UKIP leader Lord Pearson to stand down

UK Independence Party leader Lord Pearson of Rannoch is to stand down after less than a year in the position. In his resignation statement, Lord Pearson said he was "not much good" at party politics [haha! - brilliant!] and UKIP "deserved a better politician... to lead it". The outgoing leader had a difficult general election campaign, telling one interviewer he could not remember his own manifesto in detail [none of them can, you're not special]. An interim leader will be chosen at UKIP's annual conference next month. One of UKIP's two deputy leaders - Euro MP David Campbell Bannerman - is planning to stand in the contest to replace Lord Pearson, a spokesman said.

Lord Pearson was made a Conservative life peer by Margaret Thatcher in 1990

Lord Pearson, who defected to UKIP from the Conservatives in 2007, will remain in place as party leader until the conference, which begins on 2 September. He was elected to his position in November 2009, after the previous leader, Nigel Farage, stepped down to concentrate on contesting the Buckingham parliamentary seat - which he lost - held by the speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow. Resigning as leader, Lord Pearson, 68, said he wanted to "spend more time on his wider interests" which included "the treatment of people with intellectual impairment [haha! it gets better], teacher training [with your memory?], the threat from Islamism and the relationship between good and evil" [god help us] - as well as his dogs and family.

UKIP had increased its vote by 50% in the General Election and "had many exciting plans for the future", he said, but it was time for a "younger leader" to show how "liberating and enriching life would be outside the EU", saying he was "confident" one would emerge. He said the party had "never been more important for our freedom as a self-governing democracy" and had to "go on telling the truth about Europe."

"We have a coalition government which supports every new power grab by Brussels: supervision of our financial services; an EU diplomatic corps; new police and surveillance powers; bailing out the folly that is the euro. Much of this is illegal under the Treaties, but that has never worried Brussels or the Luxembourg Court, which now make most of our national law in a secretive process over which Parliament has no control. History teaches us that trouble lies ahead when a regime is free to break its own laws with impunity, when it is supported by a puppet court, and when its people are powerless to get rid of it. That is what the European Union has become, and the only way out is the door," he said.

Mr Farage, who was seriously hurt in a plane crash on polling day in May, said he had yet to decide whether to stand for re-election to his old job. He told the BBC: "I'm not going to say I'm absolutely not going to do the job again but I've got to decide, in the wake of that accident, whether I'm strong enough to take the job on. The other problem is I'm still leading a group in the European Parliament in Brussels. Can I do that and lead a party in the UK?"

Bryan Ferry does Kate Moss (as it were)

Emma Thompson does Peter Rabbit (so to speak)

Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson is to write a new Peter Rabbit story to mark the 110th anniversary of Beatrix Potter's original story. The 51-year-old told US chat show host Craig Ferguson she "had a lovely little job offer" from the publishers of the children's book series. "They asked me to write a new story, so I'm going to take him to Scotland," she said. 

Thompson's story is expected to be published in 2012. The actress, who has previously written screenplays for Sense and Sensibility and Nanny McPhee, recently revealed she was planning to take a break from acting. Her new role was confirmed by Jennifer Cooper from publishers Frederick Warne. "We are currently in talks with Emma Thompson regarding her writing a Peter Rabbit story to commemorate 110 years of Peter Rabbit in 2012," she told the BBC News website.

Beatrix Potter first introduced the character of Peter Rabbit - based on her own pet - to her stories in 1902 after its beginnings as an illustrated letter in 1893. The author's life was made into the Hollywood film Miss Potter in 2006 with Renee Zellweger playing the title role.

Votes over new home schemes 'could tear villages apart'

Government plans to hold local referendums on new housing schemes in England could tear village communities apart, rural campaigners have said. They say plans to require at least 90% of local people to approve new building schemes in villages would create conflict and bring projects to a halt. The Rural Coalition says that elected parish councils should instead be able to initiate community-led developments. 

The government wants new developments to have overwhelming support. Its Community Right to Build initiative aims to provide small numbers of affordable homes in rural areas where high property prices are driving people away. Announced as part of David Cameron's "big society" idea, the plans would enable villagers to form local housing trusts and build homes without seeking council planning permission, subject to the referendum results.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has previously criticised the proposals, saying there should be proper planning scrutiny of house building by democratically elected councillors, rather than a simple public ballot. The Rural Coalition, which is made up of groups from the public, private and charity sectors - including the Local Government Association and the Campaign to Protect Rural England - has called this a "do-or-die moment" for villages. The problem, it said, was that rural services faced government cuts, village house prices were too high and wages too low.

Although its report calls for more planning decisions to be made at a local level, it is against the part of the government's scheme that would require any new housing to be approved by an overwhelming majority of local people. The government has defended the plans, saying it was committed to protecting and preserving local villages and that was why the policy would give people the power to build new homes, shops and community facilities.

BT receives 24,000 applications for 221 apprenticeships

More young people applied for the positions than the total applications to Oxford University, which attracted 17,000 applications for its 3,000 undergraduate places. The high interest in the programme - which has a starting annual salary of £11,000 to £14,000 - reflects the growing rate of unemployment in the country's six million 18 to 24-year-olds, which is currently 17.5%, and a spike in the birth rate in the early nineties. As a result, more young people are also applying for education places - with university admissions service Ucas reporting in June an 11.7% rise on the previous year in applications received.

Last week, it emerged growing numbers of school leavers were applying directly to companies once thought of as graduate employers rather than going to university. PricewaterhouseCoopers said applications for its school-leavers' entry scheme doubled to 800 in the past two years, while Network Rail said it had 4,000 entries for more than 200 apprenticeship places this year. City & Guilds, which runs vocational qualifications, said interest this summer is up 20% on last year. Meanwhile, the Push Student Debt Survey revealed students starting university this autumn will graduate with almost £25,000 worth of debt.

Spending cuts spark fears of 8% rise in rail fares

Rail fares may rise by up to 8% next year if the Department for Transport (DfT) is hit hard in the government's spending review, sources have said. While many rail fare rises are currently capped at inflation plus 1%, this could rise to 2% or 3% if the department faces tough cuts. Increases are based on July's RPI measure, expected to be 5%, which could mean increases of up to 8%.

No decision has been made on changing the "RPI plus 1%" formula. A 6.1% rise for a commuter from Brighton to London would mean they would have to pay £216 more than the £3,556 they are currently charged each year, the Daily Telegraph reported. Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said: "It would normally be the case that next year's regulated train fares are calculated using July's inflation figure, plus 1%.

Cameron holds on to the reins while on holiday

It is the most power a liberal politician has had since the 1920s, although Nick Clegg's hopes of becoming only the second liberal politician in almost a century to run the country have been rather set back by David Cameron's insistence that he will remain in charge from his Cornish holiday bolthole.

As deputy prime minister, the Liberal Democrat leader might have expected to follow his predecessors, John Prescott and Harriet Harman, in taking the reins of power today, albeit for just a fortnight in the dog days of August. But his senior coalition partner is not quite ready to let him follow in the footsteps of David Lloyd George just yet. From this morning Clegg might be the most senior working politician in the country but there will be no moving into No 10 and he will stay in his suite of offices at 70 Whitehall instead. "The PM remains in charge but while he's on holiday Nick will be around and picking up some events," a Downing Street spokesman said.

Nevertheless, the next fortnight represents the most power a Liberal has had in Britain since Lloyd George stood down in 1922. Clegg will kick off with a "virtual" town hall event at the headquarters of the instant messaging company MSN and address rallies in Sheffield, Newcastle and Bristol as he tries to regain support which has slumped since his party decided to share power with the Conservatives. He is likely to announce the appointment, already leaked, of Alan Milburn, the Labour politician, to be a "social mobility tsar".

It is a far cry from Lloyd George's agenda which involved winning the first world war, establishing a new international order at the Paris peace conference of 1919 and founding the welfare state.

Liverpool 1 - 1 Arsenal

What a joke

England's next manager will be English, says FA

England boss Fabio Capello's successor will be an Englishman, the Football Association has pledged. The Italian's contract runs until 2012, although he remains under pressure after England's poor World Cup. "We are working on the basis that Fabio will be with us until 2012," the FA's Adrian Bevington told BBC 5 live. "The view beyond that, based on the discussions I've been involved in, is that we should have an English manager after that." Speaking to 5 live's Sportsweek program, FA Club England managing director Bevington added: "We enjoyed working with Sven-Goran Eriksson, and we have Fabio Capello in now. I think the English team should be managed by an English manager [in the future]." 

Capello has been heavily criticised since England's dismal World Cup campaign was ended at the last-16 stage by a humiliating 4-1 loss to Germany. The former AC Milan and Real Madrid boss has been accused of poor communication on and off the pitch, culminating in the clumsy manner in which he ended midfielder David Beckham's international career. The Italian announced the decision while being interviewed by a TV channel without having informed the 115-cap player of his decision. Capello's assistant, Franco Baldini, was left to tell Beckham his international career was at an end before the interview was aired.

The decisions of keeper Paul Robinson and defender Wes Brown to retire from international football rather than meet up with the squad for last week's friendly with Hungary have also heaped more pressure on the beleaguered manager.

Psalm 24 (a little known verse)

Cameron's Mr Nice act still fools some, but the pain is a wake-up call

Cameron's campaign had no mention of such bitter cuts. Blaming the public sector won't work as his popularity slumps, says Polly Toynbee.

David Cameron's hundred days is up next week – and the honeymoon is over. YouGov shows Labour on 37%, Tories on 42%. Approval for the coalition is down from a June peak of +21 to +1 and falling. What makes this extraordinary is that leaderless Labour, semi-absent from the fray, scores more than the Tories won at the election. With Labour likely to choose a clever leader, Cameron might just be as short-lived as his predecessor.

This year is not another 1979 or 1997. Thatcher and Blair won landslides, but Cameron didn't win at all – and that will matter more each day in 2011, the bitterest year of cuts ever known. He has no mandate for the profound changes that he promises will affect "our whole way of life". He won by deceit – hugging huskies, "let the sunshine in", vote blue go green, embracing the poor, rebranding nastiness and detoxifying the Thatcher legacy. That's how he succeeded, by making nice.

Nick Clegg's rose garden blessing gave good cover, though as Lib Dem support sinks, so does its value. Marshal Pétain's usefulness didn't last long. The real hatchets of power – Francis Maude and George Osborne – are the vanguard radicals who feel no need of niceness. Who would have thought Cameron would be less constrained by his coalition partners than Margaret Thatcher was in her first term by her own wet tendency?

The Guardian Editorial: Sir Philip Green

Labour's 1940s chancellor Sir Stafford Cripps, ferociously abstinent and ascetic in his private habits, was the ideal man to preach public restraint in the postwar years. But his lesson, that if you wish to promote public austerity then the message comes best from someone of unimpeachable personal frugality, has been lost on David Cameron. In almost every respect, Sir Philip Green, appointed this week to carry out an external review of public spending cuts, is the antithesis of Cripps. Though he may run a tight ship in his businesses, in private Sir Philip is a hedonistic voluptuary, whose permatanned corpulence bears witness to his lifestyle as accurately as Cripps's own skeletal physique did in the 1940s.

gi' us a job

Sir Philip is also – we must express this with care – a man who is careful to arrange his own finances so as not to needlessly benefit the common weal. In 2005, for example, the man whom Robert Peston dubs both a lovable rogue and the king of jackpot capitalism paid himself a tax-free dividend of £1.2bn from the Arcadia retailing business. Technically the dividend went to his Monaco-resident wife, in order to avoid UK Treasury attention, a tax saving to Sir Philip that has been estimated at £300m. That one dividend payment, as Mr Peston has written, was equivalent to what 54,000 people on average earnings would earn in a year, would build around 10 secondary schools capable of educating some 13,000 young people, or, if paid in an unlikely column of pound coins, would tower 2,350 miles about the Earth's surface.

If Sir Philip can come up with useful economies for the exchequer that no one else has identified then, perhaps, well and good. But in most respects the whole exercise, due to last less than two months – and thus exactly the kind of short-term "three-, six-, 10-week hype" with which Sir Philip used to say he would have nothing to do – smells of a fishiness that deserves to cling to the ministers who dreamed it up and which will hopefully do the government no credit at all with the taxpaying public. All in this together? Not Sir Philip and his wife. His role sends a deplorable and very powerful signal about the government's fiscal values.

It is hard to put it better than the man who, during the election, reacted to the endorsement of the Conservative anti-tax campaign by Sir Philip and other big business beasts by saying: "I have no time for billionaire tax dodgers who step off the plane from their tax havens into the country where they make their money and have the effrontery to tell us how to vote and how to run our tax policies. If some of them came onshore and paid their taxes it would make a useful dent in the budget deficit." Fine words from Vince Cable. Now stand by them.

the Guardian

If Roxy Music had been a car, this would be it

A sports car once owned by the late British actress Diana Dors could fetch up to £4 million ($6m) at a Californian auction on Saturday, organisers say. The 1949 Delahaye Roadster, which some have dubbed as the most beautiful car in the world, was given to Dors when she was 17. The sky blue car has been described by auctioneers as "extravagant and outrageous - a rolling sculpture".

Dors, who was seen as the British Marilyn Monroe, died in 1984 aged 52. Born Diana Mary Fluck, she became known as a 1950s blonde sex symbol, but was also well-respected for her acting skills. RM auctioneers said the car was curvaceous, sexy and flamboyant, just like its former owner. When Dors first received the car, she did not even have a driving licence. At 20, she became the youngest owner of a Rolls-Royce in the UK - a reflection of her success at an early age. After she died, the car changed ownership several times and has in recent years been restored to its former condition. 

In its catalogue listing, RM Auctions says the Roadster - which has a top speed of 70mph - can "easily claim to being the most extravagant and beautiful coachbulit car in existence". The car is one of only 150 Roadsters made, and only one of 51 of its specific model - the 175S - and is expected to attract a lot of interest from car collectors around the world. The company stopped production in 1951 as it found there was little demand for such extravagance during that post-war period.

Last updated at 18:01 on 15 August 2010
It sold for $3 million (£1.9m) !

Spurs 0 - 0 Manchester City

Tottenham should have won this game and must be wondering how they didn't. Joe Hart is the short answer, Manchester City's new first-choice [at last] goalkeeper proving equal to the considerable amount the home side threw at him. Yet having created a succession of chances, Spurs cannot be totally happy with the quality of their finishing. They will need to sharpen up to prosper in the Champions League.

Joe Hart, back from his loan spell with Birmingham

Stephen Kinnock faces fresh tax allegations

Police in Denmark are considering a complaint about the financial affairs of Stephen Kinnock, the 40-year-old son of the former Labour leader. Mr Kinnock, who is married to the Danish Opposition leader, has been accused of avoiding tax by understating the amount of time he spent in the country.

Stephen and Helle Kinnock share a joke at the Danish taxpayers' expense

He is already under investigation by the Danish authorities in relation to his earnings last year. However, the investigation could now be widened to cover the past five years. The scandal threatens to derail the career of Mr Kinnock’s wife, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the leader of the Left-wing Social Democrats, who has called for higher taxes. Miss Thorning-Schmidt, who was poised to become prime minister, has returned early from holiday to fight the claims.

Mr Kinnock, a director of the World Economic Forum in Geneva, pays income tax on his £110,000 salary in Switzerland, where the rate is considerably lower than in Denmark. He told the Danish authorities that he spent no more than 33 weekends, from Friday to Monday, in Denmark each year. Residents are liable for income tax if they spend 180 days in the country, including arrival and departure days.

The Coalition Summer Sale

Adams, the Telegraph

For sale: one country, united in grief

Some of the most beautiful areas of Britain could be sold off and wildlife and countryside protection measures cut to the bone to meet expected 40% cuts in the budget of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, it emerged. Among the plans being considered by the government, which once declared itself "the greenest ever", are selling off national nature reserves; privatising parts of the Forestry Commission; privatising the Met Office, one of the world's leading research organisations on climate change; and withdrawing grants to British Waterways, which manages 2,200 miles of canals and rivers.

Natural England, the government's principal nature conservation agency, has put forward 400 job cuts next year, and up to another 400 after that, potentially one third of its workforce. There are also concerns that the Environment Agency, which looks after waterways, air and soil, will have to slash spending on pollution and waste controls and river protection after the environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, recently said she had made it "perfectly clear" that the government would maintain the level of spending on flood defences – which take up more than half the agency's budget.

Political observers warned that ministers could be floating radical ideas to soften the blow of lesser but still swingeing cuts in the autumn review of government spending for 2011-14. However, if they go ahead such dramatic cuts would be the most radical rethink of the British natural environment in the last 40 years. Conservation experts said such cuts would set back nature conservation by many years and hinder the creation of new marine nature reserves and other initiatives intended to help Britain meet its legal obligations.

Sir Philip Green: well-versed in saving money

David Cameron’s new Whitehall cost-cutter Sir Philip Green sounded irritated when asked whether the UK would benefit from business owners paying their taxes in the country, as well as being grilled about his tax status, on BBC radio on Friday. 

A fistful of dollars

The Topshop boss, who suggested he might be able to save the government money by centralising procurement, told the BBC that he was a UK taxpayer, working in the country every week. Asked about his wife, Sir Philip said she was not a tax exile. “My family do not live in the United Kingdom, it’s somewhat different.” He added: “We do pay all our tax in Britain. I think we have paid over the past five years some £300m-£400m in taxes on profits that have been made on our company.”

In June 2006, Nick Cohen wrote in the Observer about the knighthood given to Philip Green. He noted that: “In the spring, the BBC’s Money Programme calculated that Green and his family had ’saved themselves’ £300m from their £1.2bn salary by living for a part of the year in Monaco, whose residents don’t pay income tax. Standing up for such paupers used to be the point of a Labour government. Even if it could not force the likes of Green to pay their fair share, it retained the power to shun them and make it clear that those who don’t contribute towards their country can’t expect their country to be grateful.

Even that modest defiance of the plutocrats is beyond Labour now. Yesterday, the Queen announced her birthday honours and high on her list was Green, who received a knighthood for ’services to the retail industry’.  If I were in the Inland Revenue, I would fret about the moment when the little people who stupidly still pay taxes realise that the state is treating them like fools. It insists that they must hand over their earnings on pain of punishment by the courts, while inviting Philip Green to Buckingham Palace to be honoured by the Queen.”

Corus plans to open wind farm business on Teesside

Steelmaker Corus is to develop a new £31.5m offshore wind farm business, creating up to 220 jobs on the site of its mothballed plant in Teesside. The new facility will be located on the vast 3,000-acre site in Redcar, bringing much-needed cheer to the town, which was battered by the loss of more than 1,000 jobs when the Teesside Cast Products business was shut down earlier this year after more than 170 years of steelmaking in the area. It will produce the steel structures used to fix wind turbines to the seabed known as monopiles.

 Teesside Cast Products plant, Redcar

Geoff Waterfield, chairman of the Corus multi-union committee, said: "It is absolutely fantastic. We are so due a bit of good news. People have been through very hard times and we deserve this good news today. Companies like ours should certainly be looking at renewable energy, as projects will require a huge amount of steel and the north-east has been earmarked for that. But it is a new area for Corus and it is a little bit of a gamble. This is a good opportunity for the government to give some support to Corus that was not forthcoming earlier in the year."

Talks over the sale of the Redcar plant to Thai industrial group SSI have been under way since May and unions hope a deal will be sealed imminently. The proposed development will not affect negotiations. "We are still in a strange sort of limbo state as we are waiting for the news on the main event," Waterfield said. The government has approved plans to build thousands of offshore wind turbines and Corus believes that around 6m tonnes of steel will be needed for the foundations and towers.

Audit Commission to be scrapped

The Audit Commission, which employs 2,000 people, is to be scrapped, the BBC has learned. England's public spending watchdog audits £200bn spent by 11,000 bodies in local government and has offices across the country. A source told the BBC that the announcement, planned for Saturday, was "completely out of the blue".

In May, Communities Secretary Eric Pickles vetoed the £240,000 salary for the new head of the Audit Commission. "Spiralling" pay levels had to stop, Mr Pickles said. Commission staff received an email from management on Friday. BBC News Channel chief political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg said that, despite the controversy over salaries, the move would come as a surprise.

In a prepared press statement which was leaked to the BBC, Mr Pickles said the commission's responsibilities for overseeing and delivering local audits would stop, as would its research functions. Instead private companies will be asked to carry out audits - with councils able to appoint their own auditors "from a more competitive and open market" and a "new audit framework" for local health services.

Steven Spielberg's studio 'concerned' by move to axe UK Film Council

The government's decision to axe the UK Film Council attracted further controversy today when it emerged that DreamWorks Studios, the Hollywood studio founded by Steven Spielberg, had written to the chancellor to "express its concern" over the move. A letter signed by an executive at DreamWorks, Steven Molen, who is in charge of location decisions for the studio, was sent to George Osborne last week, adding to the high-profile list of figures who have spoken out against ending the council's funding. Among the films made by DreamWorks on location in Britain are Sweeney Todd and War Horse.

It is the second letter of concern Osborne has received from Hollywood in a week: the first, from the Oscar-winning actor and director Clint Eastwood, spoke of his "great concern" over the scrapping. Eastwood praised the efforts of the council during the London-based shoot of his most recent film, The Hereafter, and said that such a production could be less likely to choose the UK as a location after the council's abolition. And more than 50 actors and actresses, including Bill Nighy, Timothy Spall and Emily Blunt, last week signed a letter to the Daily Telegraph making clear their opposition to the decision.

A Treasury spokeswoman said the chancellor had received the DreamWorks letter, but declined to discuss its contents. However, Ed Vaizey, the minister for communication, culture and the creative industries, defended the decision to scrap the council as part of a raft of cost-cutting measures. "We've got a plethora of quangos, and I would question whether the Film Council is solely behind the success of film in this country," he told Sky News. Criticising what he called "hysteria" surrounding the decision, Vaizey said film tax credits, lottery funding and a infrastructure for film production would continue to entice big film studios to the UK. He invited Hollywood figures to call him personally with their concerns rather than speaking through the media.

UK tourism must focus on heritage instead of "Cool Britannia" says Cameron

UK tourism must focus on "heritage" instead of the Labour government's attempt to market the country as "Cool Britannia", David Cameron has said. Speaking in London's Hyde Park, the prime minister urged people to be more "proud" of the UK and its history. The country was not "doing enough" to break into the top five most-visited destinations in the world, he added. A report last month suggested tourism's contribution to the economy could grow by more than 60% to £188bn by 2020.

 

So where does that leave this pile of shit?

 

The number of jobs directly and indirectly linked to tourism could rise by 264,000 to 2.89 million in that time, said the study for Visit Britain. Mr Cameron said measures to help the industry would include speeding up the process of getting visas for visitors from India and China. He said: "I want to see us in the top five destinations in the world. But that means being much more competitive internationally. Take Chinese tourists, for example. We're their 22nd most popular destination. But Germany is forecast to break into their top 10. Why can't we?" He added: "If we can't always beat Germany at football, then we can beat them at tourism."

Mr Cameron said the Labour government had "underplayed" tourism, appointing eight different ministers to handle the brief during its 13 years in power. He added: "They just didn't get our heritage. They raided the National Lottery, taking money from heritage because it didn't go with their image of 'cool Britannia'." Mr Cameron said tourism should focus more on national parks, seaside towns, heritage sites such as castles and country houses, museums, galleries, theatres and festivals. He told an audience of industry experts: "We should be proud of our potential because we are proud of our country and what it has to offer. I love going on holiday in Britain."

Conservative MP John Penrose is compiling a report for the prime minister on whether it is possible to encourage UK citizens to spend more of their money at home, rather than abroad. Mr Cameron said he hoped the country could "up our game" to increase the proportion from 36% to 50%. The United Nations ranks the UK as the sixth-most visited destination in the world, behind France, the US, Spain, China and Italy. Domestic and overseas visitors put an estimated £115bn a year into the UK. Foreign visitors' spending could almost double from £16bn to £31bn by 2020, according to Visit Britain.

Pakistan suffers at the hands of Cameron

The rift between Britain and Pakistan showed signs of reopening last night after Pakistan's ambassador to the UN claimed that comments by David Cameron in which he said Pakistan must not look "both ways" on terrorism had affected its efforts to raise funds for its flood-stricken people. Abdullah Hussain Haroon told BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight that the prime minister's comments had added to Pakistan's "suffering".

Asked if disputes such as the one sparked by Cameron's comments had caused Pakistan to suffer, he said: "Yes, indeed Pakistan has suffered because of what Mr Cameron has said, because the British people will listen to their prime minister." He argued that a negative perception of Pakistan could be preventing the public from giving more aid. "The world has been slow," said Haroon. "It could be because of donor fatigue in terms of what's happening around the world, but also I don't think the international press, until now, has portrayed what is happening."

If more aid was not forthcoming, he warned of a risk that the Taliban could flourish in areas where they had previously been defeated by the Pakistani army. "The Taliban has been [...] flushed out [and] are now running back to these areas and trying to reinvest themselves into them," he said. "There is going to be a fight over who helps who at this grievous time, and if the international community does not take this as its responsibility […] I'm afraid there will be repercussions much beyond what is happening just now."

Cameron caused anger in Islamabad two weeks ago when he said during a trip to India that elements in Pakistan should not be allowed to "promote the export of terror, whether to India, whether to Afghanistan or to anywhere else in the world". His remarks followed the leaking of US military documents on the Wikileaks website in which Pakistani intelligence was accused of secretly helping the Taliban.

Lord Monckton is not of this House

The House of Lords has stepped up its efforts to make Lord Monckton – climate sceptic and deputy leader of the UK Independence party – desist in his repeated claims that he is a member of the upper house. The push comes as Buckingham Palace has also been drawn into the affair, over his use of a logo similar to parliament's famous portcullis emblem.

Lord Monckton of Funnyfarm

Last month Michael Pownall, clerk of the parliaments, wrote to Lord Monckton, a hereditary peer, stressing that he should not refer to himself as a member of the House of Lords, nor should he use any emblem representing the portcullis. In a letter seen by the Guardian, Monckton replied this week to Pownall stating that he considered the House of Lords Act 1999, which "purported" to exclude all but 92 of the 650 hereditary peers from the Lords, to be "defective". Monckton argued that the act did not remove membership because peerages are granted by "letters patent" which are a personal gift of the monarch.

The House of Lords said today it strongly rejects Monckton's interpretation. A spokeswoman said: "Lord Monckton is not and never has been a member of the House of Lords. The clerk of the parliaments has written to Lord Monckton, confirming that he has no association with the House and advising him to stop branding himself as such."

Monckton also argues that his use of the portcullis emblem, which has appeared on his letterheads and lecture presentations, does not breach any rules. The spokeswoman added: "The emblem is property of the Queen, and parliament has a royal licence granted for its use. … he has been referred to the Lord Chamberlain over the issue, and it will fall to him to follow up on any misuse of the emblem."

Hey, Capello! I'll tell you who'll end Beckham's career ...

NOT FUCKING YOU!

David Beckham discovered his illustrious England career had been curtailed last night after Fabio Capello revealed, in a brief 17-word statement, that the former captain would play no further competitive football for the national team. The dysfunctional nature of Capello's England regime was exposed once again after the Italian revealed in a television interview, actually conducted on Monday but broadcast prior to last night's friendly against Hungary, that he considered Beckham too old at 35 to continue a career that has encompassed 115 caps, 17 goals and three World Cups.

"Thank you for helping me during the World Cup, but probably [he is] a little bit old," Capello said. "Thank you." Yet the Italian last night admitted that he had, as yet, been unable to communicate as much to the Los Angeles Galaxy midfielder, who is in rehabilitation from an achilles injury, in the 48 hours since the interview was conducted, with Beckham's representative duly reacting in surprise at the news.

England 2 - 1 Hungary

Gerrard, obviously

Considering England were a goal down at one point, the crowd were just relieved not to leave the stadium as losers. And little Wayney had another little strop, clapping sarcastically at the supporters as they booed him off the pitch. Give him a slap, someone.

And that's it. Game over, review finished, same old.

RMT union votes for London Underground strike action

Members of the RMT union have voted overwhelmingly for industrial action on London Underground in a row over jobs and safety. The union believes that safety on the Tube will be compromised by the 800 job cuts proposed by bosses. RMT chief Bob Crow said union members would not "sit by while the tracks are turned into a death trap". But London Underground (LU) strategy director Richard Parry accused the RMT of "scaremongering".

The union said 76% of its members voted for strike action. It said a date for the strike had not been agreed and it would begin an extensive consultation with members. The RMT said it would also talk to its sister transport union the TSSA - which is to announce its own ballot result next week - on the next course of action. Mr Crow said: "RMT members have sent a clear message in this ballot that they will not sit by while the tracks are turned into a death trap and our Tube stations and platforms are left unstaffed."

A Transport for London spokesman said: "The majority of the roughly 800 posts that are identified for reduction are ticket office staff." LU's Mr Parry said: "The RMT leadership is once again scaremongering. There will be no compulsory redundancies, our stations will continue to be staffed at all times while trains are operating. All stations with a ticket office will continue to have one. This vote for strike action is unnecessary; any industrial action will simply lose staff pay."

Hundreds of community playground schemes in England to be scrapped

Hundreds of community playground schemes in England are being scrapped or scaled back because of government cuts. Education Secretary Michael Gove has frozen grants to 122 councils for building and running up to 1,300 playground schemes, many designed by youngsters. Only schemes where construction has already started are to be allowed. The government said it had inherited unrealistic spending commitments.

The £235m Playbuilder scheme was started more than two years ago under Labour to develop 3,500 playgrounds designed by and for the communities they were to serve. Each local council was given cash to build 22 play areas. Some of these have now been built. This year, grants for over 1,300 playgrounds in 93 local authorities had been approved. The Department for Education could not say exactly how many playgrounds would be scrapped as it is only now collecting information about which schemes are in construction. It has warned local councils not to incur any more costs on schemes and said it will review closely any commitments already made.

In his letter to the heads of children's services, Mr Gove named play as a key area affected by his department's contribution to reducing the public deficit. He said he was reducing funding for play projects to protect frontline education services. He also scrapped targets for the number of play facilities councils have to provide, and removed the protection from playground building budgets, saying any unspent money could be retained by his department.

Parent Emma Kane has worked with children in Hook Norton to set up a playground scheme which is now unlikely to go ahead. She said: "It's insane to cut what is such a small amount of money." She said playgrounds were a "soft target" for the government's "drastic cuts." She added: "Playbuilder is unique in that communities had to come together and work together to get the funding, in a perfect example of 'Big Society'. There's lots of disappointed children out there, they keep asking me what's happening and I just don't know what to say to them. Furthermore, as everyone knows, playgrounds fight childhood obesity. What does it say about the government's strategy to cut projects that promote both health and communities working together?"

Joe Cole better than Messi, says Gerrard

Steven Gerrard believes Liverpool are set for a bright new era under Roy Hodgson after the "horror" of last season – and claims that the new signing Joe Cole is better than Barcelona's Lionel Messi. Gerrard, in an interview with Match of the Day magazine, said the new manager has already given Liverpool a lift after a disappointing seventh-place finish last season.

"It's a great club and after speaking with Roy Hodgson I'm really pleased to see his plans for the club. It's a new era now – we must forget about the horror of what happened last season and get this club back to where it belongs, which is the Champions League at the very least."

Gerrard said Cole, signed in July on a Bosman from Chelsea, has the ability to drive the team forward. "[Lionel] Messi can do some amazing things, but anything he can do Joe can do as well, if not better. He used to shock us in training by doing footy tricks with a golf ball that most players can't even do with a football. I really fancy Joe for the [player of the year] award this season." 

Hundreds of thousands playing the benefits system

Hundreds of thousands of people are playing the benefits system by making short-term claims, Chris Grayling, the employment minister, has suggested. Mr Grayling said that rules may be tightened to make it harder to start claiming sickness-related benefits. He spoke as David Cameron confirmed that commercial credit agencies will be paid to check on the financial activity of benefits claimants to detect fraud. Mr Grayling said that current rules make it “too easy” to claim benefits, and highlighted employment support allowance, paid to people who have medical conditions that limit their ability to work.

Under the current rules, someone can be paid ESA for up to 13 weeks before being formally assessed by a medical examiner. In a BBC Radio Four interview, Mr Grayling suggested that some people are exploiting that rule to claim the benefit temporarily and avoid the medical test. “Quite a lot of people, 30- 40 per cent, leave before that assessment is due,” Mr Grayling said. “That’s something that we should give some thought to.” Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show that October 2008 and November 2009, a total of 252,800 people chose to end their claim for ESA before an assessment could be completed. “In some cases it does seem to be too easy to access the benefits,” Mr Grayling said.

The Daily Telegraph revealed on Tuesday that companies like Experian will be hired by the Government to scrutinise benefits claimants’ finances. Such firms will be a paid each time they detect fraudulent claims. Mr Grayling said companies would only use the same publicly available information and techniques already employed by major retailers and banks to assess customers’ credit-worthiness. "Why should the Government not use the same tools available to independent organisations?" he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"This is data that is publicly available, that is publicly on sale, that is available to set out spending patterns - what loans you have taken out, what your overall patterns of spending in your life are. "If there is a huge mismatch between the way you are living your life and the amount of money you are supposed to be receiving from the state in benefits, surely it is right and proper that we should be saying 'How is that happening?' Where it is legitimate and legal to use data, I see no reason why Government shouldn't do so."

Iran prepares mass graves for American dead

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard is digging mass graves for American soldiers in preparation for a war over its nuclear programme, according to a former senior commander. General Hossein Moghadam, the Guard's former deputy chief, was speaking after film footage showed strings of freshly dug graves in the south of the country.

They were close to the site of war graves for the dead of the long war between Iran and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which devastated the region in the 1980s.

"The mass graves that used to be for burying Saddam's soldiers have now been prepared again for US soldiers, and this is the reason for digging this big number of graves," Gen Moghadam told the Associated Press, which obtained the footage. The warning is unlikely to be more than symbolic. No-one expects a land invasion, should the White House authorise a strike on nuclear facilities, while Iran has so far suggested counter-action is most likely to be aimed at American allies in the Gulf and Western bases there. 

Gen Moghadam's claims might be a sign that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is increasingly reliant on the Revolutionary Guard for political backing, is feeling the heat of international diplomatic pressure over his aggressive posture on Iran's uranium enrichment programme.

Gus O’Donnell to stand down after seeing in new Government

The Cabinet Secretary is understood to have informed David Cameron that he will serve for at least two more years, but is unlikely to remain at his post for the duration of the five year Parliament. Sources said that Sir Gus, 57, had considered resigning at the general election in May, but changed his mind after overseeing the complicated negotiations between the main political parties which resulted in the formation of the first Coalition Government since World War Two.

One source said: “He thought about going, but decided that he would oversee the transition. He’ll be off at some point, but it won’t be for at least another two years.” The Prime Minister is understood to have been influential in persuading the country’s top civil servant to stay in his post. Reports suggested that Mr Cameron would seek to make civil service history by appointing the first woman or ethnic minority candidate to replace him. Sir Gus’s departure will follow that of Sir Peter Ricketts, who will stand down from the newly-created role of National Security Adviser next year.

India embraces the pink rupee

From nightclubs to publishing, the decriminalisation of gay sex in the country is facilitating a new, multi-million dollar niche market. One of the significant changes has been India’s response to homosexuality and gay people. In 2009, the High Court of Delhi found that sodomy laws were unconstitutional, a decision that was accepted by the government to apply nationwide. Although some religious leaders objected, the decision seems to have have caused no upheaval. 

There are still strong cultural traditions that frown on same-sex sexuality, but there are also demonstrations of positive movement. This may be greatly due to a fledgling pro-gay movement which does not seem to have much organized opposition. The dominant religions have not adopted homophobia as a central tenet of faith and there do not appear to be dominant political figures who are using bias and animus as a rallying point.  

India Gay Pride

In New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, trailblazing entrepreneurs are chasing the gay business. Since July over fifteen bars across New Delhi have hosted gay events, up from just one event at one bar a week two years ago. India's first gay-products store, Azaad Bazaar in Mumbai, has seen a year of growth, penetrating mainstream stores across the country with its merchandise. Queer-Ink.com, India's first gay online bookshop, is exploring publishing titles in the next six to eight months.

Manish Sharma, a gay events promoter from New Delhi, hosts regular parties attended by over 200, while Sanjay Malhotra runs India's first gays-only travel agency, IndjaPink. "In terms of business as well as inquiries, things have really gone up since the ruling," said Malhotra, who spent six months interviewing the hotel managers and tour guides that his company uses to ensure all his holidays are "gay-friendly".

Destined for the dole

Thousands of young people from jobless families could be destined to join their parents in the dole queue because of extremely low levels of confidence and a failure to master the basics of time-keeping and correct dressing, a study by the Prince's Trust warns today. The survey of more than 2,000 young people from jobless households found nearly one in five expected to end up on benefits because people around them already were. One in four felt their parents did not have the knowledge to help them find work, while almost one in 10 had not thought about what career they want.

The research shows that young people from jobless families are significantly more likely to struggle to find work and are much less positive about their future. Seventy percent admitted struggling to find a job, while 20% said seeing their parents out of work made them anxious about finding a job. Martina Milburn, the chief executive of the Prince's Trust, said: "Too many young people are facing a cycle of worklessness and can't see a way out. It is a tragedy to think that so many feel condemned to a life on benefits."

The government says "inter-generational poverty" must end [hmmm, and what are they doing about that exactly? - Ed]. There are 1.9 million children living in jobless households – the highest number in the EU. Britain has one of highest rates of jobless households in the EU, third only to Belgium and Hungary, with nearly 4.8 million working-age people living in a household where no one works. Milburn said it was time to look at families, not just individuals, on welfare. "We have young people whose families try to persuade them to leave jobs … and return to benefits because everybody else in the house is not working."

Destined for the dole (pdf)

University clearing places 'to be slashed'

Just over a week before the publication of examination results, many top universities warned that they were already “full” and would be forced to reject students who missed offers by a single grade. Admissions tutors said the number of places awarded through clearing – which matches students to spare courses – would be slashed because of a huge rise in applications.

It is believed the 47,000 clearing places awarded last year could be cut by a third this summer. One vice-chancellor said as many as seven people would be competing for every course through clearing, compared with around three last year. The squeeze is expected to be intensified by the imposition of fines for universities guilty of over-recruiting. Institutions could lose £3,700 for every student recruited beyond strict Government limits, giving them less flexibility to take extra undergraduates than previous years.

The disclosure comes just two days after David Willetts, the Universities Minister, admitted top A-level students faced missing out on higher education because of the demand for degree courses. He said the provision of 10,000 extra university places by the Coalition this year would not be enough to prevent some high-achieving students being rejected altogether.

A survey of universities across Britain has found that many – including Imperial, Birmingham and Bristol – will not be using clearing this year. Oxford, Cambridge, the London School of Economics, University College Londonand Edinburgh never use clearing. Others including Sheffield, Warwick and Southampton said they expected to have few spare places “if any”. King’s College London and Glasgow said they would have fewer than 100 clearing places, while Cardiff expected to have just 200. Manchester said only 50 places would be available.

European Commission to consider levying taxes directly

The European Commission wants EU member states to consider allowing it to levy direct taxes - a move that could ease the burden on national budgets. The EU's Budget Commissioner, Janusz Lewandowski, said he would present some options next month for direct EU taxes. Taxes on aviation, financial transactions and CO2 emission permits are all possibilities, he told the daily Financial Times Deutschland. However, the UK promptly rejected the idea.

Historically, national governments levy taxes in the EU. "I'm hearing from a number of capitals, including important ones like Berlin, that they would like to lower their contributions [to the EU]," Mr Lewandowski said. The 27 EU member states pay a fixed contribution to the EU budget, based on their gross domestic product and a percentage of their sales tax (VAT). This year Germany's transfer to the EU budget - the largest contribution - is about 21bn euros (£17.5bn).

"Many countries want to be unburdened. In this way, the door has been opened to think about revenues that are not claimed by finance ministers," the commissioner said. Traditionally taxes are seen as a prerogative of nation states and any move by the commission to levy taxes directly is likely to be opposed by Eurosceptics wary of Brussels's powers. A British treasury minister, Lord Sassoon, said the British government "is opposed to direct taxes financing the EU budget. The UK believes that taxation is a matter for member states to determine at a national level and would have a veto over any plans for such taxes."

France and Germany are pushing for a financial transaction tax in the EU, but the UK argues that any such tax must apply globally and be co-ordinated by the International Monetary Fund. However, all three countries are introducing separate bank levies, which will not affect smaller banks and building societies. The UK levy is expected to raise more than £8bn over four years. The EU's budget for this year is 122.9bn euros (£110bn) - nearly half of which is allocated to agriculture and natural resources. It is 6% bigger than the 2009 budget.

For the man who has everything: the Damien Hirst wheel cover

Created by the artist's famous "spin wheel" technique [huh? - Ed], the bespoke wheel covers consist of a high quality stainless steel band covering the tyre tread and a high impact plastic central dish - wrapped in one of Hirst's colourful, not to say psychedelic, designs.

According to the makers a fully integral stainless steel lock mechanism ensures the safety of the cover and spare wheel. The covers are claimed to be easy to fit and remove, once unlocked. The wrapped dish is also covered with a UV laminate to ensure protection against scratches (which off-road owner would risk that?) and colour fade from the sun. The dimensions - clearly - depend on the car's wheel size, but the approximate weight of the covers is 5kg.

So, if you want people to think your man spent the whole of the seventies on LSD, you can buy one from Other Criteria, the company founded by Hirst, Hugh Allan and Frank Dunphy, cost £900.

Caroline Lucas joins 'Tripping up Trump' campaign

Green MP Caroline Lucas has joined the campaign to force US tycoon Donald Trump to change his plans to build a luxury golf course on the Aberdeenshire coast. The MP has bought a stake in a one-acre stretch of land at the heart of the resort site, owned by opponents of the £750 million project. They claim the multi-owned land at the heart of the site, which includes protected sand dunes, could block the project as it stands.

As well as a championship golf course, the luxury development on the Menie estate includes a 450-bedroom hotel, 950 holiday apartments and 500 residential homes. Trump has claimed the residents refusing to sell would not affect the construction of the golf course, which is already under way and should be finished in 18 months, or any of the homes. Work on the course got under way last month, after the tycoon won planning permission to start work on his "world's greatest golf course" in June, four years after he first put his plans forward.

Lucas became a joint owner of the plot, nicknamed the "bunker", along with Body Shop co-founder Gordon Roddick. The campaign is being co-ordinated by action group Tripping up Trump, who want to stop Aberdeenshire Council from serving compulsory purchase orders on families and other people who own land on parts of the site. The council has so far refused to rule out using such orders to allow the Trump development to take place.

Lucas, the Brighton Pavillion MP said: "When confronted by a developer like Trump who thinks it is okay to trample over anything and anyone that gets in his way, it is important to fight back. So I am joining with others to very deliberately get in the way of what amounts to an incredibly damaging vanity project. By standing alongside the people of Aberdeenshire who rightly refuse to have their rights and their environment pushed aside, I hope to send a very clear message to Donald Trump – this community is not giving in."

Lovely.  And what does this have to do with your constituency?

Martin O'Neill resigns as Aston Villa manager

Martin O'Neill has resigned as Aston Villa manager with immediate effect. Kevin MacDonald has been appointed caretaker boss while no reason has been given for O'Neill's decision to leave after four years in the job. MacDonald will prepare the side for their Premier League opener against West Ham on Saturday. O'Neill, appointed in 2006, said: "I have enjoyed my time at Aston Villa immensely. It's obviously a wrench to be leaving such a magnificent club."

The 58-year-old O'Neill, who led Villa to their third successive sixth-placed finish in the Premier League last season, added: "I would like to pay tribute to the Villa players, my coaching staff and the Villa supporters for all the support and encouragement they have given both the club and me personally during my time as manager. I wish them all the best for the future. I will obviously be assisting the club in the immediate short-term with regard to the handover of my duties."

In May, Villa owner Randy Lerner insisted O'Neill had pledged his future to Villa after much speculation over whether or not the former Celtic boss would quit. O'Neill has transformed the fortunes of Villa since replacing David O'Leary in August 2006, culminating in an appearance in the final of last season's Carling Cup, their first Wembley final for 10 years. Lerner had backed O'Neill in the transfer market during that spell but it became clear this summer that similar investment would not be forthcoming.

Lerner insisted that Villa would have to adopt a sell-to-buy policy and O'Neill was resigned to losing the services of midfielder James Milner to Manchester City. Former skipper Gareth Barry also moved to Eastlands last year. Villa chief executive Paul Faulkner said: "The club would like to thank Martin for the great work he has done at Aston Villa over the past four years. "He has helped to establish the club in the upper echelons of the Premier League, has taken us to Wembley and we have also qualified for European competition for the past three seasons under his management. We wish him the best in the future."

Banks establish taskforce to fight criticism over lack of lending

The chief executives of the six biggest banks in the UK are to fight back against government concerns that they are not lending enough to businesses by setting up a taskforce to help tackle the credit drought. A week after the major banks reported combined profits of more than £15bn, they have written to the chancellor to tell him that they agree about the need to extend loans to viable companies. However, they do not go as far as to concede that they are not doing enough.

Writing on behalf the banks, Stephen Green, chairman of HSBC, tells George Osborne that the bankers' taskforce will look at four main areas: the price of lending and demand for loans; helping banks obtain finance through securitisation; government-backed lending schemes for businesses; and other ways of backing businesses such as through trade finance. The banks have begun their retaliation after a week in which they stressed the demand for lending from small businesses was down by as much as 25% and that customers were repaying loans faster than they could grant new ones.

The British Bankers Association, which is co-ordinating the banks, said that the chief executives of HSBC, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group, Santander and Standard Chartered, would chair the taskforce being set up in response to the government's green paper on finance, which is designed to ensure a private sector recovery can outpace the cuts in the public sector. Attempts by the banks to show their willingness to co-operate with the government come as they also reject calls for a possible break-up of their businesses by the commission set up by the coalition.

More private sector job cuts on way

The government's hope that private sector employers will create enough jobs to make up for public sector cuts have been dealt another blow with news that a growing number of businesses are planning to cut staff. Almost a third of employers across the state and private sectors said they expected to make some workers redundant during the next three months and the number of workers who will lose their jobs has increased. Redundancies are most likely in the public sector, where 36% of employers plan to shed jobs, reflecting cuts for government departments and councils announced by the chancellor, George Osborne, in June.

Keeping schtum

The latest survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and accountants KPMG, showed that 32% of employers across the state and private sectors said they expected to make some workers redundant during the next three months. It marks a rise on the 29% recorded in the previous quarter. The number of employees likely to lose their jobs has also increased. Across all sectors, employers are expecting to make an average of 5.5% of their workforce redundant, up from 3.6% in the last quarterly report. In the public sector, redundancies will affect almost 8% of the workforce on average.

The coalition government is hoping that the private sector will be able to make up for job losses in the public sector, but the CIPD report will give ministers little cause for comfort. The survey showed that 30% of private sector employers plan staff cuts, up from 24% three months earlier. Overall the survey of 600 employers still showed more were intending to increase total staffing levels than cut them, the Labour Market Outlook said. But the authors warned that the figures masked the overall effect on job losses, since those organisations that were planning to make redundancies expected to make a greater proportion of their workforce redundant this quarter.

"The CIPD believes that a rise in unemployment in the next two years remains a distinct possibility as the private sector recovery is offset by the 600,000 public sector job losses the government expects over the next five years," said CIPD public policy adviser Gerwyn Davies.

the Guardian

The G2 Interview - Vince Cable: 'What we're managing is quite a difficult situation'

The Liberal Democrat business secretary talks frankly to Decca Aitkenhead - about working in coalition with the Conservatives and his newfound respect for George Osborne - whilst on a train. Standard class, of course.

He doesn't strike me as miserable, but there is something touchingly gentle, almost vulnerable, in his bearing – particularly when he produces a sheet of A4 on which he's listed all the things he feels his department has achieved to date, handing it over like a schoolboy submitting his homework. "High-level trade mission to India, with several major outcomes for business, education and science," he has written. "£50m capital fund launched for FE buildings," and so on.

and so on?!

Read the full G2 interview with Vince Cable here.