The 21 year-old escort, from Bolton, is alleged to have been a “magnet” for Premier League players in bars and nightclubs.
Miss Thompson, who advertises herself as “Juicy Jen”, was reported to have slept with six defenders, three midfielders and four strikers, with two of the players married with children.
Craig Levein has launched a vigorous defence of his tactical approach with the national team, the Scotland manager pointing out that he will not bow to pressure from pundits or supporters to adopt an attacking style.That being so, maybe we can expect a 1-0 (or perhaps a 2-0) thrashing by the boys in blue.
"That night she cradled me in her arms and soothed me; told me what I needed to be told; strengthened me; made me feel that what I was about to do was right," squelches Blair. "On that night of the 12th May, 1994, I needed that love Cherie gave me, selfishly. I devoured it to give me strength. I was an animal following my instinct, knowing I would need every ounce of emotional power to cope with what lay ahead. I was exhilarated, afraid and determined in roughly equal quantities."Oh gawd, he should be writing for Mills & Boon ...
A Home Office spokesman said: "Human trafficking is a brutal form of organised crime, and combating it is a key priority for the government. The UK already complies with most of what is required by the draft EU directive.
"The government will review the UK's position once the directive has been agreed, and will continue to work constructively with European partners on matters of mutual interest. By not opting in now but reviewing our position when the directive is agreed, we can choose to benefit from being part of a directive that is helpful but avoid being bound by measures that are against our interests."
Does this flannel carry any meaning whatsoever? Surely better to agree to opt in and seek to strengthen the proposed directive in negotiations? I thought that Cleggy approved of Europe and that he wanted to co-operate with our EU partners?
A Conservative revival in Scotland could take as long as 25 years, a senior party source has admitted as the Scottish Tories undertake a fundamental review to map out their future following a poor General Election performance.What? So soon?
Joan Smith: Why do WAGs stay with men who play away?
"As I enter the next decade - my 50s - I look forward to new challenges."I will continue my work on peacebuilding - across the world post conflict reconstruction is the single biggest development challenge of our time."
Just like a beauty queen of days gone by. If I were being unkind, I might point out that our Jack has neither the face nor the legs to match.
Staff running parliament's new expenses system have been verbally abused and reduced to tears by MPs frustrated by the tough new rules, documents show.Aw diddums. Did big bad MP make you cry?
Glasgow Warriors’ home game with Leinster on Friday 3 September will be covered live on BBC Alba, launching a season-long programme of live professional rugby matches on the Gaelic channel, it was announced today.It's not as though the mainstream channels have anything else of value by way of live sport to offer. And I refuse to believe that it would have been expensive. So well done BBC Alba. And I hope BBC Scotland and STV are suitably ashamed.BBC Alba will then cover the Edinburgh’s home match against Munster on Friday 10 September at 7pm, live from Murrayfield.
BBC ALBA has signed an exclusive deal to show live Magners League rugby in Scotland for the next four years. The channel is committed to showing at least eight Edinburgh or Glasgow home matches per season, and has teamed up with Irish, Welsh and Italian broadcasters to also provide live coverage of selected away matches for both sides.
Torrential rain hits Britain
Hosts are given precise timings to ensure the "big day" runs smoothly. They are told to be home by 5.30pm so they can "give the place a quick vacuum and general tidy (or not, if you're not that type)".Young Mr M seems to be confusing the business of politics with that of middle class socialising. I can remember a time when Labour Party politicians were more interested in socialism than socialising.They should then "put the oven on and get the nibbles in. If there are drinks, get them chilling [and] pick some music". Now is the time to get membership forms "at the ready" and line up the entertainment – a David Miliband video.
When people arrive, "take their coats, get them a drink" and get them to fill in a "sign-in sheet". There should then be 20 minutes of introductions and general political chat.
The [US] state department ... requested $1.8bn for Iraq for the coming financial year, a figure subsequently slashed by the House and Senate.
Members of Congress say that Iraq, with its huge oil reserves, should take a bigger share of the financial burden, but state department officials believe it will be eight to 10 years before Iraq is self-sustaining financially.But don't dwell upon the downside. And don't ever ask if it was all worth it. Just rejoice, if you can ...
Fury erupted last night over six-figure salary and pension benefits to senior executives at a Scottish Government agency.Enterprise Minister Jim Mather was called on to explain why Scottish Enterprise gave its chief executive Lena Wilson a £234,000 pension-pot top-up, and her predecessor Jack Perry a £115,000 pay-off following his resignation last year.
And the Scottish Government does not make much of a fist in defending it:
A Scottish Government spokesman said it was keeping a tight rein on public-sector pay. He added that it had frozen top earners’ pay and asked quango chiefs to waive their bonuses.Cue hollow laughter.
Yeah well.There is among senior ministers a growing concern that the relentless talk of cuts, cuts, cuts is beginning to sound a bit like a stuck record - and that there is a pressing need to move the government's political agenda on to another track.
The fear is that the public will begin to think that all this coalition is interested in is hacking back public services and that the future is dark and bleak.
Even with LibDem Huhne in the box-seat at the Department of Energy, the coalition is revealing how little it cares for greenery ...The coalition is watering down a commitment to tough new environmental emissions standards, raising the possibility of dirty coal-fired power stations such as Kingsnorth going ahead.
Green groups are aghast that a flagship policy called for in opposition by both Lib Dems and Tories, and which they last year tried to force on the Labour government, will now not be implemented in the coalition's first energy bill to be published this year.
Summer is unofficially over with thunder and lightning due in parts of the country this weekend and damp weather predicted until November, forecasters said.
The number of senior officers in Britain’s armed forces is likely to be cut as part of sweeping measures to tackle a £37 billion black hole in the defence budget.
The thinning-out of the military hierachy was one of the main proposals presented by Liam Fox in a keynote speech today in which he called for the Ministry of Defence to be leaner, less centralised and more transparent.
The good doctor has already upset No 10 with his maladroit removal of the improbably named Sir Jock Stirrup as Chief of Staff. He is also at daggers drawn with the Treasury over the financing of the Trident replacement. So who will he turn to when the boom comes down?
Couldn't happen to a nicer fellow ...
Green is prickly about questions surrounding his tax status. Last night he is said to have called a newspaper journalist a "fucking tosser" after being asked whether his appointment raised questions about his tax affairs.Somehow, I don't think that this appointment is destined to be a success.
I grow increasingly tired of fatuous Cameronian interventions which amount to little more than headline-grabbing in an attempt to look busy during the holidays.Mr Cameron is absolutely right that Britain punches below its weight in attracting overseas visitors, but that is largely because governments have never taken this invisible export seriously; we do not even have a ministry with "tourism" in the title.
Furthermore the UK imposes tough visa rules on the nations with the fastest-growing, travel-hungry middle classes, including Russia, India and China.
Add in the imminent rise in VAT, which will make us more expensive, and an air passenger duty structure that appears designed to export stopover traffic to Amsterdam, Paris or Dubai, and the multi-billion-pound tourism deficit looks here to stay.
Alienation is the precise and correctly applied word for describing the major social problem in Britain today. People feel alienated by society. In some intellectual circles it is treated almost as a new phenomenon. It has, however, been with us for years. What I believe is true is that today it is more widespread, more pervasive than ever before. Let me right at the outset define what I mean by alienation. It is the cry of men who feel themselves the victims of blind economic forces beyond their control. It's the frustration of ordinary people excluded from the processes of decision-making. The feeling of despair and hopelessness that pervades people who feel with justification that they have no real say in shaping or determining their own destinies.
Many may not have rationalised it. May not even understand, may not be able to articulate it. But they feel it. It therefore conditions and colours their social attitudes. Alienation expresses itself in different ways in different people. It is to be found in what our courts often describe as the criminal antisocial behaviour of a section of the community. It is expressed by those young people who want to opt out of society, by drop-outs, the so-called maladjusted, those who seek to escape permanently from the reality of society through intoxicants and narcotics. Of course, it would be wrong to say it was the sole reason for these things. But it is a much greater factor in all of them than is generally recognised.
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A new study conducted by online dating service OkCupid.com has revealed iPhone users have sex with twice the number of partners their Android-using counterparts have.By the age of 30, men with an iPhone have had around 10 different partners. Their BlackBerry counterparts average around 8.1 partners.
Men with an Android-powered smartphone might just about be ready to trade in their device - with an average of only 6 partners by the time they are 30.
I suppose that there is little hope for those of us without an iPhone or a Blackberry or an Android smartphone (whatever that is); while those of us without any kind of mobile phone must be beyond redemption. Let me hope that no-one tells my girlfriends ...
Hundreds of playground developments are being mothballed following government spending cuts.
The Department for Education (DfE) has frozen grants to 132 local councils for up to 1,300 play area schemes – many of which were originally designed by children.
The only developments allowed to go ahead will be those where construction has already started.
It is unclear how many planned playgrounds will now be scrapped.
If the kiddies' milk ration is to be regarded as sacrosanct, should their playgrounds be sacrificed on the altar of Slasher Osborne's axe-wielding? Is there a significant difference which justifies milk as opposed to playgrounds?
If the UK can export more to the Brics and the new "Civets" (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa), the monthly trade figures may turn out to be the best, and possibly the only, regularly good economic news in the years ahead.So you can add CIVETS to BRICs and PIGS (or maybe PIIGS).
I mean, it's the kind of thing all Prime Ministers say. And it secures a headline or two. But the promised crackdown never seems to materialise. The cost of benefit fraud is said to be £1.5 billion; but this represents less than 1% of total benefit costs of over £160 billion. Is it even possible to eliminate all fraud? Or is there an irreducible minimum, up with which we simply have to put?An "uncompromising" crackdown on benefit cheats will be unveiled in the autumn, David Cameron pledged today.
The Prime Minister said reducing the £5.2 billion annual cost of fraud and error would be the "first and deepest" cut in public spending.
The Queen was "deeply concerned" about Ferguson's debts, according to the Sunday Telegraph, and had discussed them with David Cameron recently at one of his weekly audiences. The newspaper said Prince Andrew, Ferguson's ex-husband, was masterminding a "rescue plan" to avoid the embarrassment of filing for bankruptcy.The idea of Prince Andrew masterminding anything conveys a certain risibility. But if it keeps him away from yachts ...
No doubt rather sensible of Mr Cameron. The BBC reports:UK Department of Health calls to scrap free nursery milk in Scotland have been ditched by Downing Street.
Westminster has powers to end free milk, yet the cost of the scheme in Scotland is met by Holyrood.
In a letter to the Scottish government, UK Public Health Minister Anne Milton said the scheme was costly and there was no evidence of health benefits.
But Downing Street scrapped the move after it emerged Prime Minister David Cameron was not aware of the proposals.
But where does that leave Ms Milton?
Free milk for nursery children could be scrapped in Scotland under plans drawn up by the UK Department of Health.
This summer soldiers will start fighting with a new, “green” bullet that Army ballistics officials are touting as “the best general purpose 5.56mm round ever.”No doubt the Taliban will be pleased to hear that they are being shot at with green bullets.
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The Enhanced Performance Round contains an environmentally friendly projectile that eliminates up to 2,000 tons of lead from the manufacturing process each year in direct support of Army commitment to environmental stewardship.
"Better deals for our current account customers."The truth, as spelled out in The Herald earlier in the day:
Bank of Scotland [of which Halifax is a part] is writing to tens of thousands of small business customers telling them that it will no longer pay interest on their current account balances, as owner Lloyds Banking Group unveils bumper first-half profits of £1.6 billion.While UK base rates of 0.5% mean business customers of Bank of Scotland do not currently receive interest on their current accounts, the move by the bank could cost them many millions of pounds in total when the benchmark cost of borrowing eventually returns to more normal levels.
Do you still believe the banks are honest?
It was a miserable, scrawny thing, probably a spruce and – after a 46-degree heatwave in Lebanon – its foliage blocked the Israeli security cameras on the Israeli-Lebanese border near Addaiseh. The Israelis decided to use a crane to rip it out. But there's a problem. No one is exactly sure where the Israeli-Lebanese border is.Result: five dead, because of a tree, for such is the way of the Middle East.In 2000, the UN drew a "Blue Line" along what was – in those long ago, post-Balfour days – the frontier between the French mandate of Lebanon and the British mandate of Palestine. Behind it, from the Lebanese point of view, stands the Israeli "technical fence", a mass of barbed wire, electrified wires and sandy roads (to look for footprints). So when the Lebanese army saw the Israelis manoeuvre a crane up to the fence yesterday morning, they began to shout at the Israelis to move back.
The moment the crane's arm crossed the "technical fence" – and here one must explain that the "Blue Line" does not necessarily run along the "fence" – Lebanese soldiers opened fire into the air. The Israelis, according to the Lebanese, did not shoot in the air. They shot at the Lebanese soldiers.
Theresa May, the home secretary and equalities minister, warned the chancellor that cuts in the budget could widen inequality in Britain and ran a "real risk" of breaking the law, a letter leaked to the Guardian shows.Despite this letter, it would appear that Treasury completely and utterly ignored the advice when it came to the budget and - possibly - to the public spending review. As The Guardian reveals, the court cases are now in preparation.The letter was sent to George Osborne on 9 June, less than a fortnight before his emergency budget, and was copied to David Cameron.
May wrote "there are real risks" that people ranging from ethnic minorities to women, to the disabled and the old, would be "disproportionately affected".
...May warns that government spending decisions face being struck down by the judiciary. "If there are no processes in place to show that equality issues have been taken into account in relation to particular decisions, there is a real risk of successful legal challenge by, for instance, recipients of public services, trades unions or other groups affected by these decisions."
But if slimmers wish to believe it, then who am I to discourage the poor souls?A huge real ale festival opens today with new research claiming that beer can help people lose weight - when drunk in moderation.
The Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) said a third of men and women wrongly believe that beer has more calories than other alcoholic drinks.
Swapping wine for beer for just one week would save as many calories as a half-hour jog, Camra claims.
Civil servants within the Treasury are to sit at smaller desks closer together in order to squeeze hundreds of workers from elsewhere in Whitehall into the building.
The attempt to sub-let part of 1 Horse Guards Road, just off St James’ Park, is the latest austerity measure by George Osborne as the coalition insists on hairshirt measures government-wide.
Sure, you can always squeeze a few extra bodies into any given space. But anyone who cares to visit the first or second floor of Victoria Quay at Leith will see the dispiriting result.
In order to take account of the differing needs of those who qualify, that simple single benefit will be so complicated as to be unworkable, so that at least half of the beneficiaries will be badly let down by the system, being given less of a benefit than that to which they are entitled.Mr Duncan Smith will suggest replacing the 51 benefits currently available to the unemployed, as well as income-related benefits for the low-paid, with a single benefit covering all people of working age. It would also incorporate the cash currently paid out under Gordon Brown's flagship tax credits scheme, which would effectively be abolished.
Payments would take into account claimants' circumstances, such as numbers of children and housing needs, and could be adjusted monthly using new computer software being developed by the Government.
No, BP announces its expansion into Libyan waters, thus waving a red rag to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Does BP not have PR advisers? Did nobody in the upper echelons think that it might be better to keep this under wraps for at least a couple of weeks, so that the proposals emerged in the dog-days of August when everyone that matters is on holiday?The tortuous saga of BP, the Gulf of Mexico, the Lockerbie bombing and an America which feels itself badly wronged took another turn yesterday when it emerged that the oil company is about to start drilling at an even greater depth in, of all places, Libyan waters.
And, as that information was being absorbed, there came an announcement that Jack Straw, the former justice secretary, had declined an invitation to attend the upcoming US Senate hearing into possible links between BP and the release last August of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was convicted of the murder of 259 passengers on Pan Am Flight 103, and 11 Lockerbie residents. Megrahi, who was diagnosed with cancer, was put on a plane back to Tripoli after doctors said he had only three months to live.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is investigating allegations that the release, officially on compassionate grounds, was ordered in return for economic co-operation, including access to oil and gas fields. Tony Blair, former prime minister and "friend of Gaddafi", has also become embroiled in the affair.
The stress tests have been applied to the banks, idiot.What stress can they be under? They just sit there, screw their customers and collect their bonuses as usual.
It's all to do with the EU Commission which wanted to demonstrate the splendid shape that the European banks are in.So how do you detect stress in a bank? They don't have any blood pressure and you never see them snacking on valium.
Well it's partly a secret and it's probably too technical to explain but capital ratios are at the centre of it. Essentially, have the individual banks enough pennies tucked away to deal with any shortfall in the repayment of the loans they made earlier?Enough, enough! You know this kind of thing makes my head hurt. So what was the result, anyway?
Of the 91 banks tested, seven failed. But the failures were Spanish, Greek and German tiddlers, so that's all right. The British big four passed with flying colours.So everybody was happy, yes? Apart from the failures obviously.
Well, not really. Were the stress tests demanding enough? Or were they designed to ensure that the big boys passed, while sweeping out a few tiddlers in order to maintain a patina of credibility?I'll ask the questions if you don't mind. So what happens now?
Not a lot really. The failures will have to improve their capital ratios. But the whole exercise will be forgotten when the next financial crisis occurs.A bit of a waste of time, then?
You might say that - I could not possibly comment.
Plans to reserve more of the so-called sporting "crown jewels" for free-to-air broadcasting was [sic] shelved yesterday until at least 2013 by Hugh Robertson, the sports minister.
The decision means that the rights to show the next home Ashes cricket matches between England and Australia in 2013 will continue to be held by Sky, despite the recommendation of a review by David Davies, the former FA chief executive.
It also means that Scotland's qualifying matches for the European (football) championship will be absent from the terrestrial channels.
And so, in return for a headline or two, Her Majesty's Government has sold out the British sporting public to the dirty digger.
The Treasury asks for 40% reduction illustrations; Hunt opts for 50%, on the spurious grounds that the pain he intends to inflict on the arts and culture establishment needs to be shared by his staff. There is a word for a man like that and it's not Jeremy.Up to one in two of the staff at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are to be made redundant as part of the cuts programme submitted to the Treasury by the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt.
Hunt has also proposed moving out of the well-appointed departmental headquarters in Cockspur Street, just off Trafalgar Square, with the remaining staff finding room in a different, existing departmental building.
Why the fuss? On the (admittedly heroic) assumption that she meant "repudiate" or perhaps "refute", she got reasonably close ..."[Barack and Michelle Obama] have power in their words. They could refudiate what it is that this group is saying."
—On the NAACP charge of racism in the Tea Party movement, The Sean Hannity Show, Fox News, July 14, 2010
"Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn't it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate."—On plans to build an Islamic community center near Ground Zero, via Twitter, July 18, 2010
Do you suppose that Mr C realises the irony in what he proposes? How do you square local initiative and "a new culture of voluntarism, philanthropy, social action" with a firm Government commitment, Government-appointed organisers and dedicated civil servants? And all those dreams - who, do you suppose, will decide which of them is realistic and attainable? I rather doubt that it will be the communities (with or without oomph).Each will get an expert organiser and dedicated civil servants to ensure "people power" initiatives get off the ground and inspire a wider change, the Prime Minister will say.
...
"We have to turn Government completely on its head," he will suggest - so that it helped foster "communities with oomph", public sector workers with freedom to innovate and "a new culture of voluntarism, philanthropy, social action.
...All of the projects have "one thing in common", Mr Cameron will say: "A firm commitment from this Government to help them realise their dreams."
"[Britain] needs a realism about who we are, what we can achieve and what we need to do. Less grand diplomatic talk, a sort of gritty, commercial, business-like realism to British foreign policy."Absolutely true. The problem is that the last thing the Foreign Office wants to do is become engaged in gritty, commercial, business-like realism. They believe in grand diplomacy. They didn't join the FCO to dirty their hands with such vulgar matters as trade.
Paul's agent said that, ever since he had been a little octopus, he had always wanted to be in a Spanish zoo. It wasn't the money, but the honour and the glory. Paul's WAG wondered about the quality of shopping in Madrid.In what may prove to be the biggest transfer story this summer, negotiations have begun to bring Paul the psychic octopus to Madrid after he correctly predicted Spain's World Cup final victory.
Madrid's Zoo Aquarium says it is prepared to trump any other offer Germany's Oberhausen Sea Life Centre receives for Paul, certain that the world's most famous cephalopod will attract thousands of visitors.
The chancellor, George Osborne, came to give evidence about his traditionalist, slash-and-burn budget to the Commons Treasury committee. This was like a traditionalist doctor appearing in front of the BMA in order to explain why leeches are the best way to heal most illnesses, and how skin rashes can be cured by a poultice made of toad skin and hazel blossom, gathered by virgins at midnight.Elegant, witty, and making his critique rather more pointed than a thousand articles by learned economists.
After decades during which governments of both parties spent billions on attracting foreign investment, the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, has declared that Britain can no longer afford to "splay out" grants and subsidies to attract companies to locate in the UK.It is not entirely clear what Mr Cable means, and the website of the Department for Business offers little assistance in interpretation. But the whole point of those grants and subsidies to attract companies to locate in the UK was to steer the companies to locate in areas of economic disadvantage. The subsidies were available for Nissan to locate and expand in Sunderland - they were not available to companies seeking to locate in South-East England. Scotland in particular paid out many millions (not conspicuously successfully) to attract foreign direct investment, notably in the field of electronics.Mr Cable said: "Having very substantial amounts of money which we are splaying out in grants and subsidies to companies, we cannot do that. There is a budgetary problem which we inherited. The second reason is that it is actually very bad policy."
Instead, said Mr Cable, the coalition would concentrate on setting competitive business tax rates, cutting regulation, training workers and looking after the broader economy.
This week the Government published their White Paper on the national health service. They say that they will get rid of targets. Can the Prime Minister tell us whether patients will keep their guaranteed right to see a cancer specialist within two weeks of seeing their GP?Source: here
As for the NHS, what we have decided is that we will keep targets only when they actually contribute to clinical outcomes. We all want to see a higher cancer survival rate. I am afraid that, after 13 years of Labour government, we have not the best cancer outcomes in Europe, and we want the best cancer outcomes. That means rapid treatment, yes, but it also means rapid follow-up, and it means people getting the radiotherapy, chemotherapy and drugs that they need. Those are all essential.Our Harriet asked the question again. Cameron still flannelling:
For some people, two weeks is too long. That is the whole point. If a target contributes to good clinical outcomes, it stays; if it does not, it goes.So Cameron has been trapped. Either he does not know the answer or he is not prepared to admit that the target will be dropped. Either way, a victory for Hattie.
An hour after Cameron's comments in the Commons, the health minister Simon Burns said the cancer target would remain. "The decision on targets was taken on which ones were not clinically justified," he told Radio 4. "The cancer one was clinically justified and is being kept."Not quite accurate, it appeared:
But a few hours later the prime minister's spokesman declined to say whether the cancer guarantee would be maintained. "These decisions are no longer for politicians, they are now for the NHS commissioning board. So whether or not there is a target on two weeks is a matter for the commissioning board of the NHS. At the moment it remains in place, but whether it remains in place in future is a decision for them."So the Tories have chosen to devolve the decision on the cancer guarantee to a quango. Welcome to the new improved NHS?
Horrifying, ain't it? But then it's only half the picture. There is no point in listing the nation's liabilities without comparing them with its assets. And, according to (yes) the Office for National Statistics (here), the value of the nation's assets amounts to some £7 trillion.The true scale of Britain's national indebtedness was laid bare by the Office for National Statistics yesterday: almost £4 trillion, or £4,000bn*, about four times higher than previously acknowledged.
It quantifies the burden that will be placed on future generations, and it is the ONS's first attempt to draw together the "off-balance-sheet" liabilities that have been accumulated by the state. The figures imply a huge "intergenerational transfer" – broadly in favour of today's "baby boomer" generation at the expense of younger people and future generations.
The debt primarily consists of the cost of public sector and state pensions, and of payments promised to private contractors under private finance initiatives. It far exceeds any of the figures so far published for the national debt, the largest current estimate for which is £903bn. That is projected to rise to £1.3trn by 2015.
Everyone of working age should be online by 2015, and all applications for school places and free school meals will be online under a new Government plan to get more people to use the internet.
Launching a plan to get the 10 million Britons who have never used the internet online, the Government's "digital champion", Martha Lane Fox claimed “the Government needs to think ‘internet first’ – by getting more people online, everyone wins.” She suggested that everyone applying for benefits should also be subject to “informal” tests on their computer skills.
Is this really what the libdems want?... the coalition has asked most government departments to slash spending by 25 percent to 40 percent over the next four years. Health spending will be spared, but capital spending on badly needed new hospitals and schools will not. More than half a million public-sector jobs are expected to be axed, including tens of thousands of police officers. The less well off, who depend on functioning public services, will suffer most.
No reputable economic theory justifies this bleeding. In fact, most mainstream economists have argued for delaying the most severe cuts until a more robust economic recovery has begun.
The coalition budget reflects Conservative Party ideology, which asserts that as the government withdraws money from the economy, private businesses and consumers will step in to replace it. That won’t happen if Britons see only hard times ahead.
Amazon's launch into the online groceries market – a sector where Tesco's share currently beats that of all its competitors combined – will be fascinating to watch. This is a company with the resources and the imagination to give Britain's biggest grocer a run for its money.I don't think so. Check it out for yourself. The cheapest brand of sliced bread available from Amazon is a 100g loaf of Livwell White at £2.79, while the cheapest beer is a 500ml bottle of Breconshire Brewery Cribyn at £2.55. The only brand of corn flakes is Barkat (no, I'd never heard of them either) and, as for baked beans, well there are none.
Now the British are leaving Sangin, many will ask what it was all for, why they went there in the first place, and what, if anything, was achieved at the terrible cost of so many brave young men and women killed and maimed. Answers will be hard to find.Replace the word 'Sangin' with 'Afghanistan' and the answers are equally hard to find.
In the good old days, national governments could parachute in their officials to the EU, usually but not exclusively by way of a cabinet post in the control of a Commissioner. But that procedure is increasingly frowned upon. Nowadays, commission officials are appointed by way of competitve examination. Among other requirements is a facility with at least one other EU language (which rather limits the field of UK aspirants). Thereafter, promotion is ostensibly on merit, although in practice Buggins' turn seems to be the guiding principle.William Hague vowed today to increase Britain's influence in the European Union by boosting the numbers of UK nationals in the corridors of power at Brussels.
The foreign secretary accused the previous Labour government of allowing a "generation gap" to develop over its 13 years in power, by neglecting to ensure that enough British officials won key posts in EU institutions.
Numbers of British officials at director level in the European commission have fallen by a third since 2007, and numbers of UK posts by 205 overall, he said. Although it represents 12% of the EU population, the UK has just 1.8% of staff in entry-level positions at the commission.
