The Tories will today spell out how they would "transform the culture" of the public sector to save billions of pounds. They will accuse Labour of wasting £60bn a year since 1997 ? the "productivity gap" between the state and private sector, which has secured bigger efficiency gains.

Philip Hammond, the shadow Chief Treasury Secretary, will announce plans for a Tory government to make payment-by-results the norm unless there are compelling reasons why it would not work. "Schools will be ( Read more... )
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As the US, Britain and Nato allies prepare to announce they will send thousands more troops to Afghanistan, the Prime Minister said there was a "need to have not just a military push in Afghanistan, but a political push".

Mr Brown said: "What we want to do at a national level is support clean and corrupt-free government. At a local level we want to support district and provincial governors that are free from intimidation and can actually deliver the services that people want. What we also ( Read more... )
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The plans drawn up by the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) would also see them given £20 more than MPs for overnight accommodation. While Sir Christopher Kelly has recommended that MPs be given £120 a night to cover hotel bills, their unelected colleagues are set to receive £140 a night.

The SSRB review rejected the idea of introducing an annual salary, but peers could still earn about £30,000 a year by turning up for every session in the Lords, with travel and overnight accommodation ( Read more... )
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Pensioners are to get lower winter fuel payments in future. Millions of elderly people received an unprecedented £200 one-off payment last winter. But the Government has no intention of extending the same generosity in coming years.

Plans outlined in a report by the Cabinet Office's social exclusion unit say winter fuel payments to 8.5 million pensioner households will be cut to £150 next winter.

Pensions have been a contentious issue for the Labour Government. Last year's 75p increase ( Read more... )
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The local man was detained by officers investigating the blaze at a flat complex in Norton, near Malton, in September, North Yorkshire Police said.

The blaze claimed the life of promising apprentices Jamie Kyne, 18, from County Galway, Ireland, and Jan Wilson, 19, from Forfar, Scotland.

Two other young jockeys were injured as they escaped the fire in a three-storey block just off Norton's main street.

A police spokesman said he could not confirm the arrested ( Read more... )
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Sir Christopher Meyer, who was Britain's ambassador to the US between 1997 and 2003, said the April 2002 meeting in Crawford, Texas, appeared to be a major turning point.

He said in evidence: "I took no part in any of the discussions and there was a large chunk of that time when no adviser was there.

"I know what the Cabinet Office says were the results of the meeting but to this day I am not entirely clear what degree of convergence was, if you ( Read more... )
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The Conservative leader yesterday challenged Prime Minister Gordon Brown over the schools run by the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation, which he said received £113,000 from the Government - some of it from a fund designed to prevent violent extremism - even though it was linked to the militant group Hizb ut Tahrir.

But Mr Balls accused Mr Cameron of "divisive smears", saying that the cash going to the schools in Slough and the north London borough of Haringey was in fact ( Read more... )
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A series of wealthy donors, including one of Britain's richest men, gave lavish donations, while Lord Ashcroft, the Tory deputy chairman, spent a further £90,000 on the drive to capture crucial marginal seats.

The Electoral Commission announced that the Conservatives received £5,269,186 between July and September, compared with £3,045,377 given to Labour and £816,663 to the Liberal Democrats. Fifteen other parties received £401,372 between them.

The flood of money to the Conservatives ( Read more... )
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Ministers were also given repeated warnings that intelligence gathered on Iraq's weapons programmes was unreliable. However, Mr Blair told the Commons that Saddam Hussein did have chemical and biological weapons as he prepared the way for the invasion in March 2003.

Sir William Ehrman, who was a senior official within the Foreign Office, told the inquiry into the Iraq war yesterday that "in the final days before military action", the department received information that Iraq's chemical and ( Read more... )
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An inquiry chaired by the Commons Speaker, John Bercow, called yesterday for much greater efforts by the parties to ensure that the House of Commons is "fit for the 21st century".

In future, parties will publish online every six months details of the candidates they are selecting for the next general election. An amendment to the Equality Bill, now going through Parliament, will ensure there is "public accountability" to the secretive process of candidate selection.

The all-party Speaker's ( Read more... )
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A previously undisclosed agreement between Sir John Chilcot's inquiry and the Government gives Whitehall the final say on what information the investigation can release into the public domain. Mr Brown, who initially wanted the inquiry held in private, was forced to climb down earlier this year after an outcry and promised that most of its sessions would be heard in public. He said information would be withheld only when it would compromise national security.

However, a protocol agreed ( Read more... )
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The Tories received £5,269,186 in the third quarter of 2009 - between July and September - while Labour was gifted just £3,045,377. The Liberal Democrats were given £816,663.

Overall, donations to political donations for the quarter stood at slightly more than £9.5 million.

That was down on the £13.2 million received between April and June, although that figure was higher than usual because of the European elections in May.

With a general election less than seven months away and a couple of recent opinion polls showing Labour narrowing the gap with the Conservatives, there is growing chatter at Westminster that the Tories might not gain an overall majority.

After months in which it was assumed that David Cameron was assured of victory, increasingly seen as the Prime Minister-in-waiting, Labour suddenly senses it might be back in the game after all.

For the Liberal ( Read more... )
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The Speaker's Conference, tasked by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to investigate the lack of diversity in Parliament, said today that transparency about the people putting themselves forward as would-be MPs was essential.

The main party leaders have already agreed to publish updates on the outcomes of their candidate selection processes.

But the Speaker's Conference insisted that greater detail about who had applied - and failed - to become candidates ( Read more... )
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The unprecedented weather on Friday - the equivalent of a month's rain in an hour in some areas - left tens of thousands of homes without clean water or electricity.

Thousands of people are still being evacuated as the water levels in rivers across the Midlands and the South continue to rise.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown surveyed the damage in Gloucestershire where the River Severn is perilously high, while concern was growing about the River Thames in Oxfordshire.

( Read more... )
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The economy is expected to start to grow in the final three months of this year, with the official figures due to be released in January. But if that growth is not maintained when figures for the first quarter of 2010 are issued in April, that would deal a devastating blow to the Prime Minister.

"There is a real possibility that, after one quarter of growth, Britain slips backwards," said one Tory frontbencher. "If that happened, there would be fears about a double-dip recession. It would ( Read more... )
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Foreign Office mandarins even drew up a secret document discussing the idea of removing the dictator as attempts to restrain him with sanctions began to fail. But any suggestions of supporting "regime change" were dismissed repeatedly as having no legal backing.

On its opening day of public hearings, Sir John Chilcot's inquiry into the Iraq war heard that elements of President Bush's administration, which came to power at the start of 2001, were already making noises in support of regime ( Read more... )
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Lawyers representing Iraqis who claim to have been tortured and abused and their family members murdered believe the full account of Britain's role in the conflict must include the treatment of prisoners and detainees.

Sir John Chilcot, a retired career civil servant, has promised to produce a "full and insightful" investigation that will begin hearing evidence today. But critics have asked whether a committee chosen by Downing Street can be ( Read more... )
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Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, is expected to decide whether to prosecute the MPs and peers in the new year. That means charges could be laid before a general election but would be unlikely to come to court until after polling day.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said last night: "We have delivered four main files of evidence relating to parliamentary expenses to the Crown Prosecution Service. The files relate to four people, from both the House of Lords and the House ( Read more... )
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Dressed in a long royal-blue jacket, Baroness Thatcher was greeted on the steps of her former residence by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah.

Mr Brown shook hands with Lady Thatcher, who paused for photographs outside the famous door of No 10 but said nothing to waiting reporters.

Lady Thatcher's portrait was being unveiled at a private reception hosted by the Prime Minister and will go on permanent display in the stateroom's lobby ( Read more... )
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