Postal strikes: union announces two allout strikes despite talks progress
Despite talks progress the Communication Workers Union announced plans for oneday walkouts on November 6th and 9th.
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Postal strikes: mail backlog hits 35 million
CWU and Royal Mail management prepare for further talks to ease crisis.
Murderers and rapists among 750 criminals on the run
The Ministry of Justice has admitted that 750 criminals who should have been recalled to prison are still at large.
Gordon Brown hails breakthrough as EU names price of tackling climate change
Gordon Brown hails “breakthrough” as Europe agrees to make an offer to the rest of the world in Copenhagen.
Tony McNulty: I didn’t ‘fiddle’ my expenses
The former Home Office minister was forced to repay £13000 after subsidising his parents’ living expenses from public funds.
Tony Blair’s bid to become European Union president appears doomed
Blair’s prospects of winning the EU presidency are fading amid serious objections in Europe with former ally Nicolas Sarkozy appearing to withdraw his support.
UK house prices rise for sixth straight month
House prices enjoy first yearonyear rise since March 2008 as record low interest rates deliver some confidence to the market.
European leaders incensed by David Cameron’s letter
Sarkozy, Merkel and Zapatero criticise Tories for attempt to delay treaty
Leaders of three of the most powerful states in Europe have strongly criticised David Cameron at the EU summit over a Conservative attempt to scupper the Lisbon treaty.
Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and José Luiz Rodríguez Zapatero are understood to have privately criticised the Tory leader after he sent a handwritten letter to the Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, who has been refusing to sign the treaty. The letter was seen as an attempt to influence the Czech Republic, which is the only country not to have ratified the treaty.
Senior British sources familiar with thinking at the highest levels of the EU say the French, German and Spanish leaders all raised questions about Cameron’s letter.
It is understood that Cameron encouraged the Czech president to delay ratification of the Lisbon pact by setting out Tory policy to hold a referendum in Britain on the treaty if it had not yet been ratified by all member states.
The sources told the Guardian that:
• Sarkozy was overheard telling Gordon Brown that he was incensed by Cameron’s letter, which the French saw as an attempt to wreck the Lisbon treaty.
• Merkel was also said to be upset by the Tory leader’s letter. The German chancellor is understood to have echoed the concerns of senior figures in her Christian Democratic Union party, such as the former president of the EU parliament Hans Gert Poettering, that Cameron’s behaviour had been untrustworthy.
• Zapatero, who addressed the Labour party’s recent conference in Brighton and will have to negotiate directly with Cameron if the Tories win the general election – because Spain holds the EU’s rotating presidency until July 2010 – made clear to diplomats that he regarded Cameron’s letter as an attempt to scupper the treaty.
The interventions by the EU leaders come as the Tories plan to abandon their two-year campaign to hold a referendum on the Lisbon treaty if, as expected, the Czech president finally ratifies the treaty. Senior Tories told the Guardian that Cameron would set out his thinking in the coming weeks.
It is understood that Cameron will drop his pledge to hold a referendum on the treaty on the grounds that it is impossible to open a treaty that has entered EU law. A Tory government would instead focus on repatriating social and employment laws, in effect restoring the British opt-out from the social chapter. This has been sprinkled around various EU treaties since Tony Blair ended the opt-out in 1997, meaning that its measures could only be restored to Britain with the agreement of all member states.
Brown yesterday used his appearance at the summit to launch a strong attack on the Tories’ approach to Europe. Speaking of the Tory decision to abandon the main centre-right EPP grouping in the European parliament in favour of a smaller group consisting mainly of fringe parties from the hard right in eastern Europe, the prime minister said: “The Conservative party are standing apart from the mainstream in Europe. They are part of a very small group of minorities – of 23 people apart from the Conservative party. They are standing on the fringes of Europe. That is a huge mistake for British interests.”
A Tory spokeswoman said: “We have never concealed the fact that we sent the letter … David Cameron has made no secret of its contents. It sets out his public opinion in a private letter.”
Last night a spokesman for the Elysée palace said: “We do not comment on rumours from the corridors of the European council.”
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Government sacks chief drug adviser
• Home Office says Nutt’s comments were damaging
• Professor claims scientific contribution devalued
Alan Johnson, the home secretary, has sacked Professor David Nutt as senior drugs adviser after the scientist renewed his criticism of the government’s decision to toughen the law on cannabis.
Johnson wrote to Nutt saying he no longer had confidence in him as chairman of the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) and asking him to consider his position.
Nutt had accused ministers of “devaluing and distorting” the scientific evidence over illicit drugs by their decision last year to reclassify cannabis from class C to class B against the advice of the ACMD.
A Home Office spokesman said: “The home secretary expressed surprise and disappointment over Professor Nutt’s comments which damage efforts to give the public clear messages about the dangers of drugs.”
In his reply, Nutt said: “If scientists are not allowed to engage in the debate then you devalue their contribution to policymaking.”
The sacking is likely to raise concerns among scientists over the independence of advice to the government and may trigger further resignations. The Home Office describes the ACMD as an independent expert body that advises on drug-related issues, including recommendations on classification under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act.
It is not thought that the home secretary spoke directly to Nutt before requesting his resignation in writing.
Nutt told the BBC: “I think the issue is whether I am straying into the realm of policy. I personally don’t think I was.”
The decision follows the publication of a paper by the Centre for Crime and Justice at King’s College London, based on a lecture Nutt delivered in July. He repeated his familiar view that illicit drugs should be classified according to the actual evidence of the harm they cause and pointed out that alcohol and tobacco caused more harm than LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.
He also argued that smoking cannabis created only a “relatively small risk” of psychotic illness.
The shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, backed Johnson’s decision. “This was an inevitable decision after his latest ill-judged contribution to the debate but it is a sign of lack of focus at the Home Office that it didn’t act sooner given that he has done this before.”
Richard Garside, director of the centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King’s College London, accused Johnson of undermining scientific research. He said: “The message is that when it comes to the Home Office’s relationship with the research community honest researchers should be seen but not heard.”
Phil Willis, the Lib Dem MP who chairs the Commons science and technology committee, said independent advice to the government was essential and the sacking of Nutt was “disturbing if an independent scientist should be removed for reporting sound scientific advice”.
The charity DrugScope’s director of communications, Harry Shapiro, said: “The home secretary’s decision to force the resignation of the chair of an independent advisory body is an extremely serious and concerning development and raises serious questions about the means by which drug policy is informed and kept under review.”
1970 Special class B category, half way between “hard” and “soft” drugs, created for cannabis as a compromise between Labour home secretary, James Callaghan, who believed it was as dangerous as heroin, and a “student faction” in cabinet who did not.
1978 Advisory Council on Misuse of Drugs recommends downgrading cannabis from class B to C. Labour home secretary Merlyn Rees rejects advice.
2002 ACMD looks again at status of cannabis at request of home secretary David Blunkett, who accepts recommendation to downgrade it from B to C, on grounds it is less harmful than class B drugs such as amphetamines.
2008 Home secretary Jacqui Smith rejects advice from ACMD to keep cannabis at class C after a review concludes that evidence of a link between mental illness and stronger strains of cannabis remains weak.
February 2009 Smith vetoes ACMD recommendation that ecstasy be downgraded from class A after it reviewed 4,000 papers on the subject.
October 2009 Alan Johnson sacks Professor David Nutt as ACMD chair.
ends
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Somali pirates demand $7m ransom
Pirates make telephone ransom demand for Rachel and Paul Chandler, who were kidnapped a week ago
Somali pirates tonight demanded a ransom payment of $7m (£4.2m) for the safe return of a British couple who they kidnapped a week ago.
In a phone call translated by the BBC, one of the pirates said: “If they do not harm us, we will not harm them – we only need a little amount of seven million dollars.”
A Foreign Office spokesman said tonight: “Hostage taking is never justified. Paul and Rachel are blameless tourists. They should be released immediately and unconditionally.”
“The government will not make substantive concessions to hostage takers, including the payment of ransoms.”
Earlier today, Rachel Chandler, who is being held by the pirates with her husband Paul, made contact with her relatives for the first time since the couple were seized.
She told her brother Stephen Collett she was “bearing up” and added: “Please do not worry about us. We are managing.”
The phone call was broadcast on ITV News , a day after her husband made first contact with the outside world via the broadcaster.
Rachel Chandler, 55, broke down during the call despite repeatedly reassuring her brother she was being well cared for.
“I’m bearing up. Thank you for everything you are doing,” she said. “Thank you, thank you very much.”
Her voice cracked but she managed to compose herself as the conversation continued. “We are safe,” she said. “If we want anything they will provide it. They are very hospitable people.”
ITV News spoke to Paul Chandler yesterday but in a call he sounded much more strained and he seemed to be speaking deliberately slowly.
Collett asked his brother-in-law if he was being well looked after. He replied: “So far, yes.” Told that the family was trying to secure their release, Paul Chandler said: “We know nothing here. It is nice to speak to you.”
Although Rachel Chandler did not say where she was, it is thought the pirates who attacked the yacht, the Lynn Rival, last Friday may have moved their captives to sea to thwart any rescue attempts.
Speaking to ITV News, Paul Chandler, 59, said he and his wife, from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, were being held on the Kota Wajar, a container ship hijacked in the Indian Ocean on 15 October.
Local fishermen reported seeing the couple being taken to the village of Ceel Huur near the pirate stronghold of Harardhere.
A spokesman for the pirates, who identified himself only by his first name, Abdinor, said the couple would be moved to a ship anchored off the coast of Somalia. He said it would be safer for the couple to be kept on a ship with other hostages.
The man said the Chandlers were healthy and that the pirates took them to rest on land at Harardhere last night. The group was yet to make a ransom demand, he said.
In a phone call with BBC News, Paul Chandler was clearly unable to speak freely. When asked if he was in Somalia, he said: “I can’t answer that.”
Whitehall staff met at the Cobra emergency briefing room again amid reports that the kidnappers were about to make their ransom demands.
A Foreign Office spokesman said a government team was working to secure the couple’s release but added that the meeting was not a full Cobra meeting and that no ministers attended.
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