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Senior Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have raised the prospect of a
speedy return to Government for David Laws in the wake of his resignation
from the Cabinet over expenses abuses.

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Millions of gallons of oil could be gushing into the Gulf of Mexico for at
least the next two months, as Barack Obama’s top energy adviser said the
spill was the biggest environmental disaster in US history.

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Police officers investigating the deaths of three women in Bradford have
discovered human remains in the River Aire in Shipley.

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Ronnie Biggs, the Great Train Robber, was admitted to hospital on Saturday
after complaining of chest pain.

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Obama administration warns that the most environmentally disastrous spill in US history may continue until August

An uncontrollable fountain of oil could gush into the Gulf of Mexico until August, the Obama administration warned today, as BP conceded it was moving to a containment strategy after failing to plug the well at the centre of the most environmentally disastrous spill in US history.

As anger and despair grew in the coastal communities of Louisiana, BP began preparations to cut a leaking drill pipe on the ocean floor and attach a containment cap intended to capture at least some of the 12,000 to 19,000 barrels of crude spewing from its Macondo well every day.

The oil company, which has come under withering attack for its handling of the crisis, acknowledged there was “no certainty” of success in the effort, which will take four to seven days and which some experts say could make the leak worse.

A White House adviser said the US government was “prepared for the worst” after efforts to halt the leak by pumping mud, golf balls, tyres and other debris into the well were halted without success yesterday.

Carol Browner, the administration’s energy czar, said there may be no solution until two relief wells being drilled into the oilfield by BP are complete later in summer. “There could be oil coming up till August when the relief wells are done,” she said. “This is probably the biggest environmental disaster we have ever faced in this country.”

At the weekend, as the failure of BP’s latest attempt became clear, President Barack Obama vented his frustration at the situation.

“It is as enraging as it is heartbreaking, and we will not relent until this leak is contained, until the waters and shores are cleaned up, and until the people unjustly victimised by this manmade disaster are made whole,” Obama said in a statement.

Another two months of leakage from the site of BP’s sunken Deepwater Horizon oil rig would mean that the spill, which already eclipses the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, would cause even more damage to marshland wildlife habitats and to the livelihood of shrimpers, fishermen and tourism workers in southern states. Oil already stretches over a distance of 130 miles by 70 miles.

Browner said: “We are prepared for the worst. We have been prepared from the beginning.”

As the crisis moved to its fifth week, both BP and Obama faced attacks for failing to come up with a solution. Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines parish, Louisiana, called for immediate funding to build a network of sand barriers to protect the coastline.

“It’s time for BP to step up to the plate – don’t wait for the president,” said Nungesser. “Every time that oil takes out a piece of the marsh, a piece of Louisiana is gone forever.”

Oil has been leaking from a broken drilling pipe on the ocean floor since the rig caught fire and sank on 20 April, killing 11 offshore workers.

At the weekend, BP abandoned a “top kill” operation to fix the leak after engineers were unable to stem the pressure of oil with thousands of tonnes of drilling mud. “We’re disappointed that oil is going to flow for a while and we’re going to redouble our efforts to keep it off the beaches,” BP’s managing director, Bob Dudley, told CNN. “We’re moving to a containment operation.”

BP’s new plan involves using underwater robots and a diamond wire-cutter to create a clean cut through the leaking pipe, then attach a “riser” allowing oil to be pumped to the ocean surface and collected by a ship. Experts say it will be difficult to create a watertight seal on a high-pressure gushing pipe at a depth of 1,500 metres (5,000ft).

Former US secretary of state Colin Powell joined calls for the military to take command of the operation from BP. Powell said the problem was beyond the capacity of BP to solve and the government should bring in “decisive force”. He said: “The military brings organisation, it brings control, it brings assets.”

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One day into the job, the new Treasury chief secretary faces claims of capital gains tax avoidance

The new Treasury chief secretary, Danny Alexander, avoided paying capital gains tax on the profit he made from his taxpayer-funded second home in London, it was claimed last night.

Under House of Commons rules, Alexander was permitted to designate it as a second home, but he told Revenue and Customs it was his main residence.

He bought a flat in London in 1999. After being elected an MP in 2005, he declared the property as his second home to the parliamentary authorities and claimed expenses. He claimed more than £37,000 in expenses for the flat – and carried out some work to the property at taxpayers’ expense shortly before selling it in June 2007 for £300,000.

He did not break any rules, but used a tax loophole that allows the continued designation of a property as the main home for three years even after the purchase of another house – in Alexander’s case in Scotland – which has become the principal residence. It did not stop him from telling Commons authorities that the London property was his second home, for which he claimed not only for the mortgage but also for minor capital improvements, the Telegraph reported.

The change was introduced to give sellers time to find a buyer for their property during a downturn in the housing market.

Alexander appears to have broken no revenue or Commons rule, so the case does not look likely to threaten his position. But it is an embarrassment for the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, who has persistently denounced MPs who make a capital gain on their taxpayer-funded homes. It also raises questions as to whether Clegg carried out due diligence before recommending senior Lib Dems to cabinet posts.

Alexander’s sudden rise after the resignation of David Laws means the spotlight has turned on the former head of communications for the Cairngorms national park.

On Sunday former colleagues who have known Alexander since he became active in the party more than 15 years ago, expressed surprise at his meteoric rise, with one describing his early performance in the Lib Dems’ Scottish press office as “good but not great”.

“His main characteristic is self-confidence and at times a certain chippiness,” said a colleague who has known Alexander since his early days in the party. “He is from the Highland Liberal Democrat tradition which is more Whiggish, a type of elite. He is certainly not a ’sandal-wearing’ Lib Dem.”

Born in 1972, Alexander was educated at Lochaber high school, a state comprehensive in Fort William, before going on to study politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University. He is married with two daughters – the youngest a week old.

Described by associates as fresh-faced and congenial, Alexander joined the party’s Scottish press office in 1993 and has been immersed in Lib Dem politics ever since.

He is seen as being on the right of the party – as one observer put it: “more of an economic Liberal than a social Liberal”. Former colleagues in Scotland say ever since he left university he was always more interested in Westminster politics, rather than “bread and butter” Scottish issues.

In 1996 Alexander became the director of communications at the European Movement, a pro-European campaigning organisation, before returning to Scotland in 2004 to take up the position with the Cairngorms national park.

Just a year later he was elected to parliament for the newly formed constituency of Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey. Charles Kennedy, then Lib Dem leader, appointed him spokesman for disability issues before he moved to lead for the Lib Dems on social exclusion and then work and pensions.

Still largely unknown outside Westminster circles, he was appointed as the Lib Dem shadow secretary for work and pensions. Those who came across him at the time recall his intellectual confidence and intelligence, but also his “reputation for being a bit dull”.

But his career trajectory was about to change. He gave up his position at work and pensions to become Clegg’s chief of staff, taking charge of the Lib Dems” general election manifesto.

Party insiders say the relationship between the two men was close from the beginning and as Clegg’s stock rose during the election Alexander became one of his most trusted aides. When negotiations began between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives in the days after last month’s general election, Alexander was intimately involved, helping shape the power sharing deal that forms the basis of the new government.

His initial reward was to be appointed secretary of state for Scotland. But now he is heading to the Treasury where he will be expected to impose huge and unpopular cuts in public sector spending.

“The Scottish job seemed about right for him,” said one former colleague. “It would have given him time to prove himself and, if he was good enough, to work his way up. I’m not saying he will crumble or fail because he has a lot of self-belief. But for someone with pretty limited experience in this field I think he is going to be a very difficult few months.”

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Muhammad Bilal was among 90 who died in dual bomb attacks in Lahore on Friday

A British businessman was among those killed during attacks on mosques in Pakistan last week, his family said last night as they paid tribute to his humanitarian work.

Muhammad Ashraf Bilal, 58, was among at least 90 people who died on Friday when armed militants attacked two mosques of the Ahmadi group in Lahore, raking worshippers with gunfire and taking hostages.

Mr Bilal’s nephew, Sardar Fareed, last night said: “His loss will not only be felt by his direct family members but also by many more. He was a true servant of humanity. Muhammad was a living example of the Ahmadi Muslim motto ‘Love for all, hatred for none’.”

Farooq Aftab, an Ahmadi spokesman in London, said Mr Bilal was on a business trip in Pakistan and was visiting the mosque for Friday prayers with colleagues.

According to witnesses, he was shot in the shoulder and foot as gunmen entered the mosque.

Mr Bilal was a “family man” with three children, Aftab said.

“During his visits to Pakistan, he had established a medical clinic, employing four doctors to provide free medical care for hundreds of people on a daily basis, irrespective of their religion or background,” his family said. “In addition, he provided direct financial support to many of the poor of Lahore.”

Bilal’s family were said to have flown out to Pakistan yesterday morning for his funeral.

A spokesman for a group describing itself as the Punjabi Taliban has claimed responsibility for the violence.

At least two of the seven attackers were captured, while some died in the stand-off.

Akram Naeem, a senior police official in Lahore, said the interrogation of one of the arrested suspects revealed that the gunmen were involved with the Pakistani Taliban, who have staged attacks across the country for years.

The 17-year-old suspect told police that the men had trained in the country’s North Waziristan tribal region.

“Our initial investigation has found that they all belong to Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistani Taliban movement,” Naeem said.

He said the suspect, Abdullah, was trained in Miran Shah – the main city in North Waziristan. The region has long been a base for militant groups focused on battling US and Nato forces across the border in Afghanistan.

But as the army has mounted operations against the Pakistani Taliban elsewhere in the tribal belt, many in the group – which has focused on attacking targets in Pakistan – have since set up operations in North Waziristan.

The Foreign Office last night confirmed that one British national was killed in the attack on Friday.

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• Khaled Meshal says US ‘not brave enough to do so openly’
• Hamas leader praises Russian president for meeting him

The United States is sending a succession of envoys to engage with Hamas but lacks the bravery to talk to the Islamist movement openly, its leader, Khaled Meshal, said in an interview with the Guardian.

Meshal praised President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia for meeting him in Damascus and the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, for hosting the discussion 10 days ago. He told Medvedev that the US was also talking to him. “I thanked him for that meeting and told him the Americans contact us, but are not brave enough to do so openly,” said Meshal. “I am confident that in the very near future, everyone will realise that they will have to deal with Hamas.”

The claim that the US is engaging with a group it lists as a terrorist organisation will upset the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, whose security forces have locked up and allegedly tortured leading Hamas members in the West Bank..

But four years into Israel’s blockade of Gaza, the revelation could be seen as a sign that cracks are opening up in the western consensus that Hamas should remain isolated. Russia is a member of the Middle East Quartet, which demands recognition of the state of Israel as a precondition to a seat at the negotiating table.

Hamas says that recognising Israel was one of the Fatah leadership’s biggest mistakes, and resulted in 17 years of fruitless negotiation. Meshal predicted that the conditions, which he called a trap for the Quartet itself, would change.

The Hamas leader claimed many western officials recognised that the blockade of Gaza had failed and the time had come to end it. This, he said, was the significance of efforts by a flotilla of eight ships, including four cargo vessels carrying construction and medical supplies and a Turkish passenger ferry carrying 600 people, heading for a confrontation with the Israeli navy off Gaza tomorrow.

Meshal said the tectonic plates in the Middle East were shifting, with Iran, Turkey and Syria emerging as regional powers. Egypt was in the throes of a battle for succession that would paralyse it as a regional player. As a result, Israel was losing its power to impose conditions on a weakened Palestinian leadership in Ramallah.

As it felt its power ebbing, Israel needed a new war but was crippled by self-doubt, Meshal said. He claimed the attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, and against Hamas in Gaza in 2009, left both organisations stronger politically and militarily.

“Israel is conducting exercises threatening Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria. It needs a war, but choosing the front to fight on will not be a picnic and this reflects the crisis in Israel. It does not want peace, but the option of war is not easy for it,” he said.

The Hamas leader added that Israel might be tempted to strike Gaza again. “A war in Gaza might appear the easy option. But that would be an illusion, not because we have adequate weapons, but because Israel this time would be fighting against a people with nothing to lose. Gaza is small in size but it has become a large symbol for the rest of the world. This has become very clear in the last week.”

Senior Hamas officials said they had conducted a study of their military tactics in Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2009 and were now working with rockets that could hit tanks effectively at longer range.

Meshal said Barack Obama had made a brave speech in Cairo, but within months had retreated, with administration officials actively vetoing efforts to seek agreement between Fatah and Hamas on a national unity government. Citing senior Fatah sources, he claimed George Mitchell, the US negotiator, told the Palestinian Authority and Egypt that the US would cut off aid to the PA if it formed a national unity government with Hamas and the other militant Palestinian factions.

“Palestinian reconciliation is not on the table at the moment, because the priority for America is to resume the proximity talks. Mahmoud Abbas is better for America’s purpose without reconciliation, because he is weak and a deal with Hamas would strengthen the Palestinian position in the negotiation. America prefers a weak Palestinian negotiating party, because it believes this is the best chance for a deal with an intransigent [Israeli prime minister Binyamin] Netanyahu.”

Hamas claims that nine or 10 of the 22-member Arab League now either publicly or tacitly back its formula for a unity government, not least Saudi Arabia, a country still thought to be furious with Hamas about its takeover of Gaza in 2007, which tore up an agreement with Fatah.

Meshal said that four days before the last Arab League summit in Sirte, Libya, the Saudi foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, took a one-page Hamas document to Egypt, containing its latest proposal.

The document called for the creation of a Palestinian leadership representative of all factions, a high security council to reform the security forces of Gaza, and a committee to organise new elections. Palestinians outside the occupied territories would also take part in the vote.

The Egyptians came back with three additions: that the new Palestinian unity government would recognise a two-state solution, the borders of 1967 and the Arab Peace Initiative. Meshal said that these demands were tantamount to a recognition of Israel.

“What Mahmoud Abbas is seeking is to restore his authority over Gaza and to draw Hamas into an electoral process in conditions in which it would lose. Egypt’s position is a real obstacle, too. It raises the question what is reconciliation for, to exclude Hamas, or to bring it into the process to participate?”

Nonetheless, Meshal said he would pursue negotiations, now being brokered by Libya. He rejected the claim that Hamas was on the sidelines of efforts to find peace in the Middle East, refusing to lay out its vision of solution. He said the Palestinians and Arabs were ready to accept a state within 1967 borders, with its capital in Jerusalem, and the return of its refugees, but that Israel was not prepared to pay the price.

“After 17 years of negotiations, it has given nothing to those Palestinians who recognise it. It just demands more concessions like security co-operation. It is only when Israel is forced to make concessions that peace will come, but that will only happen when it is faced with a strong Palestinian partner. So Hamas will continue to reserve the right to resistance until Israel returns to the ‘67 borders.”

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Forensic specialists are checking equipment found in river where Suzanne Blamires’s body parts were dumped

Forensic specialists in Bradford are checking a large black suitcase containing tools which was found by police divers yesterday in the river Aire, close to the weir where the body parts of murder victim Suzanne Blamires were discovered.

A small quantity of remains which could be human are also being analysed after they were discovered on the same muddy stretch as the equipment.

The tools are thought to include car maintenance and DIY equipment.

Police are continuing the river search at Shipley, four miles from central Bradford, in the hope of finding links to two other women believed to have been murdered, Shelley Armitage and Susan Rushworth.

Intense activity, including an excavation, continued near the Bradford flat of Stephen Griffiths, 40, after he was charged with killing all three women, who worked as prostitutes in a red light area nearby.

Police, working from a group of marquees in factory and office car parks by the Aire, are expecting plenty of irrelevant material to emerge from an urban stretch of the river often used for illegal dumping.

The site remains cordoned off, but people have attached a small collection of bouquets of flowers to nearby railings.

A spokeswoman for the West Yorkshire force said: “The tools are to undergo a full forensic examination, and at this stage it is unclear whether the remains found are human or animal. Officers will search areas of Bradford city centre and the river Aire throughout the day and are also proactively following several lines of inquiry. This will continue throughout the bank holiday and into next week.”

Although no trace has yet been found of Armitage, 31, and Rushworth, 43, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s complex case unit in West Yorkshire, Peter Mann, approved murder charges against Griffiths in all three cases.

He said on Thursday that close examination of police material so far assembled convinced him that there was “sufficient evidence to charge Stephen Griffiths with their murders and that it is in the public interest to do so”.

Griffiths has not yet entered a plea, after brief appearances on Friday at Bradford magistrates court and the city’s crown court. He gave his name to the district judge, Susan Bouch, as the “crossbow cannibal”, but agreed to his correct name before Judge James Goss QC at the crown court.

Griffiths, who was educated at the independent Queen Elizabeth’s grammar school in Wakefield and at Leeds University, will next appear in court on 7 June via a video link from Wakefield prison. He had lived for 13 years in the converted mill on Thornton Road, which also continues to be a centre of police activity.

Blamires’ partner said yesterday that he had accepted her work as a prostitute to pay for the heroin to which both were addicted. Ifty Hussein, who is 37 and unemployed, denied that he had forced the 36-year-old on to the streets from the rundown house they shared.

He said: “I wish it was me who was dead. We were planning to get clean in the next month, make a fresh start and get on with our lives together.”

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United Nations climate chief says Danish presidency’s backing for US also derailed Copenhagen negotiations

A leaked letter from the United Nations’ climate chief suggests the Copenhagen climate summit failed because the presence of 130 world leaders paralysed decision-making and the Danish presidency backed the US and other western nations over the interests of the poor.

The revelations – made as the UN climate talks resume in Bonn tomorrow – come in Yvo de Boer’s candid letter, written to colleagues days after the summit broke up in acrimony in December.

More than 130 world leaders had been persuaded by Britain and other countries to go to Denmark, where they were expected to put the finishing touches to a historic global agreement to limit carbon emissions, protect forests and put in place a mechanism to transfer billions of dollars from rich to poor countries each year. Instead, they arrived at a summit seething with mistrust.

According to De Boer, who will leave the UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC) in the next few months, the diplomatic debacle began to unfold when Denmark presented a one-sided draft agreement to a few select countries just before the start of the meeting.

The UN, aware that it was unbalanced and that it favoured the US and other richer countries, tried – but failed – to stop it.

“[The Danish text] destroyed two years of effort in one fell swoop,” De Boer wrote. “All our attempts to prevent the paper happening failed. The meeting at which it was presented was unannounced and the paper unbalanced.”

The paper was leaked to the Guardian, which had the effect of polarising countries’ positions further, said the Danish journalist and climate change expert Per Meilstrup, whose book on the climate negotiations is published in Europe tomorrow.

The presence of world leaders such Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao further affected the talks, De Boer wrote. They had been expected to galvanise the summit and steamroller opposition to an agreement, but in fact proved counterproductive.

“Inviting heads of state seemed like a good idea. But it seriously backfired,” he wrote. “Their early arrival did not have the catalytic effect that was hoped for. The process became paralysed. Rumour and intrigue took over.”

Negotiators from more than 180 countries resumed the talks, hoping to make progress on key areas such as forests, finance and emission cuts.

But non-government groups warned that rich countries were already seeking to offer loans instead of grants to adapt to climate change.

“The $100bn a year pledged by rich nations to help fight climate change could fail the poorest people if recent moves to deliver climate cash as loans continue,” Oxfam’s senior policy adviser, Antonio Hill, said. “At a time of economic emergency, when several poor countries are slashing critical health and education budgets to avoid a debt crisis, rich countries are considering saddling them with climate debt for a situation they did not cause. It’s like crashing your neighbour’s car and then offering a loan to cover the damages.”

Friends of the Earth called for Europe to show global leadership by cutting its emissions by 40% by 2020.

“This is the minimum required if we’re to have any chance of avoiding climate catastrophe and save the lives of the millions who will suffer devastating effects like more frequent storms, droughts and flooding,” a spokesman said.

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