where people are won round to a point of view not so much by stats and facts as by the fact that lots of others are doing or talking about a particular thing.

It's a large-scale version of peer pressure and there's decades of evidence that shows it works. Nor is the evidence just in the academic journals: when the advertising folk proclaimed that "eight out of 10 owners" said their cats preferred one particular catfood, they were using social proof.

The same trick is used in politics too. When, in 2008, Gordon Brown pointed to how the rest of the G20 group of leading economies were copying his economic rescue plans, he was using a classic social-proof argument: all these world leaders are following my policy, so it can't be wrong.

But you don't always need lots of people in your corner to persuade others; sometimes, one institution will do. The BBC is so important a part of public life in Britain that in this instance it can very well act as the social proof. That is certainly the risk it is running here.

As you might have guessed, I am not in favour of the sort of public-spending cuts that Osborne is proposing. But I am not arguing that the BBC should broadcast my particular politics, any more than I expect Radio 1 to play The Fall all day and night. No, it simply shouldn't be taking sides at all. When the results of the spending review are announced on 20 October, that would be the ideal time to begin a six-week long series covering the fallout. The question is, will we get one?

Despite the expectation within Transport for London, largely confirmed by Philip Hammond's public statements, that government funding for Crossrail and the Tube upgrades will survive largely unscathed, the Mayor has revved up his anti-cuts rhetoric in the past two days. As Helene Mulholland reported, Boris used his Telegraph column - ker-ching! - yesterday to align himself with the argument of none other than Ed Balls that the coalition may be seeking to slash the deficit too quickly, and in the Standard, while craftily ignoring the really issues behind the Tube strike - job losses - he insisted that he "cannot and will not accept" cuts of between 25 and 40 percent to London's transport budget.

As I've argued before - see here and here - Boris's public indignation should be interpreted in the context of his re-election hopes and the extent of David Cameron's concern at the prospect of his instead opting out of the tricky business of defending City Hall in 2012 and returning to parliament to make a nuisance of himself. The Tory Mayor wants to give the Tory-led government every incentive to look after London, while at the same time seeking to convince Londoners that if the government hacks a great hole in the rest of his transport plans it won't be because Good Old Boris didn't do his darndest to prevent it.

Even if Crossrail and the upgrades are pretty safe - indeed, perhaps because they are pretty safe - the rest of the transport budget could be in dire peril, with grim implications for every other TfL project, for TfL jobs and for the scale of public transport fare increases - and, of course, for Boris Johnson's popularity.

The News of the World should have a care. Gary's got principles

o With so few willing or able to relinquish their lucrative positions on a point of principle, the world of sport owes a huge debt to the former England legend and face of Match of the Day Gary Lineker. He marched away from his column on the Mail on Sunday four months ago, you may recall, after the paper printed lurid, unhelpful stories about the private life of Lord Triesman, the then chairman of the Football Association and leader of England's bid to stage the 2018 World Cup. The story was an assault clearly timed to destabilise the England bid, his people said, and Gary, as an ambassador for the campaign, was not going to stand for it. Off he went to Wapping, and the News of the World. Which since his arrival has shown itself to be a true supporter of the England cause as Capello's men prepare for vital qualifying matches in the European championship. On 8 August, the day Lineker's first column appeared, the front page said "Peter Crouch beds £800 teen hooker". And yesterday another fillip for the team as they match up against the Swiss in Basel, later today: "Cheating Roo beds hooker," it said. Both stories may eventually galvanise the team and perhaps they will unite the disparate elements in the dressing room. Rooney will indeed be in the starting lineup, we learn. But the News of the World should have a care, if it is going to continue like this. On a point of principle, its new star columnist may have to go somewhere else.

o Yes the News of the World should have a care, especially now Labour MPs are fuming about the very idea that someone might have been listening in on their voicemails. Yesterday we tried to remind ourselves of the paper's previous website story headlined "News of the World cleared by PCC over hacking claims". The darndest thing. It was no longer there.

o RTE Sport in the Irish Republic should have a care, too. For "Rooney available to play away from home" is not the sort of headline anyone wants to see. Unnecessary. Mischievous.

o A key day for our footballers, then. And a significant day for our MEPs, all of whom will be forced for the first time today to clock in electronically for a debate on the state of the European Union. If they don't clock in, they will not be able to claim any allowances. Political group leaders in Strasbourg say they are fed up with TV shots of empty seats in the parliamentary chamber and conclude that the best way to get the attention of the stragglers is to jeopardise their earnings. As a comment on the state of the European parliament, what more is there to say?

o To little too late, perhaps. For who can forget the antics of our dear friend the former Ukip talisman and subsequent benefit fraudster, Ashley Mote. Once, under the watchful gaze of his elected colleagues, he entered a committee meeting at the European parliament and signed the attendance book, thus guaranteeing his right to claim. Before the ink was dry, he left.

o A tale of two elections now, for there once was an irritant called Ken, and when the Labour party decided that it didn't want him as its candidate for mayor in London, its brightest minds got together to prevent him winning the nomination. But something didn't work out. Ken, as we know, won the mayoralty. Served two terms. Time passed and lessons were learned, but maybe not the right ones: for on Saturday, east London politician Lutfur Rahman, having resorted to m'learned friends and the likes of Operation Black Vote to force Labour to allow him into the contest, romped home to win the nomination to become the party's mayoral candidate in Tower Hamlets. And the title of our tale: another fine mess.

o But it's not all bad, for Labour is doing quite well without a leader. And last week, party researchers won the annual parliamentary rounders match, beating their counterparts in the governing coalition 7-0. Some see great significance in this: not just the scale of the party's victory but also the fact that the coalition team was completely lacking Liberal Democrats. The beginning of the end? The end of the beginning? Who knows? Still, a win is a win.

Unicef millennium development goals report highlights threat of government austerity measures, food crisis and climate change

The United Nations warned today that the patchy global struggle to lift children out of poverty was being threatened by budget cuts in the west, soaring food prices and climate change.

In a report prepared for a New York summit this month to measure progress in meeting the 2015 millennium development goals, Unicef said the pressures on aid budgets would have knock-on effects in the world's poorest countries. "Fiscal constraints in industrialised economies will likely have reverberations for developing nations, particularly those dependent on external assistance," the report noted. "Fiscal retrenchment may undermine social progress, particularly if the global recovery is uneven and halting."

It added: "The austerity measures currently being introduced in some European Union countries call for sharp cuts in spending, and it is not fully clear how these reductions will affect child-related expenditures, either at home or abroad.

"The effects of fiscal reductions in donor assistance, but also in added caution on the part of developing country programmes as they, too, come under pressure for financial markets and external investors to undertake their own fiscal adjustments."

Unicef said there were four other global threats that could undermine progress: the food and financial crises; rapid urbanisation; climate change and ecosystem degradation; and escalating human crises.

"High food prices in 2008 and 2009 and falling real household incomes have reduced consumer purchasing power; poor consumers have less money to spend on food," it said.

The UN millennium development goals are eight separate targets for reducing global poverty. They include a halving of the number of people living on less than $2 (£1.30) a day, universal primary education, a two-thirds cut in deaths of children under five and a 75% reduction in maternal mortality.

Unicef said in the report that despite some impressive gains in child survival in several countries in sub-Saharan Africa between 1990 and 2008, the gap in child mortality with other regions was growing. "In 1990, a child born in sub-Saharan Africa faced a probability of dying before his or her fifth birthday that was 1.5 times higher than in South Asia, 3.5 times higher than in Latin America and the Caribbean and 18.4 times higher than in the industrialised countries. By 2008, these gaps had widened markedly, owing to faster progress elsewhere.

"Now a child born in sub-Saharan Africa faces an under-five mortality rate that is 1.9 times higher than in South Asia, 6.3 times higher than in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 24 times higher than in the industrialised nations."

Unicef said there were big disparities for children within poor countries. A child born in one of the world's poorest communities was "two times less likely to have been born to a mother who received antenatal care and three times less likely to have come into the world with a skilled attendant present". Poor children were also far less likely to be treated for pneumonia and diarrhoea, two of the biggest killers during the first five years of life.

It noted that in all developing regions, child mortality was notably higher among poor families, while children in rural areas tended to suffer more than those in urban areas. "The urban-rural divide in human development is perhaps most marked in the case of access to improved drinking water and sanitation facilities. Of the 884 million people who continue to lack access to improved drinking water sources, 84% live in rural areas."

Anthony Lake, Unicef's executive director, said there had been significant progress towards in meeting the millennium Ddevelopment goals, "but it is increasingly evident that our progress is uneven in many key areas." "In fact, compelling data suggest that in the global push to achieve the MDGs, we are leaving behind millions of the world's most disadvantaged, vulnerable and marginalised children: the children who are facing the longest odds."

The cash offer to NHS managers to give up their jobs "is on the table until the end of October" (£137,500 cash offer for NHS bosses to quit, 2 September). Does parliament not have to approve the radical proposals in the white paper? Unison is challenging the legality of these proposals in court (Report, 24 August) because the consultation exercise which ends on 5 October is about how the proposals are implemented, not whether they will happen. The business director of the healthcare company Tribal welcomed the white paper with these words: "This white paper could amount to the denationalisation of healthcare services in England and is the most important redirection of the NHS in more than a generation, going further than any secretary of state has gone before." We call upon all readers to sign the e-petition on the NHS Support Federations's website, visit www.keepournhspublic.com to join us, and let their MPs know if they disagree with these proposals, which may lead to the NHS becoming a logo with fragmented services despite Andrew Lansley's assurances that it will not lead to the privatisation of the NHS.

Wendy Savage

Co-chair, Keep Our NHS Public

o I was sorry to read of the government's intention to scrap NHS Direct and replace it with a cheaper alternative (Report, 28 August). Instead of being advised by trained nurses, we shall have to rely on staff given a brief course in the entire field of medicine. What might the next such innovation be - perhaps a three-week course in brain surgery?

Brian Hayes

London

Outside experts can help to cut costs and improve care, benefiting both taxpayers and patients

You report that health secretary Andrew Lansley condemned "wasteful spending" under Labour on management consultants in the NHS, and that "health trusts spent more than £300m on management consultants last year" (Health trusts spend £300m a year on private consultants, 21 August). Actually, they didn't.

The figures given to journalists cover much other spending, including charges for legal and financial advice, architect fees and PR support. Lansley spoke about "expenditure on management consultants", but his words left a (presumably intended) false impression.

Greater transparency is always welcome, but it needs to be buttressed by an equally strong commitment to accuracy. The NHS and Department of Health should improve their information collection; the National Audit Office should require public sector organisations to adopt consistent definitions and reporting standards.

Even if the story were correct, however, this level of spending still only represents around 0.3% of the NHS's budget of over £100bn. Per employee, that suggests spending on consultancy at one tenth the levels of large-scale private sector organisations. While this sum is certainly not trivial, it does suggest that NHS spending in this area is properly controlled and targeted, as many NHS organisations themselves have testified.

What the story missed, moreover, was any explanation that this spending also generates significant benefits for patients and taxpayers. The argument that this spending would be "enough to pay for 10,000 nurses" ignores the value that consulting creates for its clients.

Consider the award-winning work that Atos Consulting did with NHS South Central recently to reduce waiting times from GP referral to hospital treatment to no more than 18 weeks. They exceeded their goal. Or why troubled Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust engaged Hay Group to improve its management structures, and now has one of the best records for infection control in the south-east and has halved its financial deficit. To dismiss this work - and there are many more examples - as "wasteful" is folly.

In your report, Lansley claimed that he is "staggered by the scale of the expenditure on management consultants in the NHS". He shouldn't be. First, it is cost-effective. It doesn't pay to recruit all the skills you need on a permanent basis if they are available elsewhere and you need them for specific projects.

And, second, given the right brief, consultancies bring an invaluable external perspective, focus and discipline, with knowledge and understanding that cannot be generated in-house. Frequently this unlocks new resources and opportunities for the in-house teams.

Modern management consultancy is about far more than writing reports with good recommendations. Nor is it the same as interim management or staff substitution, which is often controversial. The real scandal would be if Lansley's approach prevented the NHS from accessing a world-class source of performance improvement and cost control.

The home secretary has defended the police investigation amid calls for David Cameron to dismiss Andy Coulson

Labour's opposition to the alternative vote could lead to a rare and great opportunity for progress being missed

Nick Clegg cannot have enjoyed his first day back in parliament yesterday, bashed about from all sides over his bill to redraw parliamentary boundaries and hold a referendum on the alternative vote. Jack Straw, by contrast, had a lot of fun indeed on what may be his final significant Commons frontbench appearance. He mocked the Liberal Democrats for supporting a voting system which not long ago they derided as a miserable compromise. He accused the coalition of planning to fix elections to its own advantage. He led his party in opposition to Mr Clegg's bill and found many Tory MPs were prepared to lend him their support. He will have been pleased with his day's work. But he was on the wrong side.

Mr Clegg spoke for progress; Mr Straw for reaction. Labour has got its teeth into the government, but at some cost to the cause of reform. Earlier this year Labour wanted a vote on the alternative vote, for good reasons. Now it is against a bill that will allow one. Its next leader is likely to find himself in the position of trying to campaign for a yes vote in a referendum that he opposed in the Commons. Voters will surely be sceptical and the referendum less likely to be won as a result.

The Labour answer is to point to the bill, which does much more than allow the alternative vote. The party has set its heart against a piece of legislation that it sees as Tory gerrymandering, cutting the number of MPs by 50 and compelling the Boundary Commissions to redesign every seat so that they contain roughly equal numbers of voters. Labour is also opposed to the date of the proposed referendum, on the spuriously disruptive grounds that it is a bad idea to have more than one vote on the same day. This latter objection is nonsense; the former has some merit, but not enough to justify trying to block the whole bill, rather than just voting against specific clauses. There is nothing inherently unfair about giving votes equal weight in all parts of the country, even if there are arguments about how it is to be done. Indeed, it could be said that the current situation involves an element of formal rigging, intentionally overstating the representation of Wales and Northern Ireland. There are decent reasons for this, but it is explicitly unfair all the same. Labour, which at the moment gains most from the existence of smaller than average constituencies, ought to pause before charging its opponents with rigging elections.

The more pressing issue, however, is the alternative vote. Barring an unlikely parliamentary catastrophe this week, there will be a referendum next year. It would be best if it were won. Last year, after the parliamentary expenses debacle, Labour came out in support of AV. "Whether by doing nothing, or by design, we retreat into a discredited old politics, leaving power concentrated in the hands of the old elites," argued Gordon Brown, before attempting to introduce a parliamentary referendum of his own in a much wider bill (a tactic Mr Straw condemned yesterday). The party was right to back AV then, and it should back it still. Nothing, in principle, has changed - only parliamentary arithmetic and Labour's desire to punish the Lib Dems for joining the Conservatives in government.

The alternative vote is an imperfect compromise, but it is better than first past the post. Evidence from the recent Australian election - held under AV - can be twisted to support almost any argument: but Labor hung on to power, in part, thanks to second-preference votes from the Greens, as it would not have done under first past the post. The same thing could help the Labour in Britain, but only if the party throws its full weight behind the campaign for electoral change. The alternative is to cower, and denounce the referendum as a Tory trick, professing still to want AV, while knowing it will never come. A rare and great opportunity for progress is being missed.

Frustrated London underground passengers will recognise the inconsistencies in managing director Mike Brown's attempted defence of tube ticket office closures (Letters, 4 September). Anyone who has ever tried to coax a crumpled £5 note or a newly minted coin into a ticket machine, or been overcharged on an Oyster card, will know that his bland assurance that "Staff will still help with any problems" is meaningless at a station where the ticket office is closed.

Brown says "every station that has a ticket office will now continue to have one" but omits to mention that ticket office opening hours will be severely curtailed under the new proposals.

When I - as a customer service assistant - am helping a visually impaired passenger down to the platform, when I'm dealing with antisocial behaviour, when I'm redirecting customers on to alternative routes in the event of a problem with the service, who is going to help you with ticketing issues? Not me, I'm afraid - I can't be in two places at once. As for fire and anti-terrorist measures, let's not even go there.

I shall be supporting the rail unions' strike action, in the best interests of both staff and customers.

Name and address supplied

o Mike Brown claims Transport for All's detailed criticism of the savage cuts in opening hours of so many tube ticket offices is "based on a misunderstanding". The biggest misunderstanding is the repeated peddling of the claim by London Underground that most ticket offices serve no useful purpose and frequently sell fewer than 10 tickets an hour. The reality, as LU's own figures show, is that this level of sales only applies to a mere eight stations across the vast network. There has probably never been an industrial dispute where both the unions and the management have both shown such a lack of regard for so many passengers.

Caroline Pidgeon

Leader, Lib Dem London assembly group; vice-chair, transport committee

Writing in the Guardian, Gerry Adams says his party held a series of meetings with Basque separatists

Sinn Féin's leader, Gerry Adams, said today his party had been heavily involved in pushing armed Basque separatist group Eta towards calling a ceasefire at the weekend.

As Spain's Socialist government ruled out negotiations and claimed Eta had announced the ceasefire because it was now too weak to carry out terrorist attacks, Adams, writing in the Guardian, said the move had been the result of months of talks amongst Basque separatists.

"This dialogue also involved senior Sinn Féin representatives, including myself," he said. "Sometimes the discussions were held in the Basque country, sometimes in Belfast and on a number of occasions in recent years Sinn Féin representatives travelled to Geneva for meetings with Basque representatives." It was not clear whether the meetings were with members of Eta, or only with other radical separatist groups from the Basque country.

Eta had responded by calling a ceasefire that, Adams hoped, would be grasped by the Spanish government as an opportunity to start a peace process that might follow some of the principles used in Ulster.

The Sinn Féin leader's words contrasted, however, with the reaction of prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's government in Madrid, which said it would not talk to Eta.

"Eta kills in order to impose itself, so that means one cannot [have] dialogue," said the interior minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba. "The word truce, as the idea of a limited peace to open a process of dialogue, is dead."

Zapatero's government last tried negotiating with Eta when it called a ceasefire four years ago.

That truce ended nine months later when a bomb at Madrid's Barajas airport killed two people. Rubalcaba agreed that Eta had effectively been observing a ceasefire for months, but said this was because it wanted to reorganise and escape intense police pressure in Spain and other parts of Europe.

"What they do not say is that they decided to stop months ago because they were so weak," he said. "Eta has stopped because it cannot do anything, and also in order to rebuild itself."

He claimed the ceasefire announcement was also an attempt by Eta to keep control over the increasingly tired and fractious radical Basque separatist groups that have traditionally backed a terrorism campaign that has claimed more than 800 lives over four decades.

These are the same groups, headed by former leaders of the banned Batasuna separatist party, that Sinn Féin has been helping.

"The aim is to try to cover up their weakness," said Rubalcaba. "For Eta it is very important not to appear weak because if Eta is weak those groups in the separatist world who are rebellious against them grow in strength."

One of Eta's founders, Julen de Madariaga, said that the group's current weakness was more the result of a loss of support amongst ordinary Basques than due to police action.

"The main reason for Eta's weakness is that over the past 12-15 years the people who used to support it have abandoned it," Madariaga, who distanced himself from the group's tactics years ago, told the Guardian by telephone.

He said the decision by leaders of the banned Batasuna party to stop bowing to Eta's line and to push for peace was more than overdue. "It was time that Batasuna made things clear to Eta and took charge of itself," he said.

Analysts pointed to a double bind for Eta as it was squeezed by police on one side and by its own supporters on the other.

"The ceasefire statement aims to give political meaning to a strategic rest decreed by Eta's leaders six months ago in order to reorganise internally to cope with police pressure," wrote Florencio Dominguez, an Eta expert, in La Vanguardia newspaper.

Dominguez pointed to the arrest in February of Ibon Gojeaskoetxea, a senior Eta commander, as a key moment. That arrest was hailed as the fifth time in two years that police had detained the person directly in charge of Eta's handful of remaining armed units.

At the same time, police had prevented new units from being formed in several parts of Spain, and discovered Eta's latest bombmaking laboratory. It had also dismantled its new bases in Portugal, to where Eta had hoped to move its support infrastructure that historically had been based in France.

It was in February, too, that Batasuna leaders won the support of thousands of local activists for a proposal for a new process of talks over the future of the Basque country that would require Eta to give up violence.

"Sunday's statement did not come out of the blue," said Adams. "I believe it has the potential to bring about a permanent end to the conflict with the Spanish state."

The Basque group, drawing on the Irish experience, has committed to the democratic process. Spain must recognise that

The announcement of a ceasefire by Eta on Sunday was the culmination of years of debate, discussion and strategising among Basque activists. It is a significant development and a genuine attempt to contribute to a resolution of the conflict. I believe it has the potential to bring about a permanent end to the conflict with the Spanish state.

This dialogue also involved senior Sinn Féin representatives, including myself. Sometimes the discussions were held in the Basque country, sometimes in Belfast, and on a number of occasions in recent years Sinn Féin representatives travelled to Geneva for meetings with Basque representatives. Many in the Basque country look to the Irish peace process for inspiration, and much of what has been attempted there in the last decade has been modelled on our experience.

Given the experience of the 2006 cessation - which ended in mutual recrimination in after only nine months - there will be those on both the Basque and Spanish sides who will be sceptical and cautious. But caution should not be allowed to encourage preconditions to dialogue. Caution should not be allowed to block progress.

In the Irish peace process we saw how games of scrabble were played around the use and interpretation of certain words, and some of these became preconditions which were then used to delay progress.

To succeed, a credible process between the Basque people and the Spanish state has to respect democratic mandates. The electorate has the right to choose the party it wants to represent it, and this decision should be accepted and respected by the Spanish government.

Toward the end of last year and into this year an impressive internal process of strategy formulation took place among Basque parties, trade unionists and political activists. This involved thousands of activists. The debate was about agreeing a new political approach.

In February a conference of the Abertzale Left, which includes the banned Basque party Batasuna, agreed a new, broad-front approach. This, too, draws heavily from the Irish experience.

The new strategy commits Basque participants to "exclusively political and democratic means" and seeks to achieve political change "in a complete absence of violence and without interference" and "conducted in accordance with the Mitchell Principles". The strategy finds its echo in the weekend statement by Eta.

In its video message Eta confirmed "its commitment to finding a democratic solution to the conflict. In its commitment to a democratic process to decide freely and democratically our future, through dialogue and negotiations, Eta is prepared today as yesterday to agree to the minimum democratic conditions necessary to put in motion a democratic process, if the Spanish government is willing.

"We also convey this to the international community and call on it to respond to Eta's will and commitment in order to participate in the building of a durable, just and democratic resolution to the centuries-long political struggle."

Of significance is the fact that Abertzale Left in its response to the Eta statement is describing that initiative as a "unilateral and unconditional cessation of military operations indefinitely". It also speaks of its recognition that it should continue to develop initiatives, making "commitments and compromising" in order to make progress.

The Abertzale Left position would suggest that the Basque parties understand the need to build on this initiative. There is also a heavy responsibility on the Spanish government to grasp this opportunity for peace and progress. It needs to be farsighted, to think strategically and to ignore those voices that seek a resolution in terms of victory and defeat.

The international community, too, has a role to play, just as it did in the Irish peace process and is currently doing in the negotiations on the Middle East which commenced last week.

There are dangers ahead. No conflict resolution process can be risk-free for its participants. But the benefits of succeeding far outweigh the dangers of failure.

John Yates and Theresa May made detailed comments on the phone-hacking affair. Nick Davies analyses them

Asked if there would be another investigation: "We have always said that if any new material, new evidence, was produced, we would consider it."

This precisely misses the point, which is that since 2006, Scotland Yard has been sitting on a mass of evidence which it has not investigated and not disclosed. It needs no new evidence to reopen an inquiry which was never completed in the first place.

Asked if the only reporter he talked to at the News of the World about the hacking allegations was the royal correspondent: "No. That is not the case."

This looks misleading. All of the available information confirms that Scotland Yard failed to interview any reporter or editor or manager from the News of the World other than the royal correspondent, Clive Goodman. And that includes failing to interview reporters who were explicitly identified in evidence as having handled intercepted voicemail messages.

Asked if the Met had talked to Sean Hoare, the former News of the World reporter who has said that Andy Coulson was aware of widespread hacking at the tabloid during the original investigation: "This is the first time we have heard of Mr Hoare or anything he's had to say. He wasn't part of the inquiry ... We are surprised that the New York Times did not avail us of this information earlier than they did."

Hoare is one of a dozen reporters who spoke to the New York Times about phone hacking under Andy Coulson. A dozen have also spoken to the Guardian. It is not clear why Scotland Yard detectives would need American reporters to introduce them to journalists in London. As stated above, they have chosen not to approach any serving or former reporters other than Clive Goodman.

Asked why the Met had not told people that their phones were targeted despite the fact that a police memo suggested that a "vast number" of mobile numbers had been hacked or potentially hacked: "I think there is a misunderstanding here, that just because your name features in a private investigator's files, that your phone has been hacked."

This misrepresents the memo, disclosed by the Guardian, in which, during the original inquiry, the Metropolitan Police told the Crown Prosecution Service unequivocally: "A vast number of unique voicemail numbers belonging to high-profile individuals (politicians, celebrities) have been identified as being accessed without authority."

It also fails to reflect the underlying failure by police to stick to their agreement with the director of public prosecutions to approach and warn "all potential victims". They warned a small number during the original inquiry, and a small number more after the Guardian revived the story last July. The mass of those whose names and/or personal details showed up in the police investigation have never been told.

Asked if John Prescott's phone was hacked: "I believe that there is no evidence that his phone was hacked. I made that very clear on a number of occasions."

This misses the point. Scotland Yard has no evidence on this matter, because it failed to investigate it. In August 2006, it seized material which showed that four months earlier, the deputy prime minister had been targeted by a man who specialised in intercepting voicemail. They could have warned Prescott and asked if he had noticed interference with his messages. They didn't. They could have gone to his mobile phone company for data that would have identified any caller who had attempted to access Prescott's voicemail. They didn't. That data is held for only 12 months, and has now been destroyed.

"That investigation has already been reviewed by the Metropolitan Police."

This is misleading. On the morning of 9 July last year, when the Guardian published its first major story on the affair, the Metropolitan commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, asked John Yates "to establish the facts". Less than 12 hours later, Yates announced that there was no basis for reopening the inquiry. Yates himself has repeatedly denied that what he conducted was a review.

"The Crown Prosecution Service had full access to all the evidence gathered."

The Guardian discovered that Scotland Yard failed to pass the Crown Prosecution Service an email, which they had found in Glenn Mulcaire's property, and which clearly identified two News of the World reporters handling voicemail that had been intercepted from the phone of Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association.

Scotland Yard has dismissed this accusation by insisting that the barrister who presented the case for the CPS "had access to all the material". What it does not say is that it took its own officers three months to go through it all; and moreover, the barrister himself has said that he does not remember seeing the crucial email.

"The police have made clear that during the investigation, there was early and regular consultation with the CPS, so that the lines of inquiry followed were likely to produce the best evidence."

That is not the story told by paperwork from the CPS, which shows the police persuading prosecutors to "ring-fence" evidence in order to conceal the identities of "sensitive" victims of the hacking.

"At the time the investigation took place, the Metropolitan Police made it clear that those who they believed had been intercepted were contacted by members of the Metropolitan Police."

This is incorrect. The police failed, for example, to contact Taylor's legal adviser, even though they had transcripts of voicemail taken from her phone; or Coulson himself, who had been hacked by his own private investigator, and in relation to whom the evidence was sufficiently clear that Scotland Yard contacted him within 24 hours of the story being revived last year. Scotland Yard still refuses to say how many it warned in 2006/7, how many it warned after the Guardian story, and how many others remain unwarned.

As pressure on police intensifies, Met assistant commissioner John Yates says new allegations will be examined

Scotland Yard was tonight edging closer to reopening its criminal investigation into the phone hacking of public figures by the News of the World.

The Metropolitan police were under pressure on several fronts: concern in parliament, repeated allegations that those who may have been targeted by the tabloid were not told by the force they were at risk, and fresh claims that the force's 2006 investigation had missed the scale of the tabloid's intrusion into people's privacy.

Last week, after the new allegations in the New York Times emerged, senior Met sources were bullish about the fact that there was no obvious need to reopen the investigation, and that their original 2006 inquiry into the tabloid phone hacking was defendable.

Today assistant commissioner John Yates took to the airwaves to defend the force but said the new allegations in the New York Times from a former tabloid reporter, Sean Hoare, would be examined. Those allegations implicate Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor, as having knowledge of the phone hacking, something he has so far denied. Coulson, now a senior media aide to the prime minister, offered today to talk to detectives voluntarily.

The Met was considering its next move. All options are fraught with danger.

A former Met chief told the Guardian that Scotland Yard should reopen its investigation. Former assistant commissioner Robert Quick was the head of specialist operations at the Met until 2009, which included leading the anti-terrorism command. His successor was John Yates.

Quick said: "Of course, I'm assuming they will interview [Hoare] about what he said to the New York Times. I can't think of any reason why they would not. If this guy has more information than what the Met knew [in 2006], they would interview him, and that is opening the investigation up again."

Quick said interviewing Hoare would "get on the record what he is saying. When you have the definitive account from Sean Hoare, and what his allegations are, you can come to a reasoned judgment."

Quick said the decision on whether to interview Coulson would depend on what Hoare told them: "You can only take a view about Andy Coulson when you come to a view about what the former journalist has said. You need to know the full context."

Quick left the Met after two controversies. He was criticised for the arrest of the then shadow Tory immigration spokesman, Damian Green, over leaks the politician received from a civil servant. Quick resigned from the force after a document he was carrying about an imminent counter terrorism operation into a Downing Street meeting was photographed, leading to planned raids being moved forward.

Despite leaving under a cloud, Quick was credited with improving Specialist Operations at the Met, having taken over the role from Andy Hayman, who oversaw the original police investigation in 2006 into phone hacking by the News of the World.

Tonight Hayman said the new evidence was very interesting and should be examined.

"If there are fresh revelations, everyone involved would want people to revisit that so we can either draw a line underneath it, or if someone needs to be held to book for it, then that can happen as well," he told BBC Radio 4's PM programme. "These revelations are very interesting and they need to be shared with the investigation."

Hayman stressed that although he oversaw the investigation, another officer was in day-to-day charge. He also denied there was anything improper in his taking work writing for News International newspapers immediately after retiring from the force.

But Quick said the phone hacking row risked damaging the Met's reputation: "It will come back to a single fact: were the Met tenacious and thorough in investigating a newspaper and various individuals alleged to have committed serious offences? There are some people who are doubting that, such as Alan Johnson and John Prescott, they are questioning the thoroughness of that investigation."

Quick said he was concerned by allegations in the New York Times story that detectives felt pressured to limit their investigation because of the Met's alleged links to News International, the parent company of the News of the World: "If these accounts are true, if officers felt the investigation was being inhibited or suppressed, that must be a source of concern. The allegations are really serious."

The Guardian has learned of concerns among several members of the Metropolitan Police Authority, the body that oversees Scotland Yard. "I don't think it was particularly thorough at all - it was not a particularly good job," said one member of the Met's original review.

Nonetheless, inside the force, some are still wondering what all the fuss is about.

One Yard source said: "This story is so old and boring. Where does it take anybody? Newspapers will seek out information from whatever sources they can, until newspapers close down. I don't think it does us any damage. It's a bit of a non-story."

Labour MP Tom Watson says Britain risks becoming 'laughing stock' in world unless allegations in NY Times are investigated

British democracy risks becoming a "laughing stock" around the world unless allegations about phone hacking on behalf of the News of the World are fully investigated, a former Labour minister warned today.

Tom Watson, a member of the Commons culture select committee, issued a point-by-point rebuttal of arguments by ministers and News International dismissing calls for a judicial inquiry.

The former parliamentary secretary at the Cabinet Office was speaking in the Commons after forcing the home secretary, Theresa May, to answer an urgent parliamentary question about further allegations in the New York Times.

A team of Pulitzer-prize winning journalists secured an on the record interview with a former News of the World journalist who alleged that Andy Coulson, the paper's former editor and now David Cameron's director of communications, "actively encouraged" phone hacking. Coulson denies the allegation.

The New York Times also quoted Scotland Yard sources saying that the Met was reluctant to investigate the allegations in depth because of its close relationship with News International, owners of the News of the World.

Watson told MPs: "Claim number one: there is no new evidence. There is. Claim number two: people were cleared by the media select committee. They weren't. Claim number three: a single rogue reporter [Clive Goodman] was responsible. He wasn't. The inquiry heard that a second News of the World reporter, Ross Hall, transcribed illegally-hacked phone messages. He has not been interviewed by police.

"Last week former News of the World reporter Sean Hoare testified that his bosses instructed him to hack phones whilst he worked for the paper. He has not been interviewed by the police."

Watson demanded to know which reporters had been interviewed by the police and who was on the "target list" of Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator jailed with Goodman in 2007 for intercepting voicemail messages.

"The integrity of our democracy is under scrutiny around the world," Watson said. "The home secretary must not join the conspiracy to make it a laughing stock."

May replied: "He says there is new evidence. There are allegations that have been made in a newspaper. The Metropolitan police have made it clear if there is fresh evidence they will consider it.

"I consider it appropriate as home secretary that the government takes the view that it is for the Metropolitan police, on an operational matter, to decide what the right course of action is. It is appropriate for this government to await the outcome."

Alan Johnson, the shadow and former home secretary, who is asking to review papers relating to the matter from his time in office, said: "Last year I was assured that the Metropolitan police service had not received any allegations in respect of other News of the World journalists.

"I was also told that the Metropolitan police had taken all proper steps to ensure that where there was evidence of phone tapping or suspicion of phone tapping the individuals concerned would be informed ... [You] must subject the actions of the Metropolitan police service in this case to greater scrutiny in the light of this allegation and the new revelations from the New York Times."

Johnson also mocked Cameron for employing Coulson at such a senior level. "When I was home secretary dealing with this case, there was nobody anywhere in government who was implicated. Now there is.

"The home secretary and the deputy prime minister have lectured the house many times about their perception of the surveillance state created by the previous government. It appears they may have your very own expert on the matter in charge of government communications."

He highlighted the unease about Coulson expressed by senior Liberal Democrats before the election. He quoted Chris Huhne, now the energy and climate change secretary, who told the Commons before the election: "It is extraordinary that the leader of the opposition, who wants to be prime minister, employs Andy Coulson, who at best was responsible for a newspaper that was out of control and at worst was personally implicated in criminal activity." Johnson said: "I agree with those sentiments."

John Whittingdale, the Conservative chairman of the Commons select committee, said he found it hard to believe News International's central defence. "We certainly found it very difficult to believe that Clive Goodman was the only member of the News of the World newsroom who was aware that phone hacking was taking place by Glenn Mulcaire. But we found no evidence to suggest that the then editor [Coulson] knew."

Adrian Sanders, a Lib Dem member of the Commons culture committee, reiterated his call for a judicial inquiry. "The only way of getting to the bottom of this surely is a proper judicial inquiry so that people are compelled to give evidence and they give that evidence on oath."

o Parent groups driven by need for more places
o Number of schools have strong religious flavour

With its emphasis on the role of the community, the free schools announced today by the government will arguably be the single most prominent part of David Cameron's "big society".

Drawing on 700 expressions of interest, the education secretary, Michael Gove, approved 16 projects - subject to them delivering a business plan that passes muster - to form the kernel of a new generation of independent state schools led by parents and teachers.

Most are grassroots groups, though there are two backed by private education firms, and a number of the schools will have a strong religious flavour.

Driving many of the parent groups is a simple desire for extra school places: seven of the applications are in London, where getting into the best state schools is fiercely competitive.

But the free schools template, which lets schools set their own curriculum and control their own admissions, encourages experimentation.

Penny Roberts, co-ordinator of the parent group behind St Luke's primary in Camden, north London, said the school might conduct immersion sessions in children's home languages. The school will have an initial intake of just 15 pupils being taught in a church hall, allowing it to be flexible with the curriculum.

"One of the big advantages of being a very small school, is to be able to adapt and vary the curriculum according to the children we have," Roberts said. "We will want to value children's home languages - we may well run immersion sessions in some of these home languages, just as a way of valuing them."

Keith Haisman, of the Stour Valley Community school in Suffolk, said the school aimed to integrate mobile and smartphones into the curriculum, as well as placing an emphasis on children's self-confidence and teamwork.

There is a strong emphasis on academic performance across all the free school projects. The Stour Valley school plans a traditional core of subjects, based on the "gold standard of GCSEs" but tied in with this will be an awareness of which courses will prove useful at work. "You might want to be a car mechanic and run your own garage - it would be really handy if you knew a bit about science, a bit about finance," Haisman said.

There will also be an emphasis on career mentoring at the King's Science Academy in Bradford. Sajid Hussain, who hopes to be the new school's head, said: "Every child in that school [will have] a three-year and five-year plan of what they're doing in terms of their careers."

Because the free schools will start afresh, the groups plan to be rigorous about selecting teaching staff. There are concerns that at present struggling teachers are simply shuffled between schools.

Free schools in England are inspired by the US charter schools movement, where such schools educate more than 1 million children. These schools often demand longer hours from teachers in return for better pay.

Mark Lehain, a maths teacher and spokesman for the Bedford and Kempston free school, said: "I'm absolutely passionate about teachers being free to do whatever the kids in front of them need them to do.

"We believe that free schools are part of a re-professionalisation of teachers, what they teach, how they should teach, and when they should teach it. We'd like to see every school in the country given this freedom."

Results from the US have been mixed, however. Research carried out at Stanford University and published last year found that more than a third of charter schools had results that were worse than the traditional system. But the US also found that poor children and those with English as a second language did well in the schools.

James Turner, projects and policy director of the Sutton Trust, which will work in partnership with one of the London schools, said: "The evidence shows that, of those factors which the school can control, the impact of teachers is critical. The best teachers can make a huge difference to the performance of their students, even when background and prior achievement is taken into account."

Identifying the best teachers is difficult, Turner said. "They are not always the high-fliers. But as a starting point a good academic grounding and a high-level qualification in the subject you are teaching - or one closely allied to it - must make sense. A number of the 'no excuses' school chains in the US pay more to attract and retain exceptional teachers with good track records of boosting results - and that's something we'll be looking at too." There is some unease over the prominent role of religion among the first crop of free schools.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said: "The secretary of state suggests that he wants free schools to be engines of social mobility. But in many cases the free schools announced so far will only fragment communities and lead to greater social segregation and separation."

Some of the schools with a religious framework stressed the community aspect of their faiths.

Peter Kessler, who is leading a campaign to create a Jewish primary in Haringey, north London, said: it was true that some faith schools were "restrictive" and "blinkered".

"We will teach pupils to be broad-minded. You get a sense of community with a faith school."

Roberts said that while St Luke's would have a Christian ethos, the church was a focal point in the community. "We 're very family oriented. We have after-school clubs, drop-in clubs, not only attended by church families but by people who wouldn't dream of coming to church on a Sunday."The first XVI

Bedford and Kempston Bedford

The Childcare Company Slough

Discovery New School West Sussex

The Free School Norwich Norfolk

Haringey Jewish Primary Haringey

I-Foundation Primary Leicester

King's Science Academy Bradford

Mill Hill Jewish Primary Barnet

Nishkam Education Trust Birmingham

North Westminster Free School (ARK)Westminster

Priors Marston and Priors Hardwick Warwickshire

Rivendale Free School Hammersmith & Fulham

St Luke's Camden

Stour Valley School Suffolk

West London Free School Ealing/Hammersmith and Fulham

Wormholt North Hammersmith Free School (ARK) Hammersmith & Fulham

Just 16 schools have won approval from the education secretary as part of a radical experiment in English education

Schools offering training in etiquette and fine dining in Bradford, compulsory Latin in London, and lessons for all children in a musical instrument in Bedford were approved today by the government as part of a radical experiment in English education.

A new wave of free schools founded by parents, teachers or private firms will open in England next September, under plans announced by the education secretary, Michael Gove.

While the number who won initial approval today was small - just 16 - Gove welcomed them and said they were all a response to local demand.

The government backed plans for the West London Free School, which includes the journalist and author Toby Young on the steering committee. The school will have compulsory Latin for pupils aged 11 to 14, and a choice of either Latin or classical civilisation at GCSE.

The group behind the King's Science Academy, a free school due to open in Bradford, is driven by a vision of liberating inner city children from "ghettoisation". Sajid Hussain, a science teacher and assistant head who hopes to lead the new secondary school, said: "We hope to teach good manners. We're looking at a sense of responsibility, social conduct, sitting down and dining. Independent schools are quite good at this kind of stuff."

Hussain said: "I come from a working class background, my father was a bus driver and we really struggled in getting a good education. I've been working in inner city schools for the last 13-14 years, and children are still facing very similar challenges. Parents are looking for a particular dimension in schooling for their children, to ensure their children are safe from social vices. At the same time they want excellent results.

"Both of these areas are not being fulfilled by education in Bradford at the moment."

The new school will raise literacy standards by "collapsing the humanities subjects into English", Hussain said. "Instead of having three to four hours of English we will have eight to 10 hours. All subjects such as RE or history will have a literacy focus."

Mark Lehain, an assistant head and maths teacher who is a spokesman for Bedford and Kempston free school, said one aim was to create an intimate atmosphere in which teachers dealt with small, familiar groups of children across a range of subjects. "We want to be flexible in how we employ our staff, we're looking at a longer school day ... a small team of teachers for each [age group]. We've got to completely rethink how a teacher is. If you go to most countries, teachers teach two or three main subjects."

It is also the aim for every child at the Bedford school to play an instrument, an idea drawn from Venezuela's El Sistema under which many poor children have been taught music.

There is a distinctly religious strand to the first wave, with seven of the 16 having faith affiliations. Among those expected to open next September will be two Jewish schools in London, a Hindu school in Leicester, a Sikh school in Birmingham and three with a Christian ethos.

Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, said he was concerned this would lead to wider social divides.

"Since the government has made only token gestures to limit religious discrimination in the admissions criteria of free schools, we will see greater segregation and deeper divisions within communities."

The new schools, many more of which are expected to be approved in coming years, could also pose a challenge to the teaching unions because they emphasise raising standards through longer hours and more flexible teaching. Both methods could prove contentious.

Uniting the schools is an emphasis on improving academic results through longer hours, mandatory homework clubs, and stripping down subjects such as history if it is needed to focus on literacy.

Many of the groups want to focus pupils' minds on how their schoolwork translates into getting into the best universities and getting good jobs.

Two schools in London will be run in partnership with Ark, an academy sponsor backed by hedge fund money - and at least one of these will also be backed by the Sutton Trust, set up by the millionaire philanthropist Sir Peter Lampl.

James Turner, projects and policy director of the trust, said the group was aiming for a school which is "very academically focused" and encouraged pupils to apply for elite universities.

"We want to be clear that coming from a poor background does not preclude success - students from these areas can get good qualifications in valued subjects and gain access to top universities. We're addressing the inverse snobbery which says that 'people like you' don't go to certain universities or follow certain career paths or achieve at the highest levels."

Former minister questions brother Ed's credentials, adding that a grasp of global challenges is 'crucial' for party's next leader

David Blunkett, the former Labour cabinet minister, has strongly questioned Ed Miliband's leadership credentials, saying he cannot recall a single thing the younger Miliband has said in the past three months that has represented a "challenge" to the party or the country.

In an interview with the Guardian Blunkett also criticised the 2010 Labour election manifesto for which Miliband junior had responsibility, saying it looked as if it had been written on Sunday morning and was "deeply uninspiring ... it is a bit rich for those that were in what they amusingly call the Brown bunker to claim it was nothing to do with them, and it would be nice if we suddenly became radicals".

Blunkett, the former home secretary and one of Labour's most senior MPs, has nominated Andy Burnham as his first preference in the contest, saying he wanted his authentic working class voice in the campaign. But Burnham is thought to be trailing the Miliband brothers.

Blunkett said: "I am very strongly in favour of people casting their second preference for David Miliband. It is absolutely crucial for the future of the Labour party and the country that someone with the experience and grasp of global challenges should lead the party, and that clearly would be David."

Ed Miliband's campaign said at the weekend it was picking up the bulk of second preference votes. "I know Ed Miliband would vehemently object to being painted as a left-leaning comfort zone, since I have put it to him," Blunkett said.

"But I have to ask the question, what difficult challenge has Ed put to the party, or to the electorate during the last three months, and I cannot think of one."

Blunkett also urged the party to recognise the scale of the challenge it faced: "It is a delusion to think that the coalition will collapse even if as many as 10 Liberal Democrat MPs defect to Labour or go independent." He added: "We have to be brutally honest with ourselves about what it will take to beat the coalition that may well stand as a national progressive coalition at the next general election, whether Simon Hughes [the leftwing Lib Dem deputy leader] likes it or not."

Blunkett is concerned that the process of the leadership election has led some candidates to think too much in terms of what the party, as opposed to the country, thinks.

In further criticism directed at Ed Miliband he said: "It was decisions such as the 10p tax rate that had far more to do with the disillusionment with Labour in the 2010 election than the Iraq war, or a too -casual approach to civil liberties or graduates paying back their fees.

"There is a very real danger that we have seen terminology used in the campaign that is reminiscent of Alice Through the Looking Glass, with phrases like 'the comfort zone of New Labour'. I don't want any comfort zone and I don't want to benchmark us against New or Old Labour.

"I want us to benchmark ourselves against the challenges of 2015 and 2020, but if anyone thought New Labour was a comfort zone, they did not live through it. We were constantly being challenged to debate and to take decisions with which we were deeply uncomfortable and that is the job of a leader.

"A leader is not someone who tests the water about how people feel in a party and then articulates the loudest voice at that moment. It is someone who looks ahead and then does his upmost to persuade and cajole his supporters to look ahead."

Blunkett added: "Take a constituency like Reading West, where many people live on £20,000 a year. You have to ask yourself what made them vote Conservative - their concerns were not necessarily the concerns of the most active members of the Labour party and that is the terrible historic dilemma for the Labour party.

"What we feel and what the key swing voters feel is not always the same, and in a democracy you ignore that at your peril. For instance, if you turn away from the electorate on issues like crime and terrorism, the voters will turn away from you. It was not the electorate that got it wrong, and it took the Conservative party at least two or three attempts to learn that lesson."

He said that, before the election and in the manifesto: "We should have been challenging about how we deal with the deficit whilst still massively reforming the welfare state, retaining universality but asking the question whether people on very high incomes can surely afford to have their winter fuel allowance or their child benefit included in taxable income. That is something that would have resonated with people, difficult as it is.

"So we missed an opportunity to say this is a very difficult moment when we are asking you to help us face the biggest challenge since wartime but we are going to do it with a radical bent with a vision for the future."

He said Labour initially had an understanding of the defeat but "there has been a drift away as they have gone to meetings where the pressures of the faithful are slightly different to the electorate as a whole".

He added: "You would have thought the centre-left in politics would have been the beneficiaries of the global meltdown, the collapse of financial markets, especially since it was politics that saved us from the worst outcome, yet it has been the opposite.

"Collectively across the world there has not been a narrative from the centre left. The Democrats in the US are in virtual meltdown and only two left parties govern in Europe, so the outlook is that we have to rebuild a belief in politics."

o Leaked memo warned Met police would 'deeply resent' probe
o Ex-officer Bob Quick says new claims must be investigated
o Senior Tories start to voice doubts over Andy Coulson's future

The Home Office abandoned plans to establish an independent inquiry into the News of the World phone-hacking scandal last year after a senior official warned that the Metropolitan police would "deeply resent" any interference in their investigation, according to a leaked government document.

As Alan Johnson came close today to accusing Scotland Yard of having misled him over the scandal, a leaked Home Office memo shows that the last government decided against calling in Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary after intense internal lobbying.

Stephen Rimmer, the Home Office director general for crime and policing, warned that Scotland Yard would "deeply resent" a review of its investigation by the inspectorate and that it would send a message that "we do not have full confidence" in the Met.

The leaked document emerged on one of the most dramatic days of the phone-hacking scandal which saw pressure mount on Andy Coulson, David Cameron's director of communications and former editor of the News of the World, and on Scotland Yard.

As the government was forced to answer questions about the scandal in the Commons, there were further developments:

o John Yates, the senior Met officer in charge of investigating the scandal, said he was prepared to interview Sean Hoare, a former News of the World journalist who told the New York Times that Coulson knew about the hacking. Coulson, who denies the allegation, said he would be happy to talk to the police.

o Alan Johnson questioned the conduct of Scotland Yard after senior officers told him last year that every individual whose phone may have been hacked into would be informed. The former home secretary spoke out after his former government colleague, Chris Bryant, said that police took no action when it became apparent his phone might have been targeted.

o Bob Quick, a former head of specialist operations, expressed concerns about allegations in the New York Times that the Met might have been reluctant to investigate the claims because of its close relationship with News International. "If officers felt the investigation was being inhibited or suppressed, that must be a source of concern," Quick said.

o Senior Tories started to voice doubts about whether Coulson will be able to withstand intense media pressure. "This is like a long gunpowder fuse," one said.

Scotland Yard is facing renewed pressure after the leaking of a Home Office document which suggested that the Met was highly sensitive about any outside interference in its investigation. Officials raised objections when Johnson asked last year whether the inspectorate of constabulary should be asked to examine Scotland Yard's handling of the case, after the Guardian published fresh evidence.

This challenged News International's central defence: that just one rogue reporter was involved in phone hacking.

In an email on 13 July 2009 to Richard Westlake, Johnson's private secretary, Rimmer wrote: "My own advice on this remains that there are insufficient grounds to do so ... and that the Met would deeply resent what they would see as 'interference' in an operational investigation which could, of course, be revived at any given time."

Rimmer also showed there was acute sensitivity about Yates, who was responsible for the police investigation into whether Labour had traded peerages for donations to the party. In formal written advice to Johnson on 14 July 2009, he said that calling in the inspectorate "could lead to accusations that ... following recent exchanges with John Yates, we do not have full confidence in the MPS". A spokesman for Johnson said he would not comment on a leaked document.

The leaked memo appeared as Johnson stepped up the pressure on the Met. He told MPs: "Last year I was assured that the Metropolitan police service had not received any allegations in respect of other News of the World journalists. I was also told that the Metropolitan police had taken all proper steps to ensure that where there was evidence of phone tapping or suspicion of phone tapping the individuals concerned would be informed."

Chris Bryant, the former Europe minister, claimed police did not keep him properly informed after it became clear that he may have been targeted. Bryant told MPs his phone company said his phone had been hacked into.

"I told the police about this months ago and they have done absolutely nothing about it," he said.

Theresa May, the home secretary, dismissed calls for a judicial inquiry, though she voiced support for the Met.

"Any police investigation is an operational matter in which ministers have no role. The Metropolitan police have indicated that if there is further evidence, they will look at it. That is the right course of action and it is right for the government to await the outcome."

David Davis among MPs warning government they will try and defeat bill introducing referendum on alternative vote

The scale of the challenge the government faces in pushing through a bill for a referendum on electoral reform, and a major redrawing of constituency boundaries, emerged today as senior Tories warned they will try to defeat key measures.

The critical voices, including David Davis, the influential Conservative backbencher, emerged during the second reading of the bill introducing a referendum on 6 May next year. The bill - seen as the centrepiece of the coalition - is likely to come under serious pressure during its committee stages in October.

One Tory MP Anne Main warned her whips there was deep unhappiness on both sides of the house, adding "we will swallow some, but only so much". She warned she was not lobby fodder, adding many of the measures stuck in her throat.

She was particularly furious that the referendum will be on the alternative vote - a preferential voting system - describing it as "the least sensible and palatable solution", adding she was surprised it was suported by the Liberal Democrats.

Another Conservative MP, Gary Streeter, suggested there was "raging disinterest" among voters on the topic and it would be a "referendum that nobody wants". He said he feared it would mean an "outright Conservative government" would never be voted in again.

Davis said the government should be open about the "party advantage" implicit in the plans.

He also warned the withdrawal of the right to hold a public inquiry into the redrawing of constituency boundaries might lead to a spate of constituency judicial reviews. He said: "The deputy prime minister [Nick Clegg] presented this bill as something designed to increase the respect of the people for the political system that we work under.

"I think the people might respect us more if we admitted some of the real reasons for what we are doing. Of course there is party advantage implicit in what we are talking about."

Most Conservative MPs, including David Cameron, are opposed to reforming how MPs are elected, but the party conceded the referendum plan in the coalition agreement, so long as it was accompanied by a boundary review.

Clegg claimed the plans to hold a referendum will help "restore people's faith in the way they elect their MPs", and represented "the bare minimum necessary" to achieve long overdue political renewal. "At present on the broken scales of our democracy, 10 voters in Glasgow North have the same weight as 17 voters in Manchester Central," he said.

The new bill proposes an average constituency size of 76,000 with a variation of plus or minus 5%.

Jack Straw, the shadow justice secretary, said the plan for boundary changes was "one of the most partisan proposals we have seen in recent years".

He said the proposals were nothing to do with the "high ideals" that Clegg had claimed and were instead "the worst kind of political skulduggery for narrow party advantage".

He claimed it was quite wrong to withdraw the right to stage public inquiries into proposed plans to redraw boundaries, saying experience showed these inquiries led to adjustments to the original proposals .

Home secretary gives a dogged 30-minute display as opposition MP tries to liken phone-hacking affair to a 'British Watergate'

If Theresa May had been a luckier politician she might have faced an easier challenge on her first day back at Westminster: solving world hunger perhaps, persuading the Taliban to take up knitting or smuggling Tony Blair into Waterstone's.

Instead the home secretary got a big, black binliner full of stinking political rubbish dumped into her lap, the kind of raw material that News of the World reporters tiptoe away with from the dustbins of their victims.

Except that in this case the investigators were outraged opposition MPs and the targets under surveillance were Scotland Yard, the News of the Screws itself and Andy Coulson, the boss's pet rottweiler, all mixed up in the phone-hacking affair. A Lib Dem cabinet minister even called for Coulson to be sacked.

It was a situation where even May could see that a careless word could end a woman's career in its sub-prime. So she stuck to the autocue, praying for her nightmare to end so she could get back to immigration, alcoholism and genital mutilation.

It did end, but only after 30 excruciating minutes which culminated in one Labour MP, Madeleine Moon, calling the controversy "the British Watergate" (someone had to) while another, Chris Bryant, asked the Speaker to check how many MPs' phones had been hacked - because the home secretary wouldn't. Humiliation! Shame! Thoroughly deserved!

All May would say - repeatedly - was that it is not her job to interfere with operational police matters. The royal affair had been investigated, two men had been jailed, assorted reviews had concluded that all was well, but the Met police would look at new evidence, if any, about its own investigative failings. The Vatican's paedophile investigation unit could not have put it better. "If you have any complaints, children, you must bring your evidence to Father O'Grope."

After weeks of privation MPs weren't going to pass up a chance to be pompous again. It is no fun being on holiday, having to say "On a point of order, Mr Whippy, may I have two choc ices and a can of Irn-Bru" or " May I warn the hon gentleman that if the Ryanair flight to Corfu does not take off shortly I will be tabling a question to the prime minister".

But this was the real thing. So Labour's Tom Watson, a man whose bins have been done over by the tabloids, delivered one of the best made-for-TV-news soundbites in months: six terse points that badly dented the coalition's defence and ended with a magnificently pompous bit about "the integrity of our democracy being under scrutiny around the world". Yeah, right.

Watson's points were solid enough to put Tory MPs to the test. Most of them, obtuse to the point of mendacity, failed, though John Whittingdale, chairman of the media select committee bravely hinted at disquiet. Lib Dem backbenchers were more sceptical and their cabinet colleague, Chris Huhne, was brilliant.

Coulson was either in charge of the News of the World when it was out of control or in charge of the racket. If Gordon Brown was right to sack his spin troll, Damian McBride, was not David Cameron right to sack Coulson, thundered Huhne. Admittedly, this was last year, but Alan Johnson helpfully dug the quotes out.

Johnson's revenge was caustic. Taunted with inaction before polling day he told May: "When I was home secretary dealing with this case, there was nobody anywhere in government who was implicated. Now there is. You and the deputy prime minister have lectured the house many times about your perception of the surveillance state created by the previous government. It appears that you may have your very own expert on the matter in charge of government communications."

Ouch! It couldn't get much worse than that, could it? Yes. Next up was Nick Clegg defending his voting reforms bill against attacks from all sides. Even the bright spark who suggested bringing MPs back a month early must have realised his mistake by now. But Andy Coulson knew nothing about it.

Cameron's recasting of constituencies will spark public protests. He has devised maximum turmoil for minimal gain

The teeth-gnashing list of things Labour could, should and didn't do is long. Of these, failure to push through electoral reform and state funding of political parties stand out as the most shortsighted, sectarian and ultimately self-harming.

We are where we are - but never forget there would be no Tory-Lib Dem coalition had Blair faced down his own party to pursue his first instinct and bring in the electoral reform proposed by the Roy Jenkins commission. The Brown, Straw and Prescott forces of conservatism hugely outweighed the small band of Labour reformers. At least they finally got an Alternative Vote (AV) referendum into the last manifesto - the choice to rank candidates 1, 2, 3 instead of a single X. Yesterday the parliamentary voting system and constituencies bill's second reading gave many Labour anti-reformers a chance to wriggle free. The inclusion of Tory-favouring boundary changes with no public appeals gives Labour an excuse to vote against AV, which so many detested anyway.

All parties proclaim their high constitutional principles, and all are equally self-interested. AV only crept into Labour's manifesto when polls showed they would need Lib Dem support to stay in government. Many want to ditch it, and otherwise reasonable Labour MPs can be heard declaring they are damned if they'll do anything to help the Lib Dems, collaborating on cuts that impoverish the poor.

Better grounds for opposing it come from Alan Johnson, a long-time reformer. He fears this "only chance in my lifetime" for reform will be lost in the referendum with a massive Tory campaign against it: better to wait until Labour is back in power, probably in coalition, with a proper proportional option on the ballot paper. But most reformers want to seize this chance. Why trust Labour in future anyway?

Labour's new leader will have to take a stand. After supporting it in the manifesto, the leader's reputation for honesty will depend on fighting strongly for a yes vote, throwing his authority to whip in his halfhearted, divided party.

But the boundary question is tricky. At first glance Cameron is on strong ground: there are too many MPs, some constituencies have grown too big, others too small. Of course he wouldn't do it unless it favoured his own party, but that doesn't make him wrong. Yet why cut just 50 MPs, when a Commons of many fewer would enhance MPs' power and sharpen their role? Fewer MPs who devoted all their time to government would give councillors a greater role locally. Of course Cameron chose 50 as the number where the cuts harm Labour most and Tories least. If Labour wanted to embrace the broad principle of equal constituencies, the new leader could seize a patch of moral high ground by suggesting an even bigger cut in MPs.

But Labour may score on this in the end. In the coming months Cameron may wonder whether this fight was worth the candle. Cutting 50 seats, according to the independent Democratic Audit, would have lost Labour 25 seats, the Tories 13 and the Lib Dems 7. But it would not have tipped the balance enough to gain a Tory majority.

There will be an almighty row over this - and the opponents will not just be Labour: there will be equally distraught protests from Tory and Lib Dem voters. Usually the Boundary Commissions plod along re-ordering constituency sizes with consultation on local sensitivities and a system of public appeals. Cameron is sweeping all that away. A strict numerical equality takes precedence over crossing every regional, county and even ward boundary. MPs may straddle two local authorities, may be half in a city and half in a county, crossing natural divides with no recognition of fierce local identity.

The Isle of Wight has become the totemic problem. With a population too big to fit the prescribed 76,000 limit, yet too small for two MPs, a slice will be attached to mainland Hampshire - and the Vectians won't have it. Knock-on effects ripple all the way up the country as hundreds of seats are redrawn. Forget Cameron talk of localism: this will be the most Stalinist of top-down edicts. Local MPs, local newspapers and radio stations, councils of all political hues, will object passionately to boundaries that will resemble the British Empire's drawing of straight lines regardless of tribes. The convenient exemptions for three Lib Dem Scottish seats will only anger other areas.

All this upheaval would be worthwhile if it were part of a more proportional system. But Cameron may find he has devised maximum turmoil for minimal gain. In his haste to have the new system in place for the next election, there will be no public hearings. But there will be very public protests.

That may be trivial compared to a more serious problem - the poor state of the registers that will be used to determine numbers, especially in densely populated places. The accuracy of registers depends on how much effort councils put into them. Some Tory councils are lax: why spend money encouraging poor people to vote? Cameron and Clegg have just axed the participation fund that helped councils encourage registration and voting: why bother when non-voters are mainly Labour-inclined? Inner-city registers are most inaccurate. Nationally only 56% of 17- to 24-year-olds, 49% of private tenants and 31% of ethnic minorities are registered to vote. The Electoral Commission notes the "declining motivation to register".

Registers could be greatly improved if they used all data from every source, but only Northern Ireland is allowed to match information from housing benefit, secondary schools, utilities, pensions and benefits to ensure everyone known to officialdom is on the register. That should be used everywhere for head-counting purposes: deprived areas complain bitterly that they are paid too little per uncounted capita by central government for schools and all services. If people worry about being on a public register, voters could choose to stay off a publicly published register, with legal protection from use of registration by any other authority.

There are good reasons to oppose these crude boundary changes. Some in Labour may not deploy these with much good faith. Many just want to scupper the AV reform and wreak revenge on the Lib Dems - with whom, some day soon, they may find themselves having to work alongside. Let's hope Labour's new leader has the vision to get this right.