News Reports Archive

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8 Militants in Pakistan Killed by Suspected Drone Attack
A suspected drone attack has killed 8 militants according to the officials in Pakistan.

Police Identify Orlando Shooting Suspect
Out-of-work former employee on shooting spree that injured 5 and killed 1.

European Union Takes a Stance or Is It Just Hot Air
While the world battles climate change, no country is willing to take the first step. It seems that the European Union has just done that by coming up with an action plan to take to the Copenhagen talks. Yet, with so many ifs and buts, and nothing in black and white, one wonders if this is just 'hot air'.

Swine Flu - Child Killer!
If you thought that swine flu could only harm the patient, then you need to read this!

Yes, the Global Financial Sector Has Upped Its Game – But Not Nearly Enough
Yes, the global financial sector has upped its game – but not nearly enough

What the Conservatives Should Do With the Bbc
Norman Fowler's five-point plan for making the corporation more effective

A Free Standard Will Really Test the Paid-for News Model
The make-or-break decision by the Evening Standard to go free will either lead to its closure or help it steal market share from paid-for newspapers

Yes, the Global Financial Sector Has Upped Its Game – But Not Nearly Enough
Yes, the global financial sector has upped its game – but not nearly enough

A Reluctance to Court Celebrity
Marcel Berlins: A new survey of the number of the times legal figures featured in the national and regional press in the last 12 months makes for interesting reading

Playing a Dangerous Game
Michael White: Cameron persists in pandering to the untamed right over the EU but it is a perilous strategy

The Return of the Cracking Good Read
For years the Booker shortlist has eschewed narrative in favor of sometimes unreadable literary fiction. But the tables are turning, says Robert McCrum

Will Evening Standard Fight London Lite?
After the london paper retreated in the free sheet wars, Lebedev's huge gamble to make the Standard free will depend on Associated's next move

Murdoch Wants to Charge for News, But What Will Readers Be Prepared to Pay?
Rupert Murdoch has ordered his lieutenants to fix a price for internet news, but the answer remains stubbornly elusive

Class Actions Are Vital to Help Women Fight for Equal Pay
The Equality bill needs to be beefed up if women are to bridge the 17% pay gap with their male counterparts

Sorry, David Cameron, We Won't Join in Cynical Calls for Fake Change
Nick Clegg: Despite the Tory leader's claims two weeks ago, differences between political parties do matter

Dante's Inferno is No More of a Fantasy Than the Fairytales the Bankers Told Us
Gordon Brown and many others believed the theory that the dominant finance sector was socially beneficial. They were completely wrong

Spectator's Old Fogeys Prove There's Profit in Internet News
As the newspaper industry ponders a bid to make the web pay, the Spectator is already blazing a trail

Portugal's New Paper Points to Print's Future
New launch shows rethinking the newspaper can raise circulation

Contempt for Heroes is Glasgow's Worst Toxin
Kevin McKenna: What hope for this desperately poor area when the baggage-handler candidate widely feted abroad is so ridiculed at home?

Vanessa George Case Shows Armchair Paedophiles Are Just As Guilty
Barbara Ellen: The George case shines a torch into a dark corner - how the sheer ease of the internet has created new, less obvious kinds of offender

One Happy Ending for Library Closures – But Not the Last Chapter
Rachel Cooke: We've won the battle in Wirral but but more skirmishes are on the way

Power Beckons for the Tories, But Are They Ready for It?
Andrew Rawnsley: David Cameron has brought his party to the brink of government. Now we need more clarity about what he would do with it

Mandelson Was Brighton's Darling But Brown Gave Labour a Future
Will Hutton: The PM's speech marked his return to social democracy and helped ensure that his party will bounce back after an election defeat

When Daddy is Just an Optional Extra
Elizabeth Day: Forget the debate about working mothers; it's fathers who get a raw deal in bringing up baby

Britain Must Grow Up and Stop Believing Europhobe Nonsense
Rafael Behr: The Irish vote opens a new era for the European Union. Now we should put skepticism behind us and start playing our part

Gordon Brown's Fawlty Powers
Simon Hoggart: The PM's speech reminded me of John Smith's speech the night before he died

From Salt of the Earth to Scourge of Society
Cruelty existed in social housing in the 1950s too, but never has it been flaunted so uninhibitedly

Why is It the Great Movies That Get Remade – and Not Dross Like Howard the Duck?
Sam Leith: We need better excuses for returning to past classics than nostalgia or celebrities getting their kit off

Lloyds Bids a Long Goodbye to Victor Blank
Directors have started to think of perks as entitlements with the same status as salary. They shouldn't

Will Turquoise Be Swallowed By Lse?
If Xavier Rolet, new LSE chief, gets his hands on Turquoise it could allow him to extend his reach over Europe

The Boom Years Never Really Happened – But Labour Won't Accept It
I could have attended the labor party conference. But I thought: why squander a trip to the seaside? Yet I am still amazed by the timid mendacity of the event. There they all were, still hoping against hope that they'd soon gain full credit – and another term in power – for "saving the...

Loose Women's 10th Anniversary Really Isn't Worth Celebrating
It's a period of big TV birthdays, with Question Time and Newsnight pushing 30 and Loose Women (ITV1) reaching 10 this week. Coincidentally, the mental ages of those shows match their chronological span. To explain, for those who have a job or a crossword to do...

It's the Piddling Issues Wot Might Win It
Simon Hoggart: Golly, labor loathe the paper that has supported them in the last three elections

Why Has Andrew Marr Been Criticised for Asking Gordon Brown If He Was on Antidepressants?
The war on drugs may be lost. But the war on medicines is hotting up. Some talk of boycotting BBC political editor Andrew Marr because he offered the prime minister an opportunity to comment on a mischievous rumor about antidepressants. Do they understand they are being rather unkind to everyone...

Fifa v Pro Evo: the War for Your Calloused Thumb
Jack Arnott: Will the latest versions of the football game franchises tempt you to switch allegiances?

Nils Pratley: Bankers and Bonuses
Here is a late-in-the-day Treasury announcement on bonus reforms, just as the chancellor leaves the labor party conference for an international summit. The timing looks strange. So does the claim that this is "a major step forward". The oddity lies in the fact that we assumed the...

Sir Stuart Rose: Capitalism's Knight in Shining Armour
M&S boss strays into politics in defence of 'business'

Polly Toynbee: A New Public Services: Ed Balls's Promise to Cut £2bn From Schools is Typical of This Disastrous Fastest-axer-takes-all Fight
The great contest of the cuts has begun. Whose ax is biggest? Fastest slasher takes all. If that is the electoral battleground, then all is lost. Only by shifting the argument altogether and changing the language of debate can sanity prevail. No sign of it so far, as Ed Balls swings his...

Jonathan Freedland:a New Public Services: Some Like to Describe the Nhs As a Government-run Insurance Scheme. But That Hardly Captures the Essence of a Public Service
There are some people for whom "public services" is a distinctly slippery notion. I didn't realize it at the time, but it used to be that way for me too. Public services was a phrase bandied about on the news, an issue to be debated. But when it came to concrete, direct meaning, for me there was...

John Vidal: A New Public Services: Green Space, Health and Economic Development Are Proved to Be Linked – This is Where the Money Should Be Spent
Switching public spending from "grey" projects such as roads and airports, to "green" schemes such as parks, tree planting and allotments, would not just save the government billions of pounds, improve health, and cut climate emissions, but it would create jobs and make British cities more...

Alan Travis: A New Public Services: Pressure on Spending Will Increase the Need for Reform, Not for a Backlash Over Police Numbers
Labour's decade of investment in policing boosted the strength of the 43 forces in England and Wales to record levels, peaking at 143,000 sworn constables and 16,500 community support officers. But the pressures on public spending, and a forthcoming "spike" in retirement rates, means that these...

Revelation is the Most Important Element, Now That Publishers Are So Desperate for Media Attention
So the UK publishing industry has dubbed tomorrow "Super Thursday" because it marks the arrival in panting bookstores of the autobiographies of Andrew Flintoff ("The inside story of a national hero and the impact he has had on the game"), Chris Evans ("How one council estate lad made good") and...

Hugh Muir: A New Public Services: Doncaster, Under Peter Davies, Its New Mayor, is Seeing an Extreme Version of 'soft' Cuts
There are many options on how best to spend a shrinking pot of public money. But if one of the goals is preserving fairness, safeguarding cohesion and ensuring that everyone – regardless of background – gets the best chance to thrive, Doncaster provides the perfect example of what not...

Michael White: A New Public Services: How Can We Help the Nhs to Nurture Social Solidarity While Retaining the Essentials of Our Cherished Free Society?
When Barack Obama made his powerful case for comprehensive healthcare and effective regulation of medical costs in the US it was possible to imagine Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, for all their many differences, sitting in the Congressional audience and nodding in near unison...

Afua Hirsch: A New Public Services: Legal Aid is the Unofficial Extra Pillar of the Welfare State, and Desperately Needs an Overhaul
The legal aid system has long been regarded as the unofficial extra pillar of the welfare state. It flourished in the 1970s and 80s, when lawyers tackled housing conditions that were "unfit for human habitation", obtained urgent injunctions to protect women facing domestic violence, and defended...

Peter Hetherington: A New Public Services: These Public Service Cuts Are an Opportunity for Councils to Go Back to the Drawing Board and Create Efficiency
The term "local government", as applied to Britain, must be one of the most misused in our language. Many of us are not governed locally. At best, we depend on a local administration to sweep streets, collect rubbish, provide social care, libraries, schools – although education, arguably, is...

Jane Dudman:a New Public Services: In Hard Times We Want More Public Services, With Better Leaders.how Can They Be Equipped to Bear the Attacks?
In the past few weeks, we've seen an entirely predictable attack on the public sector, with the political parties promising to "cull" quangos and get rid of layers of unwanted bureaucracy. Public managers are bound by professional codes of conduct not to answer back. But if there is one...

Taking Families 'into Care' is a Better Option for Children
Only in the worst cases of child abuse should babies be taken into care sooner, writes Dawn Howley

Productive Investment in Education Lies With the Very Youngest Children
Polly Curtis: A new public services: Pre-school teaching is a more solid investment for education funding than award-winning secondary school buildings

Simon Hoggart: The Gist of the Pm's Conference Speech Was, That After 13 Years, Labour Fancies a Crack at Government
Brown came on to a storming ovation, which must have been a relief. But then the Labour conference loves Sarah, and she loves Gordon. "I know he's not a saint," she said, but then revealed that is exactly what he is. "He's messy, he's noisy … but he wakes up every morning and goes to bed...

Gordon Brown's Speech: Welcome to Dreamland
Simon Hoggart: The gist of the PM's conference speech was, that after 13 years, labor fancies a crack at government

Eric Allison: A New Public Services: If We Get It Right With Young Offenders, We Pave the Way Towards a More Civilised Criminal Justice System
Cuts in public spending present an opportunity for a bold justice minister to begin sorting out the mess that is the penal system in England and Wales. The added incentive is that it would save money and reduce reoffending. You may know the depressing statistics: the prison population is...

Blurred Picture at Jessops
Tale of woe at camera retailer sees HSBC take 47% stake after writing off £34m of borrowings

This Was Probably the Last Prime Ministerial Speech of His Lifetime
No, this was not "the speech of a lifetime" they said he must make. But it was probably the last prime ministerial conference speech of his lifetime. Anxious advice came from all sides: forward with a vision for the future, said some. Run on our past record, said others. Sock it to Cameron...

A Surprisingly Profitable Recession
The resilience in profits in some parts of the corporate UK landscape is bad news for those investors who missed it

Michele Hanson: A New Public Services: Let the Developers and the Super-wealthy Experience a Bit of Austerity for a Change
The approaching new Age of Austerity is a terrifying prospect, because some of us thought we were in one already. Things have been pretty austere for the old, the weedy, the homeless, the poor and the mentally ill for some time now. "Don't go barmy in Camden," my friend Rosemary warned me, because...

Deborah Orr: A New Public Services: Lay Off the Long-term Unemployed for Now. In a Recession We Need a Self-help Model, Like Alcoholics Anonymous, That Gives Practical Support and Advice
The trouble with cuts? They are expensive. That's why the last Conservative government actually expanded the state while supposedly attempting to shrink it. Laying off workers means offering redundancy payments, and then, sometimes, providing benefits instead. Ceasing to do things one way...

Public Service Privatisation is a Fast Track to Corruption and Higher Costs
Seumas Milne: A new public services: Public services must become the universal badge of social solidarity and citizenship they should be, not a second-class safety net for the poor

Polly Toynbee: A New Public Services: Ed Balls' Promise to Cut £2bn From Schools is Typical of This Disastrous Fastest-axer-takes-all Fight
The great contest of the cuts has begun. Whose ax is biggest? Fastest slasher takes all. If that is the electoral battleground, then all is lost. Only by shifting the argument altogether and changing the language of debate can sanity prevail. No sign of it so far, as Ed Balls swings his...

David Brindle: A New Public Services: Personal Budgets Are the Most Significant Social Policy Reform of This Government As Budgets Shrink and We Try to Do More for Less
It's the dogs that do it. Whenever people are struggling to grasp the idea of personal budgets, the mist tends to clear when they hear one of a growing number of stories of people who have used taxpayer funding to get and keep a dog. Personal budgets are the most significant social...

Cory Doctorow: The Corporation is Set to Betray Licence-fee Payers and the Uk Tech Industry By Caving in to Hollywood Studios' Demands
Back in August, the BBC sent a quiet notice to Ofcom asking for permission to cripple the next generation of digital television broadcasts. The BBC had apparently been meeting "third party content owners" who had "made it clear" that they expected the corporation to find ways to violate the...

Madeleine Bunting:a New Public Services: The Big Challenge is to Put Compassion and Attentiveness Back at the Centre of Public Services
There is a pervasive sense that despite the much-needed new spending pumped into public services over the past 10 years, something has gone awry. Yes, targets have been reached and many measurable aspects of services have improved, but the key here is "measurable". The immeasurable of a nurse's...

Gordon Brown: the Clunking Fist Thumps Its Last Tub
Martin Kettle: To call it his swansong would imply an elegance it lacked, but Gordon Brown's speech had courage and a certain tragic pathos

Tanya Gold: Gordon Brown is 'delighted', David Cameron is 'delighted'. I Am 'repelled'.
Save us, O Lord, save us all. Save us from the Pope. Joseph Ratzinger is coming to Britain. Gordon Brown is "delighted". David Cameron is "delighted". I am "repelled". Let him come; I applaud freedom of speech. But no red carpets, please. No biscuits. No Queen. In his actions on child...

Our Belief in Education Must Survive These Troubled Times
With cuts now inevitable, we must not forget that education has the power to change lives

The Labour Party Rose, Not Just to Applaud, But to Cheer Him, to Whoop at Him, to Adore Him
It was a modern miracle, the scene we thought we would never see. The labor party rose, not just to applaud Peter Mandelson but to cheer him, to whoop at him, to adore him. Tony Blair famously said that his project would not be complete until the party had learned to love Mandelson, and as he...

Michael White Picks His Heroes and Villains of the Second Day at the Brighton Centre
Hero of the Day: Need you ask? Take another bow, Peter Benjamin Mandelson. The first secretary of state (FSS) may have perjured himself a little in his praise of the prime minister, who spent a decade pushing him under buses. But no one minded after what may be the best speech...

Racing Fans Entitled to See Red As Bbc Pushes the Button on Arc Day
Greg Wood: BBC coverage of Arc day is shortchanging racing viewers

Snatching Defeat From Yawning Jaws
Simon Hoggart: labor strategy appears to be to behave as if the party is already in opposition, raging against the incumbent Tories

Marcel Berlins: The Law Lords' Move Outside Parliament Could Mean Braver and More Combative Decisions
When, in a few days, the law lords who served as the United Kingdom's highest court of law are miraculously transformed into the justices of our brand new supreme court, they will be one short – 11 of them instead of the 12 required by law. Two months ago Lord Neuberger, who has made clear...

No Need to Buy Reduced-alcohol Bottle When You Can Just Add Water to a Decent One, Says the Guardian's Wine Critic
Here is a party trick you might like to try at home. Take a glass of reduced alcohol wine, give it blind to a friend and ask them what they think they are drinking. I have never yet seen anyone identify the liquid in the glass as wine. When people ask me – and they often do –...

Michael White Picks His Hero, Tease, Diversity Joke and Villain of the Day at the Brighton Centre
Hero of the day Dan Hannan MEP. Surely, he's a Tory? Yes, but desperate Labour election planners hope he's their secret weapon. Dan was on TV yesterday being swivel-eyed about a UK referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Dan was only four the last time Britain voted on Europe (1975)...

Fox Good, Fox Bad – and Where Are You Twittering From?
Research uncovers some strange facts about trust and social habits

Denis O'brien Rocks Independent's Boat ... Again
If O'Brien got his hands on INM, he would wield power that would make even bankers baulk

Heaney's Beowulf: Sophisticated People With a Love of Words
There could hardly be a more perfect example of the strange riches of Anglo-Saxon England