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Cameron backs plan to abolish social housing rent subsidy for higher earners
by Patrick Wintour
19 May 2012 at 12:03am
Fears 'pay-to-stay' scheme will drive thousands out of housing association and council properties
The government is introducing measures that could drive thousands of families out of social housing by removing any subsidy for their rent.
In what is being billed as a "pay to stay" scheme, Downing Street has swung behind plans to introduce a new household income threshold above which social tenants must pay full market rent. The government is expected to say that rent subsidy will be capped at a household income of £60,000, meaning, for example, a couple on £30,000 each could see their rent rise by about £70 a week.
The scheme, applicable to all housing association and council properties, is explicitly designed to make social housing primarily available to the poor.
The housing minister, Grant Shapps, has referred to the idea before, but Downing Street's embrace of the proposal means it will now go ahead with a consultation paper next month.
The government says it is necessary to remove an unfairness in the system and to allocate scarce housing resources more efficiently. Critics will say the scheme will give wealthier families an incentive to buy their property at discounted rates, removing social housing from the market.
The government has been accused of driving some poor tenants from properties in wealthier inner-city areas by introducing a higher rent, set at 80% of the market rent. It has also introduced a so-called spare room tax, so that under-occupying social tenants of working age are docked £14 a week for one spare bedroom and £25 a week for two. No tenant will receive more than £500 a week in welfare payments, a measure that will affect larger families on housing benefit.
The welfare cap is, in polling terms, one of the most popular policies the government has introduced, and the new £60,000 household income cap for social housing tenants is likely to win equally wide support.
A No 10 source linked the two measures, saying: "It's not right that high earners benefit from taxpayer-funded housing subsidy. Just as we have introduced a cap on housing benefit and welfare payments to make the system fairer, now we're acting on social housing too."
Government sources added that social housing should be regarded as a precious asset to be devoted to those most in need, not a cheap option for those who can afford competitive rents or their own property.
The government consultation, due to be launched next month by Shapps, will suggest a range of options for the threshold, with the lowest at £60,000.
Ministers have been looking at a range of proposals to make social housing more flexible, including the removal of so-called lifetime tenancies, replacing them with fixed-term tenancies. Social housing tenants can also no longer pass their homes to their children.
Government research shows that as many as 6,000 social rented homes in England are lived in by people who earn a combined income of more than £100,000, including Bob Crow, leader of the RMT union. At the proposed £60,000 threshold, ministers estimate as many as 34,000 social rented homes in England alone would be affected.
It is being stressed that no one would be evicted from their home, simply that they would have to pay higher rents.
The government claims the economic subsidy provided by sub-market rents for social housing is worth £3,600 a year on average, or £69 a week.
The total cost of this annual subsidy for those above the £60,000 threshold is £122.4m, and the annual subsidy for a £100,000 threshold is £21.6m.
Social rents are set on the basis of a formula linked to size of the property, its value and local earnings.
Labour has always argued that social housing should be for a mix of tenants and not seen as the preserve of the poor. The Liberal Democrats have curbed some government housing reforms, but could arguably support the measure as a legitimate restriction on middle-class welfare.
However, social housing has been increasingly taken up as an option by young professionals unable to afford to own their own home. The cost of the cheapest quarter of homes is now more than six times average household income and eight times in London.
The overall social housing budget was cut by more than 50% in the 2010 spending review, to £4.4bn, and the number of people on council waiting lists is now 1.8m, an 80% increase in the last decade.
In a report this week, Shelter, the Chartered Institute of Housing and the National Housing Federation said the government was failing on five of its 10 key indicators: affordability of the private rented sector, help with housing costs, homelessness, housing supply and overcrowding.
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Olympic torch paraded in Cornwall by David Beckham
by Richard Williams
18 May 2012 at 8:34pm
Gold-painted Airbus 319 brings flame to airbase to begin the 70-day relay around the country in the buildup to London 2012
The applause inside the gold-painted Airbus 319 was not the usual ironical salute for a bumpy landing at the start of a package holiday. Eight years after Sebastian Coe and his team set out to win the Games for London, the Olympic flame had touched down in Britain. Now the Games can begin.
This was, London mayor Boris Johnson proclaimed, the first time a naked flame had been permitted on a British Airways flight since they banned smoking on planes. And there indeed it sat, lit a week earlier by the rays of the sun at ancient Olympia but now, in quadruplicate, occupying two seats in the front row of the passenger cabin of BA2012.
It flickered bravely in four specially made lanterns, each 15in high, during the four-hour trip from Athens' Eleftherios Venizelios airport ‚built for the 2004 Olympics, to the Royal Navy's airbase at Culdrose, near Penzance.
The arrival in Cornwall preceded the start of the 70-day, torch relay around Britain, which will end on July 27, when the flame is used to ignite the cauldron in London's Olympic Stadium.
Its in-flight attendants, alongside Johnson, included footballer David Beckham, Olympics organiser Lord Coe, the Olympics minister Hugh Robertson, Princess Anne, the president of the British Olympic Association, and a small posse of track-suited Metropolitan police officers.
On landing at Culdrose, where the flight was met by Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minster, the flame was transferred to a ceremonial cauldron from which a torch will be lit early on Saturday morning and placed in the hands of Ben Ainslie, the triple gold medal winning sailor, the first of 8,000 runners. The second is Anastasia Swallow, an 18-year-old surfer from St Ives.
"So many of the people who are running will be members of the communities through which they're carrying the torch," Coe said. "Our market research says that at least nine million people will be watching, and many of them will be seeing their local coach, or teacher, or policeman."
Or perhaps their local A-list celebrity. Beckham, a member of the 2012 team since its inception, made it clear that he would relish being a torch-bearer during the leg of the relay that passes through his native east London as well as being selected for Great Britain's Olympic football team.
"I've never performed at an Olympic Games," he said. "But to be part of this is something very special. We've got some very special people carrying the torch and it's going to be a proud moment for them. If I was to be one of those carrying in London, it would be very special for me."
Cynics like to point out that the torch relay was invented for "Hitler's Games" in 1936, but torch relays played a part in the Ancient Olympics, sent out through Greek towns and villages to advertise the Games. In the modern era, the Olympic flame was re-introduced in 1928 by the peace-loving people of Amsterdam, eight years before the Berlin organisers dreamed up the idea of reconnecting Aryan supremacists with their supposed ancestors.
No one had thought to turn a flame into an Olympic symbol when London first held the Games at White City in 1908. On the second occasion, 40 years later, the torch arrived at Wembley stadium by a circuitous route in order to avoid a threat of disturbances in northern Greece, still enduring the aftermath of its civil war.
Its overland journey through Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium and France was undertaken in a car provided by Rolls-Royce and specially geared to proceed at a stately 8mph. The destroyer HMS Bicester carried it from Calais to Dover, where it was welcomed by a crowd of 50,000. Then it promptly went out. Officially, it was relit from a spare carried from Greece. Unofficially, a cigarette lighter was hastily employed. Eventually it was carried into the stadium by John Mack, the 22-year-old president of the Cambridge University Athletic Club, as fine a specimen of blond, strapping manhood that could be found.
This time the designated hero figure might be Johnson but is more likely to be Steve Redgrave, the owner of gold medals from five successive Games, or perhaps an east End child of symbolic mixed ethnicity. According to Coe, discussions on the identities of the final torch-bearers have yet to begin, but Beckham is unlikely to be disappointed, just as he will almost certainly be granted his wish of a place in the football squad.
He was mobbed by expats and Greek guests during a reception at the British ambassador's residence in Athens on Thursday night, but those suggesting that his selection for the team might be a ploy to use his celebrity to fill seats and sell shirts were being "a little bit disrespectful", the 37-year-old former England captain said. "Managers like Sir Alex Ferguson, Fabio Capello and Sven-Goran Eriksson, they don't pick you because they want to fill stadiums. I've always wanted to be picked for what I can bring to a team."
He had been amused, he said, to hear himself introduced as "Sir David Beckham" by the announcer during the handover ceremony in the Panathenaic Stadium on Thursday. "It made me laugh," he said. "It made everybody laugh, probably."
Looking ahead to the next 10 weeks, in which the flame will make its way around Britain, Coe was sanguine about the threat of the sort of disruption created by pro-Tibet demonstrators when the Beijing torch visited London in 2008. "We live in a country where peaceful protest is very much a part of what we are," he said before leaving Athens. "Thank goodness it is, in a way, as long as that doesn't slop over into becoming a public order issue or endangering people who are enjoying their day."
It had been instructive, he said, to watch the test event for the torch relay, which took place in Leicestershire last month. "It started at seven o'clock in the morning in Leicester and ended at five or six o'clock in the evening in Peterborough and went through little villages and small towns. In Melton Mowbray, they were four or five deep on the pavement, and that was just a test event with a cardboard torch and no actual flame. I don't sense that there's a widespread feeling that this is to be anything other than cherished. My gut instinct is that people will be quite protective."
Amid a Cornish sea-fret on Friday night, Beckham was invited to step forward and light the cauldron. It is unlikely to be his last involvement.
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UK 'may never fully recover' if Greece exits euro
by Andrew Sparrow, Helena Smith, Larry Elliott
18 May 2012 at 9:01pm
Top forecaster says Britain would face long recession as key Greek politician frames crisis as people v capitalism
A Greek exit from the single currency threatens to plunge Britain into a second recession equal in ferocity to the record postwar slump of 2008-09, according to the expert responsible for the government's economic forecasting.
Robert Chote, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, who was speaking to the Guardian as world financial markets staggered to the end of a week that rekindled memories of the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, warned that there was risk that a fresh downturn would do irreparable damage to the UK. Britain has made up less than half the ground lost when output plunged by more than 7% in 2008-09, and Chote said there was a risk that "you go down and you never quite get back up to where you started".
In a separate exclusive interview, Alexis Tsipras, the increasingly powerful 37-year-old Greek politician now regarded by many as holding the future of the euro in his hands, told the Guardian that he was determined "to stop the experiment" with austerity policies imposed by Germany. He described the tax increases and spending cuts as a "crime against the Greek people".
The leader of the Syriza party, whose success in last month's general election has led to political paralysis in Athens and a second general election, said he wanted Greece to stay in the euro, but was fighting capitalism. "On the one side there are workers and a majority of people, and on the other are global capitalists, bankers, profiteers on stock exchanges, the big funds. It's a war between peoples and capitalism ... it is the international financial system, and more especially banks, that are gaining most".
The head of the UK's OBR said the deepening crisis in the eurozone could force him to tear up his forecasts, made only two months ago, that Britain would post modest growth of 0.8% this year. "The concern is that you end up with an outcome in the eurozone that creates the same sort of structural difficulties in the financial system and in the economy that we saw in the past recession, and that has consequences both for hitting economic activity in the economy, but also its underlying potential," said Chote.
With economic output in the UK still 4% below its peak level when the recession began in early 2008, the prime minister and the governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King, have expressed concern in recent days about the vulnerability of Britain to the eurozone.
Chote said he was particularly concerned about the possibility that a second deep recession would leave permanent scars. "That means not just that the economy weakens and then strengthens again – it goes into a hole and comes out – but that you go down and you never quite get back up to where you started."
Shares in London closed down for a third week, with the jittery mood in financial markets pushing the FTSE 100 below 5,400 for the first time this year. German and French stock markets were also depressed, with even the much-anticipated stock market debut of Facebook in New York failing to lift spirits.
Greece's caretaker prime minister, Panagiotis Pikramenos, said the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, had suggested in a phone call to the Greek president, Karolos Papoulias, on Friday that Greece hold a referendum on its continued membership of the single currency alongside next month's elections, in an apparent attempt to encourage voters to back mainstream parties who support the current austerity programme.
The German government said that no suggestion of the kind had been made. But the Greek government was insistent, and said that Pikramenos had rejected the suggestion because he does not have the power to call a referendum.
Merkel's finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, said the eurozone crisis could last two more years, while financial market speculation that Greece's days in the euro were numbered cast a shadow over the annual gathering of leaders of the G8 western industrial nations at Camp David. Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, voiced his frustration at Europe's leaders, demanding tough action to tackle the crisis.
In Brussels, the European commission denied comments by Europe's trade minister, Karel de Gucht, that preparations were being made for Greece's departure from the single currency.
Meanwhile, analysts at Deutsche Bank predicted that the weak state of Ireland's banks could result in the former Celtic tiger requiring a second bailout, and in Spain there were reports that the government would call in Goldman Sachs to help sort out its banks after 16 suffered credit downgrades on Thursday.
In an echo of the months leading up to the Lehmans collapse, Mike Smith, chief executive of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, said the turmoil in the eurozone meant Australian banks were being frozen out of money markets when seeking funds.
Chote said there were so many uncertainties around what might happen with Greece and the eurozone that trying to produce firm predictions was not "particularly helpful".
But the OBR has tried to quantify the impact of a disorderly sovereign debt restructuring in the eurozone on Britain – and the figures make grim reading. Britain would be plunged into recession for two years, according to the OBR analysis, published in its most recent economic and fiscal outlook report. There would also be deflation and unemployment would reach almost 11% by 2013-14, with debt subsequently reaching more than 90% of GDP.
Chote said these projections were of limited value because the eurozone crisis could develop in so many different ways. "For example, one issue would be, do difficulties in the eurozone make it cheaper or more expensive for the UK government to borrow?" he said. "If it makes investors more nervous about risk in general, it might make it more expensive. If they see the UK as more of a safe haven, it might make it less expensive."
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Ed Miliband set for decision on Europe referendum
by Toby Helm
19 May 2012 at 10:54pm
Shadow ministers urge leader to put pressure on Cameron by promising EU membership poll if Labour win general election
Ed Miliband is being urged by a growing number of shadow cabinet members and senior allies to promise a dramatic in-out referendum on Britain's future membership of the European Union if Labour wins the next general election.
Several figures in the party are pushing the Labour leader to make the pledge well before the next European elections in 2014 to outmanoeuvre David Cameron, who is under heavy pressure to commit the Tory party to a national vote on the issue. The Observer has been told that, after discussions with shadow cabinet members, Miliband is leaving the door open to a referendum – although he is keen to stress that the short-term focus and discussion must be on how to end the current euro crisis.
Allies of the Labour leader say pressure on him to make what would be a historic, high-risk pledge will increase following the appointment of Jon Cruddas, the MP for Dagenham and Rainham, as Labour's policy chief.
Cruddas, a long-time opponent of the euro but otherwise pro-EU, is strongly in favour of an in-out referendum as a means of ending divisive arguments on Europe once and for all. Before his appointment, Cruddas told the People's Pledge campaign for a referendum that the issue was one of "democracy", and said a referendum pledge should be made "immediately, or as quickly as we can". Cruddas is understood to think that such a move would help define Miliband's leadership as bold and distinct from the New Labour years of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
A ComRes opinion poll for the Independent on Sunday and Sunday Mirror showed how Europe is emerging as an issue that could be pivotal at the next election. The poll showed that 26% of Tories now say they will consider voting for the anti-EU Ukip compared to 11% of Labour supporters and 14% of Liberal Democrats. It also showed the extent of anti-EU hostility Labour would need to overcome if a referendum were held now, with 46% of voters saying they would vote to leave the EU compared with 30% who would vote to stay in.
If Labour did commit to a referendum, the party leadership would campaign vigorously in favour of a vote to stay in – a stance that would be supported by most Labour members.
A referendum would, however, leave the Tories divided, with the party leadership certain to campaign for a vote to remain in the EU, while many MPs and grassroots Conservatives would want to leave. One shadow cabinet member said: "We should have the confidence to say we think we can win this and get on with it. There are issues of timing, about when we make the decision and when one would be held. But it certainly is no longer heresy to talk about it."
A spokesman for Miliband did not deny that the option was being considered, stressing merely that "our position is that we don't think this is what Europe needs at the moment".
Last week, in a sign that the Labour party is gradually preparing the ground for a referendum pledge, shadow chancellor Ed Balls said there could be a case in future, for calling a national vote when the current euro crisis was over and the shape of the new Europe was known. This followed similar comments from former cabinet minister and European commissioner Lord Mandelson.
On Thursday Peter Hain, a former Europe minister who stepped down from the shadow cabinet last week but who remains loyal to Miliband, said on BBC1's Question Time that he believed the British people would deserve a say when the time was right. "I think the way things are going people in Britain probably want to make up their minds about whether to stay in Europe or not," he said. "I don't think we should be frightened about giving people a vote."
Sources said that Hain would never have spoken out on the EU issue had he felt such remarks would have been unhelpful to Miliband, or significantly out of kilter with the Labour leader's own views.
Miliband is said to be genuinely undecided and cautious – not least because of the possibility that the country could vote to leave the EU. He is also being advised by some that the move could be seen as crudely opportunistic at a time of crisis in the EU.
Others say that it could put off Liberal Democrats who might otherwise come over to Labour.
Labour enthusiasts for a referendum stress, however, that it would not in any way amount to a watering down of Labour's commitment to the EU. On the contrary, it would be an opportunity to argue the positive case for membership during a national campaign – one that would also help the party build alliances with pro-EU elements of the business community.
While a minority of Labour MPs might want to leave the EU, highlighting divisions within Labour, they say a referendum would cause far deeper splits in the Tory party.
The People's Pledge, which draws support from all political parties, has announced it will hold more local referendums in three Greater Manchester constituencies, Withington, Cheadle and Hazel Grove, asking people if they want a national vote.
The seats, one in Manchester and two in Stockport, are all represented by Liberal Democrat MPs: John Leech, Mark Hunter and Andrew Stunnell, respectively. This follows its local referendum in Thurrock last month where 89.9% of people who voted backed a referendum.
Ian McKenzie, director of the People's Pledge, said: "The people of Thurrock set the pace last month by voting in huge numbers for a referendum. Voters in Manchester Withington, Cheadle and Hazel Grove now have the chance to quicken that pace towards a national referendum for the rest of us."
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Why I want all our children to read the King James Bible
by Richard Dawkins
19 May 2012 at 9:30pm
The good book should be read as a great work of literature – but it is not a guide to morality, as the education secretary Michael Gove would have us believe
For some reason the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (UK) was not approached for a donation in support of Michael Gove's plan to put a King James Bible in every state school. We would certainly have given it serious consideration, and if the trustees had not agreed I would gladly have contributed myself. In the event, it was left to "millionaire Conservative party donors".
I am a little shocked at the implication that not every school library already possesses a copy. Can that be true? What do they have, then? Harry Potter? Vampires? Or do they prefer one of those modern translations in which "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, all is vanity" is lyrically rendered as "Perfectly pointless, says the Teacher. Everything is pointless"? That is Ecclesiastes, 1:2, as you'll find it in the Common English Bible. And you can't get much more common than that, although admittedly the God's Word translation provides stiff competition with "absolutely pointless" and the Good News Bible challenges strongly with "useless, useless".
Ecclesiastes, in the 1611 translation, is one of the glories of English literature (I'm told it's pretty good in the original Hebrew, too). The whole King James Bible is littered with literary allusions, almost as many as Shakespeare (to quote that distinguished authority Anon, the trouble with Hamlet is it's so full of clichées). In The God Delusion I have a section called "Religious education as a part of literary culture" in which I list 129 biblical phrases which any cultivated English speaker will instantly recognise and many use without knowing their provenance: the salt of the earth; go the extra mile; I wash my hands of it; filthy lucre; through a glass darkly; wolf in sheep's clothing; hide your light under a bushel; no peace for the wicked; how are the mighty fallen.
A native speaker of English who has never read a word of the King James Bible is verging on the barbarian. In the week after the 2011 census, my UK Foundation commissioned Ipsos MORI to poll those who had ticked the Christian box. Among other things, we asked them to identify the first book of the New Testament from a choice of Matthew, Genesis, Acts of the Apostles, Psalms, "Don't know" and "Prefer not to say". Only 35% chose Matthew and 39% chose "Don't know" (and 1%, mysteriously, chose "Prefer not to say"). These figures, to repeat, don't refer to British people at large but only to those who self-identified, in the census, as Christians.
European history, too, is incomprehensible without an understanding of the warring factions of Christianity and the book over whose subtleties of interpretation they were so ready to slaughter and torture each other. Does the eucharistic bread merely symbolise the body of Jesus or does it become his body, in true "substance" if not "accidental" DNA? Prolonged wars have been fought over how we should interpret the words allegedly uttered at the Last Supper. Three bishops were burned alive just outside my bedroom window in my old Oxford college for giving the unapproved answer. Centuries-long schisms were based on nothing more serious than the question of whether Jesus is both God and his son, or just his (very important) son. Even bloodier wars were fought against a rival religion that sees him not as God's son at all but just reveres him as a prophet.
I have an ulterior motive for wishing to contribute to Gove's scheme. People who do not know the Bible well have been gulled into thinking it is a good guide to morality. This mistaken view may have motivated the "millionaire Conservative party donors". I have even heard the cynically misanthropic opinion that, without the Bible as a moral compass, people would have no restraint against murder, theft and mayhem. The surest way to disabuse yourself of this pernicious falsehood is to read the Bible itself.
Do you advocate the Ten Commandments as a guide to the good life? Then I can only presume that you don't know the Ten Commandments. The first two – "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" and "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image" – come from a time when the Jews still believed in the existence of many gods but had sworn fealty to only one of them, their tribal "jealous" god.
"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy": this commandment is regarded as so important that (as our children will learn when they flock into the school library to read the Gove presentation copy) a man caught gathering sticks on the sabbath was summarily stoned to death by the whole community, on direct orders from God.
"Honour thy father and thy mother." Well and good. But honour thy children? Not if God tells you, as he did Abraham in a test of his loyalty, to kill your beloved son for a burnt offering. The lesson is clear: when push comes to shove, obedience to God trumps human decency, to say nothing of obedience to the next commandment, "Thou shalt not kill". This is the only one of the commandments that many devotees actually know. Its obviousness was appropriately mocked by Christopher Hitchens, but my imagination hears the response of the Israelites to Moses in the voice of Basil Fawlty: "Oh I SEE. Thou shalt not KILL. Oh how silly of me. You see, before you came down from the mountain with the tablets, we all thought it was perfectly fine to kill. But now that we've seen it written on a TABLET, well that makes all the difference. Thou shalt not kill, well, who would have thought it? Oh silly me … etc etc."
In any case, the commandment meant only "Thou shalt not kill members of thine own tribe". It was perfectly fine – indeed strongly encouraged throughout the Pentateuch – to kill Canaanites, Midianites, Jebusites, Hivites etc, especially if they had the misfortune to live in the Promised Lebensraum. Kill all the men and boys and most of the women. "But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves" (Numbers 31:18). Such wonderful moral lessons: all children should be exposed to them.
"Sophisticated" theologians (what is there in "theology" to be sophisticated about?) now treat these horrors as parables or myths, which is just as well. But many fundamentalist Protestants still take them literally and positively state that, if God told them to kill their own children, they would obey. Hard to believe, but it is fully documented in a brilliant film, In God We Trust?, by Scott Burdick. Other theologians will accept that the Old Testament is pretty horrible but will point with pride, and nods of approval from all sides, to the New Testament as a truly righteous moral guide. Really?
The central dogma of the New Testament is that Jesus died as a scapegoat for the sin of Adam and the sins that all we unborn generations might have been contemplating in the future. Adam's sin is perhaps mitigated by the extenuating circumstance that he didn't exist. In any case it never amounted to more than scrumping or, depending on your theology, seeking knowledge – which a minister of education should surely consider a virtue. But the unmistakable message is clear. We are all "born in sin" even if we no longer literally believe, with Augustine, that Adam's sin came down to us via the semen. And God, the all-powerful creator, capable of moving mountains and of begetting a universe with all the laws of physics, couldn't find a better way to lift the burden of sin than a blood sacrifice.
In the words of Paul, the inventor of Christianity (or whoever really wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews), "without shedding of blood, there is no remission". And the scapegoat couldn't be just anybody. The sin was so great that only his son (or God himself, depending on your Trinitarian theology) would do. It was necessary for God to come "down" personally to Earth and have himself tortured and executed, after being "betrayed" (though why it was a betrayal since getting himself executed was the main purpose of the visit, is never explained, nor is the millennia-long vendetta against Jews as "Christ-killers").
Whatever else the Bible might be – and it really is a great work of literature – it is not a moral book and young people need to learn that important fact because they are very frequently told the opposite. The examples I have quoted are the tip of a very large and very nasty iceberg. Not a bad way to find out what's in a book is to read it, so I say go to it. But does anybody, even Gove, seriously think they will?
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G8 Leaders Want 'Strong Eurozone' With Greece
19 May 2012 at 8:12pm
G8 leaders have expressed hope that debt-stricken Greece stays in the eurozone and vowed to "take all necessary steps" to try to combat the deepening economic turmoil in Europe.
Chelsea Wins Champions League Final In Shoot-Out
19 May 2012 at 10:47pm
Chelsea wins the Champions League final against Bayern Munich after a nail-biting penalty shoot-out.
Italian Student Dies In 'Mafia School Bombing'
19 May 2012 at 3:22pm
One student has been killed and seven others injured in a suspected mafia bomb blast at a school in southern Italy.
Chelsea make Bayern pay the penalty
19 May 2012 at 11:26pm
Chelsea have been crowned European club champions for the first time in their history after a dramatic penalty shoot-out win in Germany.
Drogba fires Chelsea to Champions League glory
19 May 2012 at 10:56pm
MUNICH (Reuters) - Chelsea stunned Bayern Munich to win the Champions League for the first time as Didier Drogba struck the decisive blow in a penalty shootout at the Allianz Arena following a tension-soaked final which ended 1-1 after extra time on Saturday. Drogba, who had equalised for Chelsea two minutes from the end of normal time, rolled the winning kick past Manuel Neuer as the visitors edged the shootout 4-3 after Bastian Schweinsteiger's last kick for Bayern had hit the post. ...
Miliband rating overtakes Cameron
19 May 2012 at 9:27pm
Ed Miliband's personal rating has overtaken David Cameron's for the first time, according to a new poll.
Family Members In Court On Terror Charges
19 May 2012 at 9:09pm
Two brothers and a cousin have appeared in court in Northern Ireland charged with serious terrorist offences following an intelligence operation by the police and security service MI5.
Cameron calls for euro contingency plans
19 May 2012 at 7:59pm
CAMP ROUND MEADOW, Maryland (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron urged countries on Saturday to put in place strong contingency plans to deal with fallout from the euro zone debt crisis as fears grow that Greece could be forced out of the European single currency. Cameron, speaking at a summit of the Group of Eight major economies, also appeared to hint that the European Central Bank should follow the example of the Bank of England by embarking on an asset purchase program to try to boost the economy. ...
John Lennon book plates auctioned
19 May 2012 at 7:43pm
The original printing plates for John Lennon's first book have been sold at auction for £4,800.
Rider killed in NW200 race crash
19 May 2012 at 7:18pm
A rider has been killed at Northern Ireland's top motorcycle race, the North West 200.
Blind Chinese activist arrives in United States
19 May 2012 at 11:32pm
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng arrived in the United States on Saturday after China allowed him to leave a hospital in Beijing in a move that could signal the end of a diplomatic standoff between the two countries. Chen's escape from house arrest in northeastern China last month and subsequent stay in the U.S. Embassy was a huge embarrassment for China and led to a diplomatic rift while U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was visiting Beijing for talks to improve ties between the world's two biggest economies. ...
Serbia picks president under threat of protest
19 May 2012 at 10:59pm
BELGRADE (Reuters) - Pro-Western Boris Tadic will bid on Sunday for another five years as Serbia's president and the right to lead the nation into EU membership talks, challenged by rightist Tomislav Nikolic who has threatened to contest the result in the streets. Tadic is tipped to defeat Nikolic in the presidential election for the third time since 2004 as Serbia slowly sheds the legacy of a decade of war and isolation under late strongman Slobodan Milosevic. A Tadic victory would keep power firmly in the hands of his Democratic Party. ...
Greek election race tightens into dead heat
19 May 2012 at 10:06pm
ATHENS (Reuters) - A flurry of polls on Saturday showed the race to lead Greece has tightened into a dead heat ahead of an election next month that could determine whether it remains in the euro. Greece was forced to call the new vote for June 17 after an election on May 6 left parliament divided evenly between groups of parties that support and oppose austerity conditions attached to a 130 billion euro rescue agreed with lenders in March. ...
Blind Chinese activist to complete US odyssey
19 May 2012 at 10:03pm
Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng flew to New York Saturday to begin a new life in the United States, drawing a line under a month-long saga that tested relations between the world superpowers.
Italy in shock after school bomb blast kills teenager
19 May 2012 at 9:06pm
Italy was in shock on Saturday after an unexplained bombing at a school killed a 16-year-old girl and left five other teens gravely injured, sparking emotional protests across the country.
The latest stories from the Home section of the BBC News web site.
G8 backs Greek euro membership
19 May 2012 at 10:18pm
The leaders of the G8 group of major economies say they want Greece to remain in the eurozone, and commit to promoting growth.
Thousands greet Olympic torch
19 May 2012 at 9:51pm
About 100,000 people thronged the streets to see the first day of the torch relay.
Chelsea 1-1 Bayern Munich (aet, 4-3 pens)
19 May 2012 at 10:32pm
Chelsea achieve a dramatic Champions League final victory over Bayern Munich following a penalty shoot-out at the home of the German side.
Missing fishermen search halted
19 May 2012 at 3:33pm
The search ends for two fishermen missing off the Dorset coast, after a life-raft was found on-board the wreck of their boat.
China activist Chen lands in US
19 May 2012 at 11:33pm
Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng lands at Newark airport near New York, after his escape to the US embassy in Beijing sparked a diplomatic crisis.
School bomb kills girl in Italy
19 May 2012 at 6:54pm
A bomb outside a school in the southern Italian city of Brindisi kills a teenage girl and injures five other people as children gather for classes.
Armed forces in Jubilee parade
19 May 2012 at 7:05pm
Thousands of members of the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force have taken part in a parade and flypast for the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
Duffy relatives on terror charges
19 May 2012 at 11:26am
Three relatives of prominent Lurgan dissident republican Colin Duffy appear in court in Lisburn charged with terrorism offences.
China tunnel explosion 'kills 20'
19 May 2012 at 1:44pm
An explosion in a road tunnel being constructed in central China's Hunan province kills at least 20 people, state media say.
Two further arrests over grooming
19 May 2012 at 11:41am
Two men from Rochdale are arrested in connection with an ongoing investigation into grooming and child sexual exploitation in the town.
