Labour were the party with most to be happy about after the 13 Norwich by-elections (or delayed elections) that took place yesterday.

The Lib Dems lost one of their two seats to Labour, with the Conservatives losing both of theirs. The Greens, who had hoped for a breakthrough, held five seats but failed to make any gains.

The Lib Dems held Eaton ward with an increased share of the vote.

Compared to the last time the seats were fought in 2008:

Labour finished up three on seven seats
The Greens won five seats, the same as in 2008
The Lib Dems were down one on one seat
The Conservatives didn't win any seats, compared to two in 2008

If my sums are right, that means the new makeup of Norwich City Council is:

Labour: 16
Green: 14
Lib Dem: 5
Conservative: 4

A new medical study has said that the NHS could save millions of pounds a year by offering more weight-loss surgery for obese patients.

About one million people in England meet recommended criteria for so-called bariatric surgery, but only 3,600 NHS weight-loss operations were carried out last year.

Obesity and related medical conditions directly cost the NHS £4.3 billion a year, while the impact on the wider economy runs into millions.

The Office of Health Economics estimates that £1.3 billion would be saved within three years, if a quarter of those eligible underwent surgery.

Savings of between £35 million and £150 million could also be made in welfare payments as people return to work, according to the study, titled "Shedding The Pounds".

John Black, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, which commissioned the report along with the National Obesity Forum, described the figures as "simply staggering".

"The NHS cannot afford to ignore the mounting evidence that shows that bariatric surgery, for those patients where all other treatments have failed, is not only proven to be successful but also hugely cost effective," he said.

The report was funded by health firms Allergan and Covidien, which make medical equipment used in weight-loss surgery.

Almost a quarter of adults in England were obese in 2008 - a figure expected to double by 2050.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) says people with a body mass index (BMI) of more than 40 - or between 35 and 40 if they also have a condition such as diabetes or high blood pressure - are eligible for surgery.

Liberal Democrat Health Minister Paul Burstow said:

"Our ambition is to encourage healthier lifestyles and reduce the need for this type of treatment."

"As part of the Change4Life movement, we are encouraging people to make simple changes, such as eating more fruit and veg, cutting down on fatty foods and being more active.

"Our public health white paper later this year will set out plans to help people lead healthier lifestyles in more detail.

"Whether to prescribe drugs or recommend surgery is rightly a clinical decision. Independent guidance on obesity from Nice recommends that drugs and surgery should always be a last resort - a better diet and more exercise should be tried first.

"It is up to individual trusts to commission a range of services to meet their local community's needs."

On September 16 the Public Health department, while working with partner organisations, have organised an 'Intergenerational Day' at the Thrunscoe centre, Cleethorpes.

On September 16 the Public Health department, while working with partner organisations, have organised an 'Intergenerational Day' at the Thrunscoe centre, Cleethorpes.

The event will promote the ways that people can volunteer to work with other members of their community. In particular, the team hope to inspire people of different ages to share ideas, learn from and support each other.

There are a number of ways that people of different ages can volunteer to help. Some examples of the activities available include; supporting growing clubs and cookery groups, visiting schools to read to children or helping out on school trips.

Volunteering for such projects can help people to gain valuable experience. They also provide a fantastic way to be social and improve your physical and mental health.

By working together different generations can have a positive impact on their communities. Intergenerational working builds stronger, more inclusive communities and such projects help to regenerate older neighbourhoods.

On the day the Specialist Health Promotion Service will be on hand to offer support and advice. They have put together a 'Intergenerational Practice Booklet' that can be picked up for free and offers guidance on setting up projects in your own community.

Councillor Hocknell, the portfolio holder for healthier communities and adult social care, said:
"It's such a simple idea, but it can make such a huge difference. There's a lot to be learnt from those younger and older than us. Volunteering for projects like this, provide a great way to learn while making a real difference to the places you live."

The government has announced three ideas submitted to the Treasury's Spending Challenge crowd-sourcing initiative will be implemented as policy.

read more

Despite its implementation in April, a survey from document management software company Version One has revealed 22% of the country’s IT professionals aren’t aware of the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme.

read more

"The SNP is scaremongering as usual. The Hooper review makes it clear that Royal Mail is in dire straits and we need to sort it out. If we sat back and did nothing, as the SNP would clearly prefer, the vital services Royal Mail provide would disintegrate."  

Commenting on the SNP attack on Business Secretary Vince Cable over the future of the Royal Mail, Liberal Democrat MP Malcolm Bruce said: "The SNP is scaremongering as usual. The Hooper review makes it clear that Royal Mail is in dire straits and we need to sort it out. 

"If we sat back and did nothing, as the SNP would clearly prefer, the vital services Royal Mail provide would disintegrate.

"Our plans offer employees shares in their own company, a stake in the future of Royal Mail, which is a long-held Liberal Democrat policy.

"The SNP is deliberately mixing up steps to rescue Royal Mail with the future of Post Offices. This is unbelievably irresponsible.

"Vince Cable is taking the necessary steps to secure our mail services for the future. There is no programme of closures planned, as under the Labour Government, because we recognise the value of our Post Offices, particularly those in rural and remote areas."

"It contains arguments over numbers, differences of opinion on relevance and political standpoints, and frequent moments when someone erases the whole thing and just writes 'Saddam Hussein was a dickhead.'

"This is historiography. This is what culture actually looks like: a process of argument, of dissenting and accreting opinion, of gradual and not always correct codification."

In 2009/10, we were lucky that, here in Winchester, we had a Mayor who cared passionately about homelessness and raised a large amount to support local homelessness charities.

This is the film that was made to support Dominic's campaign.


[See post to watch Flash video]
To support homeless people in Winchester, you can donate online to Trinity or to the Nightshelter – and both organisations are also always looking for volunteers. Two other organisations are also actively helping homeless people locally: Emmaus and the Winchester branch of the Salvation Army.

If you were watching the first of Daybreak on ITV on Monday, then there's a chance your TV was being powered by wind, or more correctly ‘electricity generated by wind turbines connected to the GB power transmission system' - wind - because at 8.30pm on Monday, September 6, the record for wind powered leccy entering the National Grid was set. We were pretty blown away.

According to the National Grid, the record of 1860MW of electricity was being generated from wind turbines - largely from Scotland - accounting for 4.7 per cent of total generation at the time.

And over the 24 hours for the day between midnight and midnight, wind generated 5 per cent of all electricity - 40.5GWh out of a total 809.5GWh.

Independent windy millers West Coast Power, based in Wales but bothering to get in touch, were chuffed.

Development manager Richard Fearnall said: "This is encouraging news - it puts to bed the myth that wind power is not a vital part of the mix in achieving energy security and meeting our renewable targets.

"Let's hope that the landowners, potential neighbours of new schemes and, in particular, local planning authorities are the ones who are most encouraged by the news and that they will actively help the UK towards our legally-binding 2020 target of generating 15 per cent of our energy from renewable resources, much of which will be wind generated.

"We foresee that wind energy will be increasingly generated from small and medium sized installations after the extra support for this scale of project was introduced through the Feed-in tariff."

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The Dissenter takes an interesting tack of his own, inspired (if that is the right word) by the News Letter's Unionism 2010 series. And in the process he says things that should be of interest to all constitutional camps in Northern Ireland:

...the business sector is as much grounded in a dependency culture as the social sector. Nationalists cannot complain about a significant reduction in Northern Ireland's public sector. If there is to be an all-Islands economy (one of the largest in the world of which we are already an integrated part) then the public sector engagement in the economy has to be reduced to the UK level (even at its current high of 50%) . Perhaps we should aim to be close to Irish Republic's smaller public sector, otherwise a reduction in corporation tax is pointless and should not even be under consideration.

Those who are creating wealth in society must be encouraged at the expense of those who profit from public subsidy. Far from NI Water returning to the Department of Regional Development it must be prepared for the private sector.

It is not necessary for Unionist parties to unite structurally to agree common points on a future for good government.  The Unionist electorate is not a single monolithic body. It does not lack choice in Party, rather in leadership and ideas on moving forward. No matter the number of parties, Unionism is currently failed by a lack of strategic and purposeful leadership.  There would be a collective electorate groan at the thought of the present Unionist leaderships entering more talks on the future of Northern Ireland given their abject failure to date.

What is required to 2021 and beyond is coherent vision and a policy driven agenda that sets out what is necessary for a small, open, free and intelligence-led economy making a positive social, cultural and political contribution within the UK. This, far far more than (and probably in spite of) political manoeuvering or structural machinations, will build and strengthen the Union.

Extract from Greg McLaughlin and Stephen Baker: The Propaganda of Peace: The Role of Media and Culture in the Northern Ireland Peace Process. Bristol: Intellect Books. 2010.

Political opponents Ian Paisley and Martin McGuiness were confirmed as First Minister and Deputy First Minister of a new executive in May 2007, closing yet another chapter in Northern Ireland's troubled history. A dramatic realignment of politics had brought these irreconcilable enemies together and the media played a significant role in persuading the public to accept this startling change.

The Propaganda of Peace places their role in a broad cultural context and examines a range of factual and fictional representations, from journalism and public museum exhibitions to film, television drama and situation comedy. The authors propose a distinctive theoretical and methodological approach to analyzing the role of such representations in communicating what they call 'the propaganda of peace'. They go on to explore whether it simply promotes conflict transformation or if it actually underwrites the abandonment of a politically engaged public sphere at the very moment when debates about neo-liberalism, financial meltdown and social and economic inequality make it most necessary?

The propaganda of peace, as defined and identified in this book, has been reproduced in different media and cultural forms, supported and sponsored by various political, social and cultural agencies. Nevertheless, it has demonstrated a remarkable unity, narrowing the terms of political debate and shrinking the cultural imagination to promote two complimentary narratives about Northern Ireland's bright new future. The first, most explicit and immediate narrative was about the need for an end to violence and the achievement of a political settlement between Catholic and Protestant, nationalist and unionist. The second, implicit and far-reaching narrative was about making Northern Ireland fit for integration into the global capitalist system or, as Tony Blair preferred to call it, the 'civilised world'.

Seen in these terms, Northern Ireland is not only undergoing a peace process aimed at settling its constitutional position. It is potentially undergoing a process of pacification, a denial of politics upon which the free market depends. The construction of a peace process 'consensus' has somehow pre-empted the need or desire to question, re-imagine or propose alternatives at a critical moment in history.

Indeed, in his book, Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism, Eric Hobsbawn considers the prospects for war and peace in the 21st century, pointing out that 'the more rapidly growing inequalities created by uncontrolled free-market globalisation are natural incubators of grievance and instability'. He was writing at a time when the neo-liberal project still seemed unassailable but the credit crunch and the financial meltdown of September 2008 have thrown it into a crisis of legitimacy, giving rise to what Antonio Gramsci called 'a great variety of morbid symptoms'. In the specific context of Northern Ireland, such symptoms include increasing sectarian conflict, social exclusion and poverty.  Journalist, David McKittrick, has reported that a total of 1500 sectarian attacks - an average of four a day - took place in there the space of one year (2007/08). Meanwhile, the number of families evacuated from their homes because of intimidation had also risen in that period. (Independent, 14 September, 2008). Yet these realities were rarely acknowledged in the media and cultural representations we looked at in this book. Instead, the overwhelming emphasis of the propaganda of peace has been a discourse of 'no alternative' – effectively a denial of politics in preference for domesticated consumerism – just at a time when what is really needed, post devolution, is politically engaged public discourse and active citizenship.

The Propaganda of Peace went to press before the recent upsurge of activity in the north by the Real IRA. Yet the public reaction to their shootings and car bombs in some ways underlines one of the key arguments of the book. It is as if the peace process has marked for Northern Ireland a cultural year zero, in which the history and politics of the conflict it apparently resolved has been sucked out of public memory, replaced instead with incomprehension and an inability to look at republican or loyalist dissidence, or indeed any other social, economic or political problem, as a sign that the framework of the political settlement is somewhat shaky, the foundations unsound.

The key themes of the book also resonate internationally.  For example, we show how the British state played a key role in helping transform the image of republicans from pariahs to peacemakers, reversing decades of anti-terrorist propaganda in order to justify face-to-face negotiations with them. It may have to do likewise if it is to negotiate with the Taliban in Afghanistan, an eventuality the state is at last coming to terms with. President Obama's attempt to revive the peace process in the Middle East, between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and Spain's response to the ETA's recently announced ceasefire, will also dictate a radical shift in official positions if they are to bear any palatable fruit. Such contingencies demand that in each case the state provides cues and leads to the mainstream media, helping to transform the atmosphere and create the right mood music.

However, the lesson of the 'propaganda of peace' is that the role of the state and the media in conflict transformation is about more than just contingency. Ideally, in a post conflict society, they need to broaden their conception of peace as more than the mere absence of conflict. They need to play a part in accommodating competing visions of a new and inclusive civil society rather than just settle for a one-dimensional political system and integration into a global economy that has since been so fatally compromised and discredited.

Greg McLaughlin and Stephen Baker are lecturers in media studies at the University of Ulster and fellows of the University's Centre for Media Research.

Unite leader to consult staff across British Airways about co-ordinated response

The Unite trade union has threatened to escalate the cabin crew dispute at British Airways to a company-wide confrontation by consulting 30,000 BA staff over a "co-ordinated response" to allegations of union-busting.

Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of Unite, said he was calling a meeting of shop stewards across the airline to warn staff that BA was determined to reduce Unite's power within the carrier. BA has consistently denied accusations, voiced by Unite and academics, that it is attempting to break trade unionism at a business where Unite has considerable influence by representing around three-quarters of BA's 40,000 staff.

Woodley said the sacking of 13 cabin crew and suspension of more than 60 flight attendants since an industrial row broke out last year indicated a further agenda at the airline.

"I am therefore calling an early meeting of representatives of all Unite BA members to set out the facts of what is happening in the company, in particular what I believe, in the absence of any serious proposals from the company to settle the dispute, is a plan to eliminate Unite from a sizeable part of the company and weakening the position of the union in the remainder, and to discuss the need for a co-ordinated and concerted union response."

Willie Walsh, BA chief executive and a former shop steward at Ireland's Aer Lingus, has rejected Unite's claims as "nonsense".

British Airways and Unite have held a series of meetings this year in a bid to end a dispute that has seen 22 days of walkouts so far. One meeting at the Acas conciliation service was abandoned after it was invaded by members of the Socialist Workers party. The main barrier to a peace agreement, Unite claims, is BA's refusal to fully reinstate staff travel perks that were stripped from the estimated 6,700 cabin crew who took part in industrial action over changes to their working practices.

The consultations with all BA Unite members are not guaranteed to trigger an airline-wide ballot for industrial action, which would take more time to organise than a cabin crew ballot.

Vice-chairman of body representing police officers in England and Wales says 25% cuts will 'devastate' police service

Ask every local authority in England to publish all its spending over £500 in an open format and what do you get? A whole load of PDFs. See our list of the best and the worst
o Get the data

It's an open data revolution. Every one of the 152 local authorities in England has to publish every item of spending over £500 by the end of this year.

The Liberal-Conservative coalition government has been pretty explicit about what it expects. First the prime minister David Cameron wrote a letter to government departments in which he told them he expected to see government to:

ensure that any data published is made available in an open format so that it can be re-used by third parties

In case there's any doubt, that means excel or CSV files. Then Eric Pickles told all local authorities in England (he has no authority over Scotland and Wales) that

"I don't expect everyone to get it right first time, but I do expect everyone to do it"

Councils have until January to comply but in the meantime, a number have already started to release their data. But it's not quite working out.

It should be a fantastic journalistic resource. In theory, councils will publish their data so that we can compare how they spend their money and pick up on the good and bad in public spending.

We wanted to start listing all the councils that have complied so far - and give you the links so you could check for yourself.

And what it shows is a disturbing lack of awareness among councils as to what they're doing. Of the 53 councils (a third of the total) in England who have published so far:

o 39% have published their spending in PDF format only, including East Herts, Broxtowe, Fareham, Hammersmith & Fulham, Hillingdon and Islington
o Some are available in monthly, some are annual and some are quarterly - making it difficult to compare different councils. One, East Herts, publishes them weekly
o 68% of them are Conservative councils
o 27% of them are from London and the South East
o A number of councils have published their data using Spotlight on Spend, a service from Spikes Cavell which was controversial earlier this year because of a perceived lack of openness

The PDF issue is the biggest problem. While PDFs are fine for displaying documents, they are the worst possible format for any kind of analysis - publishing on PDF allows you to appear open without actually being open.

The Department for Communities and Local Government plans to publish full guidelines which will tell councils how to do this in the next few days. "The deadline is not until January," says a spokesman adding that open data formats will be expected. "We want this to be the case for all data."

In the meantime, we will monitor councils right here, adding more as they publish. If you know of any, please let us know in the comment field below. The spreadsheet is attached too, so let us know if you perform any analysis.

o DATA: download the full spreadsheet

o Search the world's government with our gateway

Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group or mail us at datastore@guardian.co.uk

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Move by business secretary Vince Cable to introduce legislation to start the process raises fears the Royal Mail's universal service obligation could be at risk

The government is to start the process of privatising or selling Royal Mail, raising fears that its universal service obligation could be at risk.

Business secretary Vince Cable announced this morning that new legislation will be introduced in the autumn that would inject private investment into the service. This follows the publication of a new report which warned that "urgent action" needed to be taken to protect the Royal Mail from collapse.

Under the government's plans, a slice of the group would also be handed to its workers. Cable confirmed the move after Richard Hooper, former deputy chairman of Ofcom, warned that Royal Mail's financial position has deteriorated since 2008.

Cable said that Royal Mail faced a combination of "potentially lethal challenges", including declining mail volumes and low investment. He added that the Mail was still too inefficient, and was hampered by a "dire pension position", with a deficit estimated at £8bn back in March.

"We are determined to safeguard Royal Mail for the future and help it tackle these challenges," said Cable.

Unions, though, reacted with anger to the plans. Billy Hayes, general secretary of the Communications Workers Union, claimed privatisation would harm customers in rural areas and could even end the universal service obligation - Royal Mail's longstanding promise that letters be delivered daily to virtually any address in the country.

"Privatisation would be devastating for Royal Mail and the whole country's postal services. The universal service has been a key part of the UK post for 170 years but because it isn't the profitable element of mail, the privatisation will put it at risk," Hayes claimed.

Hooper had been asked to assess the situation at the Royal Mail again after producing a report in 2008 that recommended privatisation. His new conclusions, published this morning, paint a grim picture. Hooper said that the decline in the number of letters being sent is greater than forecast in the 2008 report, with worldwide falls in the next five years of up to 40% predicted. Although parcel deliveries will continue to increase as more people shop online, this is not expected to cover the decline on the letters side. Hooper also argued that the pension deficit, at £8bn, was "even more unsustainable" than before.

Hooper said that private sector capital must be introduced into Royal Mail either through a sale to a partner or trade investor, or by a flotation on the stock market. He also recommended that the pension deficit should be taken over by the government.

The previous Labour government had shelved its own plans for partial privatisation of the Post Office in June 2009, following opposition from its own MPs. Lord Mandelson had hoped to sell a 30% stake in the business.

It is not clear how much of the Royal Mail would be sold off under the coalition government's plan. According to one report, as much as 20% could be handed to its employees.

It is known that the Post Office network will be retained in public ownership, due to "its hugely important social and economic role in communities throughout the UK".

The CWU, though, remains opposed to privatisation of the Royal Mail. "We've put in place a detailed and fully funded modernisation programme which is dramatically transforming Royal Mail," said Dave Ward, the union's deputy general secretary. "Why does the government want to threaten the stability and capital of this programme when it's proving a major success?

"We fear the pensions of our members will be at risk under privatisation. Everyone hears about the deficit, but there's over £26bn in assets which belongs to the postmen and women who have paid their contributions every week of their working lives."

The UK is reputedly poor at capitalising on its scientific excellence. Is this due to a lack of vision in the advice given to politicians?

Crises provide opportunities, as every good manager knows.

From my point of view as a particle physicist there is a very dangerous kind of opportunist lurking in and around Whitehall. You don't have to be a genius to realise that if swingeing cuts are made in the science budget, huge damage will be inflicted on the scientific standing and economic future of the UK. But some influential people in the science policy arena see this as an opportunity to remove an annoying anomaly - the UK's leadership in particle physics. In particular they seem to loathe CERN, the world-leading laboratory of which the UK is a founder member.

I'm sorry if this sounds paranoid, but the evidence is they are out to get me.

I don't think this threat comes from politicians and I don't detect a massive change here between Labour and the coalition. David Willetts is on record praising CERN (and Margaret Thatcher's decision to stay in it), and in his speech on Wednesday Dr Vince Cable also highlighted CERN's contribution.

But there is something badly wrong when Sir David King, president of the British Science Association and a former government chief scientific advisor, chooses the day the Large Hadron Collider puts exciting science in the news with a positive story to accuse us of "navel gazing". Or when Lord Browne, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, is asked about priorities and immediately tells the government to cut science, especially maths and physics, and most especially particle physics and CERN. (Even if the authority with which he speaks may be dubious.) And then, seizing the "opportunity" of Cable's speech, the Chemical Engineers wade in. With even a (very old) picture of the science they want to stop.

If this is what they will say in public, I dread to think what they say in their private chats with ministers or civil servants.

In my darker moments I worry that the actual council of STFC (which funds particle physics) is part of the problem. I desperately hope I am wrong, but I would feel a lot better if Philip Greenish, CEO of the RAEng and a member of STFC council, had distanced himself from the ill-informed attack the RAEng made on STFC science. Or failing that, if Professor Michael Sterling, the chair, hadn't backed him up. Do they agree that particle physics, which is in their custody, should be for the chop?

When Professor Bill Wakeham was commissioned to produce a review
of UK physics in light of the dire state of STFC finances many feared he was another who saw the CERN budget as something which would be better spent fighting climate change or subsidising industry (to take the apparent preferred destinations of Sir David and Lord Browne respectively). However, his report triumphantly vindicated STFC science, concluding that particle physics and astronomy were two areas in physics where the UK was genuinely world leading.

The tragedy is that there is such a lost opportunity here. CERN is a target simply because it is large and visible. This high profile should be a huge strength for the whole breadth of science and engineering.

Why could Sir David King not appear on Newsnight and say "Yes, this is brilliant! Look how exciting science is! And we must harness the excitement and the new knowledge it brings to solve some of the problems facing us!"

Why could the RAEng not say "Particle physics is an adventure where exciting engineering is essential, from software and the invention of the world-wide web, through electronics and the invention of touchscreens, to the challenges of large-scale cryogenics. Be an engineer, be at the scientific and technological cutting edge, and be part of the economic recovery."

Do engineers in general agree with what is being said in their name? Lyn Evans and Steve Myers, past and current leaders of the LHC, are UK engineers, for goodness sake! This is a real, classic example of lack of vision in the UK failing to capitalise on real UK excellence.

The science and engineering budget, as far as anyone can tell, makes a big net return to the economy. The whole thing, from medical research to maths, is comparable to the amount lost in unpaid taxes and wrongly paid benefit. These grandees should be out there arguing the relative priority of (for example) climate research in the context of all government spending, not against CERN.

This has been something of a partisan rant, everyone is nervous about the coming cuts. But I don't think it is special pleading, it is an objection to being specially pleaded against. Particle physicists are not generally more expensive than other scientists, we just have fewer, bigger and more visible projects which seem to make irresistible targets for some.

Yesterday I was depressed to hear Dr Vince Cable accepting that big cuts would happen, and repeating tired lines about economic focus. However, he did also talk about backing excellence, and there is clearly still room for some discussion. Given the unquestioned excellence of UK particle physics, (and many other areas of curiousity-led science) perhaps the opportunists should take care.

Everyone in receipt of taxpayers money should have to justify themselves, especially now. We can and do. Particle physics is an essential part of the scientific culture of the UK, and that culture is critical to our future as a nation, and globally as a species.

I hope at least some of the people who have the ear of the government also have the eyes to see.

As taxpayer groups from Britain and elsewhere meet, activism that questions the scope of government is taking global shape

For three days this week the British organisation, TaxPayers' Alliance, led by Matthew Elliott has hosted dozens of the world's leading taxpayer advocacy groups from most of the nations of Europe as well as China, Korea, Japan, Canada and the US. Hour after hour, taxpayer leaders have mounted the podium and held forth on lessons learned from their nations' battles against overtaxation. What has worked? What has failed? What role for the internet, Facebook, and mass rallies?

There has been a great deal of fascination with the Tea Party movement in the US. Will it become a real political party? Will it topple the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives and Senate on election day, 2 November 2010? Why did it start? When will it fizzle out?

As an American living with the creation, growth and power of the Tea Party movement over the past two years I have almost come to take for granted a movement that did not exist before March 2009 - a mere 19 months ago. The Tea Party movement created and announced itself in a series of mass demonstrations in more than 1,000 American cities just before and on 15 April 2009, the day Americans must submit their federal income taxes. Those rallies were repeated on Independence Day, 4 July, and throughout August when congressmen return to their home districts for what are usually small, quiet and boring "town hall meetings" but this time were large, loud and angry mass gatherings of taxpayers. In September of the past two years there were larger rallies of hundreds of thousands of taxpayers in Washington DC.

I have spoken at rallies in Washington, Pittsburgh and North Dakota and have been surprised at the number of newly minted activists who admit they have never attended a rally before in their lives and saw themselves before the explosion of federal spending in 2008 and 2009 as non-political. A Tea Party activist is an American terrified into political action by what they see as an assault on the American economy and ultimately American liberty posed by the massive bailouts, stimulus spending sprees and power grabs by federal bureaucrats over the financial industry, healthcare and the auto industry. Because they see the Democrat party led by Nevada's Senator Harry Reid, San Fransisco Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and President Barack Obama, their political energy is directed to the electoral benefit of the modern Republican party. But that support is not an unquestioning enlistment in the Republican ranks. The first "victims" of Tea Party wrath have been Republican old bulls who have been defeated in Republican primaries by Tea Party-supported (and often Sarah Palin-endorsed) insurgent Republican candidates.

America is used to political movements built up around the interests of unions, gun owners, advocates or opponents of legalised abortion and ethnic minorities. But the Tea Party movement is the first and only movement motivated by and fixated on the central question of the size and scope of government. "It's the spending, stupid" is both a popular bumper sticker and the best summation of what goads Tea Party activists to action.

The Tea Party leadership are new faces. They are still learning how to channel their concerns into political victories. Alexis de Tocqueville would perhaps have argued that this will remain a uniquely American phenomenon. But for three days in London the secrets of the great US tax rebellion are being shared with activists from China and Britain, Korea and Canada - and enough dropped matches just might start something interesting.

Exeter and Norwich council elections represent largest voting test since formation of the coalition in May

Labour today claimed that results in a string of council seats in Exeter and Norwich showed voters were rejecting the coalition's policies on cutting the deficit.

Labour became the largest party on Exeter city council, winning more than half the 13 seats available in last night's by-elections.

The party won two from the Tories and recovered one lost earlier through a defection.

The Tories compensated by winning one seat from the Liberal Democrats and one from the separate Liberal party, but also lost two seats. The Lib Dems, who had controlled the council, lost one of the three seats they were defending.

Councillors in Exeter and Norwich were forced to seek re-election after a court ruling rejecting plans for new all-purpose authorities. The contests represented the largest voting test since the formation of the coalition government in May.

A move by the previous government to grant unitary status, which would have extended until 2011 terms due to expire in May this year, was quashed by the high court in July. One of the Exeter contests was for an additional by-election after a resignation.

Tories, Liberal Democrats and the Green party fought all 13 seats at Exeter and Labour fought 12. Ukip had 10 candidates and the Liberal party and BNP had one each.

The Labour MP for Exeter, Ben Bradshaw, said: "This is a fantastic result for Labour and a fantastic result for Exeter.

"People here have voted for a progressive party dedicated to supporting the recovery, and have rejected the coalition's irresponsible plans that will hit the poorest hardest and risk jobs and economic growth in Exeter."

In Norwich, Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems and Greens contested all 13 seats and Ukip fought five.

In an early blow for Liberal Democrats at the Norwich count, they lost at Thorpe Hamlet to the Green party. This ward is in the Norwich South constituency where Lib Dems ousted Labour's former home secretary Charles Clarke in May's general election.

But despite its one gain from Lib Dems, the Greens failed in their bid to become the largest party in a town hall for the first time, a disappointing result ahead of the first day of their party conference.

They had hoped to gain from Lib Dem voters disillusioned with their party's decision to join the Conservatives in a coalition.

A Press Association analysis of votes cast in wards covering 94% of Norwich South had put the Green party narrowly ahead of Labour with Lib Dems trailing in third place.

Cllr Steve Morphew, Labour leader of Norwich city council, said: "It is clear that the people of Norwich have lost faith in the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. The coalition can take no comfort from these results.

"Our gain in Norwich shows it is Labour that local voters trust to stand up for them. We will continue to listen to their concerns and continue to work for the people of Norwich."

One of the more unpleasant aspects of the New Labour government was its anti-Hayekian pretence that central government could acquire knowledge which, in fact, is unobtainable. The coalition has inherited this boneheaded idea.

Take Vince Cable's recent speech:

There is no justification for taxpayers money being used to support research which is neither commercially useful nor theoretically outstanding.

The problem here is that it is impossible to predict what research will be commercially useful.

History is full of examples of businessmen and scientists – let alone politicians – utterly failing to anticipate commercial uses, for example:

"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable"
"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value."
"Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax."
"While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility."
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."

The notion that government can cut only "useless" science funding is an egregious pretence to know things that cannot be known. Instead, such cuts operate much as financial constraints for business operate: they diminish the ecology upon which natural selection operates.

The only reason I hesitate to call Cable a witless imbecile is that I doubt that he actually believes what he says.

Speaking of witless imbeciles brings me seamlessly to Gideon Osborne. He says:

People who are disabled, people who are vulnerable, people who need protection will get our protection, and more.

"But people who think it's a lifestyle choice to just sit on out-of-work benefits – that lifestyle choice is going to come to an end.

Now, leave aside the hypocrisy of the heir to a multi-million fortune whining about folk getting something for nothing.

Leave aside the fact that there's little point encouraging people to find work if there's none to be had. And leave aside the fact that the unemployed are, on average, significantly unhappier than those in work.

Even if we ignore all this, there's still a problem here. It is, practically speaking, almost impossible for the state to distinguish between the "vulnerable" and the "workshy". A more intrusive benefits system will bear heavily upon those with poor mental health, low IQ and poor social skills, whilst "scroungers" will continue to game the system. 

The distinction between deserving and undeserving poor might seem clear to bar-room bigots. But it is almost impossible to apply it to millions of individual people, except by creating a bureaucracy so large as to offset any savings on benefits.

Osborne is doing just what Cable and New Labour did. He's assuming the state can know things which in fact it cannot.

Good Hayekians should be sceptical of what Osborne and Cable are claiming. Sadly, though, I suspect that  the majority of people who claim to admire Hayek are wedded more to class war than to Hayek's actual ideas.

London's Mayor Boris Johnson today announced that he would stand again as the Conservative candidate in 2012.

He will be endorsed officially by the Conservatives next month.

With a well-timed leak to ConservativeHome today, Boris' team let it be known that internal polling shows he has a 55% approval rating.

Paul Waugh at the Evening Standard however publishes a graph that shows Boris Johnson's net approval at around 40%.

But it's not clear where those figures are from.

The GLA does do an annual survey of London opinion. This is published in the public domain and shows things aren't as rosy for the Mayor as ConservativeHome would like to believe.

The last survey (via Adam Bienkov) shows that satisfaction with Boris Johnson's record was actually only 26%.

And this is perhaps more worrying for Boris.

In other words – not all is well in Boris world despite what you read on ConservativeHome.

Dumped and fly tipped rubbish litters the ground beneath electricity pylons passing the Ffos-Y-Fran opencast coal mine on November 17, 2009 in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Fly-tipping has declined in England in the past year, according to new government figures (pdf) which suggest that tougher action by local authorities against perpetrators is paying off. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has revealed that the number of incidents of illegally dumped waste in England fell by nearly one-fifth (18.7%) to 947,000, following a 9% decrease the previous year. In total, there were 2,460 prosecution actions carried out in 2009-10, of which 97% achieved a successful outcome such as a fine.

The figures are the latest from Flycapture - the national database of fly-tipping incidents and enforcement action which was set up by Defra, the Environment Agency and the Local Government Association to record the volume of incidents and cost of illegally dumped waste dealt with by local authorities. Environment minister Lord Henley said: "We're encouraged by the efforts being made by local authorities to tackle fly-tipping but there is no room for complacency. A total of nearly 947,000 incidents is unacceptable by any standards and fly-tipping is clearly still a significant problem. We must all work together to stamp out this continuing blight on our neighbourhoods."

Of the other findings, nearly half (49%) of all fly-tips cleared by local authorities took place on public roads and highways - a 21% reduction on the previous year. And one-third (33%) occurred on council land and footpaths and bridleways - a 20% reduction on the previous year.

Individuals appear to be responsible for much of the illegal tipping, with 58% of all rubbish cleared recorded as being the size of a car boot-load or a small van. And 63% of fly-tips dealt with by local authorities involved household waste including food. The estimated cost of clearance of illegally dumped waste reported by local authorities in this period was £45.8m - a reduction of £9.2m compared to 2008-09.

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/10/fly-tipping-england

• The overall number of households containing at least one person aged 16 to 64 with no one in work in April to June 2010 was 3.9 million, up 148,000 households from a year earlier. Of these households, over three-quarters, or 3.0 million, were workless because all individuals within them were inactive, which means they were either not looking for work or were notavailable for it.
• Of the 11.5 million children aged 0 to 15 in households, 1.9 million (16.1 per cent) live in workless households, with most of these in lone parent households. For lone parent households with dependent children, 39.7 per cent are workless compared with 5.4 per cent of couple households with dependent children.
• The number and percentage of children in workless households has fallen from a year earlier, as nearly all of the increase in workless households has been in one-person households, up 162,000, to 1.5 million.
• The number of people aged 16 to 64 living in workless households was 5.4 million, up 26,000 from a year earlier, representing 13.5 per cent of all people aged 16 to 64.

As Liberal Democrats we are unique in our commitment to personal freedom. Our battles for liberty have gone hand in hand with a dedication to social progress. We want freedom but not a society that walks on by.

Getting this balance right is a central part of our party's policy consultation recently launched by Health Minister Paul Burstow.

It asks whether tobacco should be one of the main areas of focus for public health. The answer to this was given very clearly in the inquiry by the All Party Parliamentary Group for Smoking and Health, which I chair.

We heard evidence that smoking still kills over 100,000 people a year in the UK with the tobacco industry recruiting the vast majority of new smokers in their teens. It is an addiction that most smokers bitterly regret, which is not surprising when half of long-term smokers will be killed by tobacco.

Widespread addiction to tobacco can hardly be said to be part of a society of strong, autonomous individuals. And we should ask ourselves, setting aside the cost smoking imposes on society, when two out of three smokers say they want to quit, is there not a duty to do all we can to help them make that choice stick?

A liberal approach to smoking is not to ban tobacco but to make sure people are not harmed by the smoking of others. It was for these reasons that Liberal Democrats played a big part in helping to end smoking in enclosed public spaces. We should also help individuals when they want to give up, which is why it is vital that the NHS's successful and highly cost-effective stop smoking services should be maintained.

We need to create an environment where fewer and fewer young people start smoking. The Coalition is now considering whether to implement legislation to strengthen the advertising ban by putting tobacco products out of sight in shops, where brightly lit 'powerwalls' of cigarette brands act like adverts for cigarettes.

The more children are aware of tobacco displays in shops the more likely they are to want to experiment with smoking. The evidence from places like Ireland that have taken this step is the benefits are very worthwhile while costs for retailers are not excessive.

Groups involved in the sale and manufacture of tobacco products are lobbying hard against these measures. But just as we had confidence in our convictions with the smoking ban we should be firm now and remove the tobacco powerwalls.

Having a healthy start in life is one of the foundations from which an individual can flourish. Young people should have the freedom to have a smokefree life.

It was very disappointing to read today's comments by Tony Lloyd MP about the future of the Fire Service in Greater Manchester.

It is self-evident that Mr Lloyd fancied a cheap and easy dose of publicity rather than making any meaningful contribution to the debate on how the Fire Service adapts to meet present and future challenges. It is very sad that once again a Labour politician, in the absence of anything constructive to say, resorts to ignorant and irresponsible scaremongering at the behest of his Union paymasters.

Clearly there are big challenges facing the Fire Service, especially as we face a financial climate shaped by Labour's catastrophic economic legacy, but we will always put the safety of the people of Greater Manchester first, and the direction of travel for GMFRS – which Tony Lloyd seeks to criticise – has been endorsed unanimously by the Fire Authority, including the 14 Labour members.

As an experienced MP, Tony Lloyd should know much better than to deliberately try to frighten people regardless of the facts.

In the wake of the move away from a national to more localised healthcare ICT, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust has gone to market to source a new care records system and e-prescriptions system.

read more

The NHS could save millions of pounds a year by offering more weight-loss surgery for obese patients, a medical study released this week said.

Around a million people in England meet recommended criteria for so-called bariatric surgery, but only 3,600 NHS weight-loss operations were carried out last year.

Obesity and related medical conditions directly cost the NHS 4.3 billion pounds a year, while the impact on the wider economy runs into millions.

The Office of Health Economics estimates that 1.3 billion pounds would be saved within three years, if a quarter of those eligible underwent surgery.

Savings of between 35 million and 150 million pounds could also be made in welfare payments as people return to work, the study, titled "Shedding The Pounds", said.

John Black, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, which commissioned the report along with the National Obesity Forum, described the figures as "simply staggering".

"The NHS cannot afford to ignore the mounting evidence that shows that bariatric surgery, for those patients where all other treatments have failed, is not only proven to be successful but also hugely cost effective," he said.

The report was funded by health firms Allergan and Covidien, which make medical equipment used in weight-loss surgery.

Almost a quarter of adults in

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) says people with a body mass index (BMI) of more than 40 - or between 35 and 40 if they also have a condition such as diabetes or high blood pressure - are eligible for surgery.

Liberal Democrat Health Minister Paul Burstow said: "Our ambition is to encourage healthier lifestyles and reduce the need for this type of treatment."

"As part of the Change4Life movement, we are encouraging people to make simple changes, such as eating more fruit and veg, cutting down on fatty foods and being more active.

"Our public health white paper later this year will set out plans to help people lead healthier lifestyles in more detail.

"Whether to prescribe drugs or recommend surgery is rightly a clinical decision. Independent guidance on obesity from Nice recommends that drugs and surgery should always be a last resort - a better diet and more exercise should be tried first.

"It is up to individual trusts to commission a range of services to meet their local community's needs."

On September 16 the Public Health department, while working with partner organisations, have organised an ‘Intergenerational Day' at the Thrunscoe centre, Cleethorpes.

On September 16 the Public Health department, while working with partner organisations, have organised an ‘Intergenerational Day' at the Thrunscoe centre, Cleethorpes.

The event will promote the ways that people can volunteer to work with other members of their community. In particular, the team hope to inspire people of different ages to share ideas, learn from and support each other.

There are a number of ways that people of different ages can volunteer to help. Some examples of the activities available include; supporting growing clubs and cookery groups, visiting schools to read to children or helping out on school trips.

Volunteering for such projects can help people to gain valuable experience. They also provide a fantastic way to be social and improve your physical and mental health.

By working together different generations can have a positive impact on their communities. Intergenerational working builds stronger, more inclusive communities and such projects help to regenerate older neighbourhoods.

On the day the Specialist Health Promotion Service will be on hand to offer support and advice. They have put together a ‘Intergenerational Practice Booklet' that can be picked up for free and offers guidance on setting up projects in your own community.

Councillor Hocknell, the portfolio holder for healthier communities and adult social care, said: "It's such a simple idea, but it can make such a huge difference. There's a lot to be learnt from those younger and older than us. Volunteering for projects like this, provide a great way to learn while making a real difference to the places you live."

With the inclusion of a submission to the PAC from Contracting Out, the NI Audit Office team will almost certainly spotlight NI Water's customer service and IT contract with Steria Ltd.

Not least since this is the only part of the initial controversy that substantially touches on the value for money issue.

For all the accusations flowing in the direction of the sacked NEDs, it is important to note that Mr MacKenzie was given a detailed briefing on his arrival in post by previous acting CEO and then Chair Chris Mellor on a number of failures and over payments the company's commercial review team believed they had identified in this Contract.

Mellor also informed him of a court action, NI Water vs Steria, that had recently been initiated through the Court of Chancery (Case 09/069974). However, once Laurence McKenzie took over the reins of the company he abandoned this aggressive tack. As a result, this action was dropped.

Now, Steria is suing NI Water for monies which Steria alleges were improperly withheld from it under a separate action in the Queens Bench (Case 09/102351). This case is subject to the laws of sub judice, so that the issues directly at play there cannot be discussed.

Further, Mackenzie thereafter retrenched the Commercial Director, David Gilmour, who had been leading a wider investigation into procurement issues (and had in the process exceeded a DRD-set savings target of £15.3 million by £10 million), out of the business.

He also then dispersed Gilmour's investigation team (led by Contracting Out) who had been conducting a commercial review of the Steria Contract.

Now, whilst it may not affect the final outcome, defending the Steria action, as opposed to leading an NI Water action, may have the rather convenient effect of narrowing the amount of detailed information that is likely to come to light. Perhaps this was the intention?

But the Public Accounts Committee and the NI Audit Office's investigative team should look for a great deal more contextual information from the papers lodged with the court in respect of the first, now completed, action begun in June 2009.

Our current understanding is that these can be got hold of by those with a sufficient interest (fee of £150) through application to the Judge Master.

Now there's an interesting twist in this constantly twisting tale. In the course of our research, we discovered that the Managing Director for Steria Ltd with NI Water was a local boy called Paul Wickens (LinkedIn profile here).

By January 2009, NI Water was informed that Mr Wickens was no longer with Steria Ltd. And by August 2009 (around the same time MacKenzie started at NI Water) he took up a post as under Secretary at DFP.

Steria's action against Northern Ireland Water began on September 18th 2009. Intriguingly, the company's writ lists a ‘P Wickens' as the contact for Steria.

Now, let me be clear. I am not suggesting for a moment there is a causal link here (and nor should anyone else). But I think we should be told exactly what was going on...

The BBC reports the European Court of Human Rights ruling against the Irish government in the case taken by Maze escapee Brendan ‘Bik' McFarlane following the collapse of his trial on charges relating to the kidnap of Don Tidey in 1983.

The iol report notes part of the ruling

The Court ruled in favour of the former IRA commander in the Maze and found the 10-and-a-half-year wait from his arrest in 1998 until he walked free was excessive.

The ECHR ordered the Irish state to pay McFarlane EUR5,500 damages and EUR10,000 costs and expenses.

The west Belfast republican's appeal centred on four grounds - that authorities delayed bringing criminal proceedings and because of this key prosecution evidence was lost and there was a lack of evidence other than questionable police interviews.

McFarlane also claimed his arrest and detention was a deliberate and disproportionate interference with his private and family life and that there was no effective remedy under Irish law for his grievances.

The Court found: "While the conduct of the applicant had contributed somewhat to the delay, it did not explain the overall length of the proceedings against him."

It added: "The Court concluded that the overall length of the criminal proceedings against the applicant were excessive."

In a 60-page judgment, the Strasbourg court also ruled there was no suitable legal avenue in Ireland for McFarlane to deal with his grievances.

The court dismissed McFarlane's claims there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute, noting that he had already secured an acquittal and also rejected claims his private life had been damaged, ruling that the complaint was out of time.

As I mentioned in March

Concerns about The Process(TM) [were] unlikely to be considered a valid defence...

Shadow International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander MP, has reminded people to remember those suffering in humanitarian crises in Pakistan and Niger at the same time as Muslims across Britain and the world celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr and the end of Ramadan.

He said:

“Eid is a very special time for Muslims across the UK, and all over the world – but as well as being a time for celebration, Eid is also a time for thoughtfulness, prayer and generosity.

“In common with Muslims across Britain, the situation of those suffering in places like Pakistan and Niger are foremost in many people’s minds.

“I am proud that once again the British people, including the Muslim community, have shown great thoughtfulness and generosity in responding to the humanitarian disaster in Pakistan – with over £47 million raised for the Disasters Emergency Committee Appeal.

“At the same time, millions continue to be affected by a double disaster of a food crisis and flooding in the Sahel – in particular in Niger. They are also in need of our support.

“I would urge Muslims and non-Muslims alike, if they haven’t already donated - to consider supporting the appeals for Pakistan and Niger at this special time.

“Eid Mubarak.”

You can donate to the DEC appeal for Pakistan by visiting www.dec.org.uk
 
Agencies like www.oxfam.org.uk are running individual appeals for Niger. A full listing is also available at www.dec.org.uk.

Jonathan Djanogly paid investigators to find out who was behind 'malicious allegations' made about his expenses claims

Downing Street today backed justice minister Jonathan Djanogly after it emerged he had hired a firm of private detectives to investigate his aides and colleagues.

The prime minister's spokesman conceded that the Tory MP may have "overreacted" after rumours appeared about him in the press, but said he still had David Cameron's "full confidence".

Djanogly was forced to defend his actions after the Daily Telegraph obtained a copy of the report by the private investigators, Morris Chase International.

It showed that last year the then-shadow solicitor general had instructed the firm to conduct "discreet inquiries under the pretext of writing a newspaper article" to establish the views of people including a former council leader.

The company said all the information was obtained legally and the Huntingdon MP insisted he would "never have contemplated condoning anything unlawful or dishonest".

But one of those targeted, Tory ex-leader of Huntingdon council Derek Holley, called on Djanogly to "consider his position" in government.

"Quite frankly I was just appalled by it all," Holley told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "I have been in local politics and associated with national politics for 34 years, and I have never, ever experienced anything like this in the whole of that time."

In a statement, Djanogly said: "Following a series of malicious allegations made against me in newspapers last year, I felt I had to act to find out who was spreading these untrue stories.

"I instructed a firm of private investigators to try to find out the source of these stories because I was extremely upset that my private family life had been invaded.

"A report of their investigation was prepared and sent to me on a confidential basis and I am very disappointed to see the report released publicly without my consent.

"I would never have contemplated condoning anything unlawful or dishonest in the investigations, and the investigators have assured me that their inquiries were carried out in an entirely lawful manner.

"I am sorry if some people judge that I made a mistake. With hindsight I can see that I may have overreacted, but I was being subjected to very malicious, anonymous attacks on my family.

"I paid for the cost of the investigation myself and did not claim it back on parliamentary expenses."

Asked this morning if Cameron had full confidence in Djanogly, the prime minister's spokesman replied: "Yes."

"The PM will judge him on his performance as a minister," the spokesman said. "He has said himself that with hindsight he may have overreacted."

Michael Morris, a director of the firm, told the Telegraph: "All the information obtained for and reported to Mr Djanogly was developed legally. The use of pretext is legal as long as the requirements and principles of the Data Protection Act are adhered to."

The newspaper said the report cost Djanogly, who is a solicitor and reputedly one of the richest members of the Commons, more than £5,000.

It reportedly showed that election agent Sir Peter Brown resigned over the expenses scandal and not, as suggested at the time, ill health.

Another senior Tory is said to have told the undercover investigator: "Sir Peter was very upset and unhappy about being lied to. He knew Jonathan's cleaner was his au pair. We all knew her because she used to hand out drinks at constituency social events."

The report also contained information about an alleged "conspiracy" to undermine the MP.

"There does not appear to be any current activity among the conspirators to revive the expenses allegations," it concluded. "This is because they do not have the time or resources to conduct investigations to trace the au pairs.

"All four sources say that you have been damaged severely politically. Brown said, 'Jonathan has lived to die another day'."

News of Djanogly's actions emerged just hours after the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, had condemned Labour's habit of chopping and changing its ministerial team.

In a speech, Clegg accused the previous government of being driven by headlines, and added: "This government recognises that constant reshuffling of the ministerial deck ... is not conducive to good government, and that we will aspire to greater stability in the way ministers are allowed to govern."

Tony Blair's science minister was impressed with the business secretary's speech, but laid on the pressure ahead of cuts

Lord Sainsbury, the former science minister to Tony Blair's government, shared his thoughts on Vince Cable's science speech yesterday. No one asked him to do this, though of course they should. He was giving a press conference on another matter entirely. "If no one's going to ask me about Vince Cable's speech, I'm going to tell you," he announced. "I've thought about it."

Sainsbury was impressed and even optimistic. He dismissed the much-covered reaction against it as unjustified. Cable was "exactly on the right lines", he said, and gets that "if we're going to get economic growth...we are going to have to do it through science."

The praise will come as welcome relief for Cable. His speech and latter comments on the future of research in this country drew the ire of academics who are understandably nervous and fear bad times ahead for British science. But Sainsbury was playing an interesting game. His praise puts the pressure on.

What followed was Lord Sainsbury's guide to UK economic salvation: "France, Germany and the US are all putting more money into science. And Germany has to be the most fiscally prudent country in the world. Why are they doing that? It's not just for the love of science. They see absolutely that it is critical for economic growth."

No need to read between the lines here: countries make money by investing in science, not taking funds away from it. Sadly, investing is not an option that appears to be on the table in Britain. Research councils have been asked to draw up plans for cuts of 20%, 10% or flat cash in the months and years ahead. The uncertainty is in the magnitude of the cuts and precisely where they will fall.

When Sainsbury went on, it was in the spirit that if you praise someone enough for what they say will do, they are in for a hard time if they fail to deliver. "It's only when we see what comes out of the spending review that we'll know whether [Cable] has managed to persuade the Treasury of the importance of science and innovation for the future of this country and economic growth."

And then there was: "If this is all a subtext for warming people up for major cuts, then people should be very worried. I hope he can do better than that, and that is what I'll judge him by."

Grim scenarios might well lie ahead if science cuts are deep, Sainsbury said. His concern is that within a year, if there are no signs of economic growth, government will scratch around for programmes specifically designed to boost the economy. "But this will be after we have just cut off one of the most important ways of getting economic growth in the future."

As for the tough decisions to be made over what research is spared and what projects are axed, Sainsbury's answer is to focus research in fewer universities, instead of spreading it quite so wide. Surely what is needed are high precision cuts. Top ranking universities have mediocre research projects and vice versa.

Will British science survive what is coming in next month's spending review? "I don't think there is any activity, certainly no government activity, where you can't find seven percent waste," said Sainsbury. "But if you go beyond that, you begin to make the impact of science much less."

Throughout, Sainsbury repeated a message to scientists: they must keep on telling government that when the country is desperate for growth, the only way to get it is through science and innovation. "The science community must go on and on making this case and we need British industry to say look, this is where our future lies." This was Sainsbury leading by example, from start to finish.

As taxpayer groups from across the world unite, governments must realise that unchecked spending cannot continue

For three days this week the British organisation, TaxPayers' Alliance, led by Matthew Elliott has hosted dozens of the world's leading taxpayer advocacy groups from most of the nations of Europe as well as China, Korea, Japan, Canada and the US. Hour after hour, taxpayer leaders have mounted the podium and held forth on lessons learned from their nations' battles against overtaxation. What has worked? What has failed? What role for the internet, Facebook, and mass rallies?

There has been a great deal of fascination with the Tea Party movement in the US. Will it become a real political party? Will it topple the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives and Senate on election day, 2 November 2010? Why did it start? When will it fizzle out?

As an American living with the creation, growth and power of the Tea Party movement over the past two years I have almost come to take for granted a movement that did not exist before March 2009 - a mere 19 months ago. The Tea Party movement created and announced itself in a series of mass demonstrations in more than 1,000 American cities just before and on 15 April 2009, the day Americans must submit their federal income taxes. Those rallies were repeated on Independence Day, 4 July, and throughout August when congressmen return to their home districts for what are usually small, quiet and boring "town hall meetings" but this time were large, loud and angry mass gatherings of taxpayers. In September of the past two years there were larger rallies of hundreds of thousands of taxpayers in Washington DC.

I have spoken at rallies in Washington, Pittsburgh and North Dakota and have been surprised at the number of newly minted activists who admit they have never attended a rally before in their lives and saw themselves before the explosion of federal spending in 2008 and 2009 as non-political. A tea party activist is an American terrified into political action by what they see as an assault on the American economy and ultimately American liberty posed by the massive bailouts, stimulus spending sprees and power grabs by federal bureaucrats over the financial industry, healthcare and the auto industry. Because they see the Democrat party led by Nevada's Senator Harry Reid, San Fransisco Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and president Barack Obama, their political energy is directed to the electoral benefit of the modern Republican party. But that support is not an unquestioning enlistment in the Republican ranks. The first "victims" of Tea Party wrath have been Republican old bulls who have been defeated in Republican primaries by Tea Party-supported (and often Sarah Palin-endorsed) insurgent Republican candidates.

America is used to political movements built up around the interests of unions, gun owners, advocates or opponents of legalised abortion and ethnic minorities. But the tea party movement is the first and only movement motivated by and fixated on the central question of the size and scope of government. "It's the spending, stupid" is both a popular bumper sticker and the best summation of what goads tea party activists to action.

The tea party leadership are new faces. They are still learning how to channel their concerns into political victories. Alexis deTocqueville might argue that this will remain a uniquely American phenomenon. But for three days in London the secrets of the great US tax rebellion are being shared with activists from China and Britain, Korea and Canada - and enough dropped matches just might start something interesting.

The whole affair reveals that despite the prince's intentions he and his moneymen have made mistakes

Have you been following the saga of Prince Charles's latest foray into the murky world of property dealing? No, he hasn't been arm-twisting again to persuade the Qataris not to redevelop Chelsea Barracks along modernist lines. This time he appears in a more heroic light, though even more reckless.

As the Guardian reported yesterday, in 2007 the prince borrowed £20m to help secure the £40m purchase for the nation of Dumfries House, an 18th century Palladian mansion in Ayrshire, stuffed full of original Rococo furniture.

It's the sort of collection which makes many people go weak at the knees, especially when they remember past disasters such as Mentmore, Bucks which a hard-strapped Labour government allowed to be dispersed - instead of bought for a song - in the 70s, or more recently the similar fate which befell Pitchford hall in Shropshire.

At the time the Guardian's reporting glowed with approval especially when outsiders later got a sniff of what was inside the house.

Unfortunately, the prince and his advisers, notably clever, canny, Sir Michael Peat (the P in KPMG, the global accountancy giant), got their sums wrong, borrowing money when there was plenty still around weeks before the start of the global banking crisis which would also bring down the property market.

They weren't alone in making that mistake.

But the sums were bigger. Dumfries House is now open to the public in all its glory. But Prince Charles's network of charities are mired in the debt overhang which threatens his role as a leading charitable entrepreneur, the man who tries to fund a network of philanthropic causes via a string of businesses, of which those Duchy Original biscuits - have I ever bought any, I don't think so - is the most famous.

In fact Duchy Original, which did once make money, misjudged its market ambitions and had to be rescued by Waitrose which is busy rebuilding the brand. According to what looks like pretty solid work by today's Times - behind the paywall - it's not his only well-meant business which is now a drain on the resources of the prince's charity foundation instead of being a revenue stream.

We're talking big money here. The prince raises £100m a year for charity. He's a big draw to wealthy people, as we can all imagine, if you like that sort of thing. But the Dumfries drain is - so it's claimed - putting a lot at risk.

Oh dear. I've sometimes been a bit hard on Charlie Windsor, a sort of kilted Gordon Brown , but I feel a bit sorry for him on this one. Someone told him - like you do - at a Windsor Castle dinner that the big London auction rooms were poised to send their furniture vans north to collect the loot and he said he'd do his best to stop it.

That seems fine. Lots of money had already been raised from charities and public art funds to meet the owner's demands - £40m, all but £6m or so the estimated auction value of the collection, furniture, pictures and the rest, in these strange times when rich people are seeking diverse ways to shelter their money.

It wasn't enough and when push came to shove CW borrowed £20m - like you do - guaranteed against future planning gain on nearby farmland which he also bought to create another model village, a McPoundbury, but ultimately against his own considerable credit.

Planning gain? Yes. South Ayrshire is a depressed area and the local authority is trying to revive it. Dumfries House as a major attraction fits the bill, but the house's owner - the still-very-wealthy Marquis of Bute - had tried and failed to get permission to develop 70 waterlogged acres between Cumnock and Auchinleck.

That's the thing about royalty. It can still open doors, in Ayrshire as well as Qatar. Charlie's man, Peat and his team opened doors and got consents which raised the land's value from the £268,000 purchasing price to an estimated £14.8m. That valuation underpinned the loan.

But property prices dived in Ayrshire as elsewhere. By 2009 the land was worth £8.7m. Charles refinanced the loan at Coutts bank - natch - at 2% above the rates banks lend to each other. And there the matter stands with optimists saying all will come good in the long term - as it did at Poundbury, the publess model village in Dorset which critics still find spooky.

No Murdoch journalist ever got into trouble with the boss for being too critical of either the BBC or the royal family. But the Times reporting looks OK, if a little alarmist. The Windsors overdrafts are backed by some pretty solid assets.

Two questions arise from the saga. Do princely interventions - Chelsea Barracks or Dumfries House, Ayrshire and beyond it - do more harm than intended good simple because the urge to bend the knee to royal pressure distorts normal procedures?

Marcus Binney, charismatic president of Save Britain's Heritage, has no doubt that more good is done by Charles than harm. "Thank God for the Prince of Wales," he cries when he views a great work of art - as a great house can be - saved in one piece for posterity to admire.

He would, wouldn't he? I'm less convinced. But here's the second question: why did all concerned pay the £40m asking price of the Marquis of Bute, a former Formula One driver under the name of Johnny Dumfries, who is worth over £100m?

Valuations of the house's contents ranged from £11m to £17m - a median price of £14m - until a late email from his lordship's lawyers suggested that the cautious pricing policy by Christie's was way out of whack: it would cost £40m to stop the sale. "Take it or leave it."

Hmm. I do not know what happened, of course, but that sounds a bit of an ambush. After all, one way or another it is charitable money, taxpayers' money too, we are seeing going into Lord Bute's bank account. Immensely rich from Welsh coal - "the oil sheikhs of the Victorian era" says the Times - some of his ancestors have been more generous.

Thus Cardiff castle, that splendid pile of phoney history on the near-site of the Roman camp, was given to the city, as Bute House in Edinburgh's New Town was given away and is now Alex Salmond's official residence.

We can all see why Formula One's Johnny Dumfries might want to offload another stately home - he has several - but to hang a large debt around the neck of the heir to the throne seems both discourteous and unwise. And if McPoundbury ever does come good, he gets a "share of the planning gain" bonus.

Quite a good one-way bet, it does not seem to reflect too well on those royal moneymen.

'Old heads' worry whether David Cameron has properly confronted Andy Coulson , says former Labour spin chief

Alastair Campbell has claimed that senior figures in the Conservative party are worried about the damage fresh revelations about alleged phone-hacking at the News of the World could cause David Cameron.

Writing on his blog today, Tony Blair's former director of communications, said: "Old heads now worry about whether David Cameron has ever sought to establish the truth himself, with an eyeball-to-eyeball chat with his communications director [Andy Coulson]."

Campbell rubbed shoulders with former Tory cabinet ministers at a party in London last night to mark the 40th anniversary of the ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi.

He wrote that there was concern that the growing pressure on Coulson will ultimately prove politically embarrassing for the prime minister. "Because if anything emerges to embarrass Coulson in any of the inquiries into all this, Cameron's judgment will also become an issue," he said.

Campbell also wrote that he detected an appetite among Conservative MPs to change the current system of press regulation. "Current Tory MPs were saying that the real issue was how widespread illegal practices may have been, and not just at the News of the World. Press regulation is definitely on the political agenda, and it could be Tory MPs pushing hardest for it."

He said that few in the media or in politics are convinced by Coulson's repeated denials that he knew about phone-hacking at the paper when he edited it.

"His problem would seem to be a sense of disbelief (among politicians and journalists) that he had no idea the phone-hacking was taking place when he was editing the News of the World," Campbell wrote.

Guests at last night's party at the Saatchi Gallery on the King's Road included Baroness Thatcher, John Major, Kenneth Clarke and the health secretary Andrew Lansley.

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Police officers say government funding cuts could cause rise in crime rate as Hampshire is latest force to cull jobs

Up to 40,000 frontline police jobs could be at risk if government funding cuts go ahead, the Police Federation warned today as Hampshire Constabulary became the latest force to reveal cuts.

The force needs to save £70m over the next four years and will shed 1,400 posts. The loss of a fifth of its workforce will result in a reduction of hundreds of frontline officers. Kent police recently unveiled proposals to cut 1,500 jobs.

Simon Reed, vice-chairman of the body that represents officers in England and Wales, said cuts of 25% would "devastate" the police service and it was inevitable that crime would rise.

John Apter, chairman of the Hampshire branch of the federation warned that the cuts would damage the service. "We accept that there are difficult times ahead but ... fewer officers will mean the force will have to stop doing certain things.

"I have sympathy with the chief constable, he is trying to provide a service with his hands tied behind his back."

But the policing and criminal justice minister, Nick Herbert, said: "I understand the Police Federation wants to make its case and protect every job, but we must be careful not to frighten the public.

"Police forces can make savings. They can become more efficient. They can share services and procure equipment better."

The Home Office said future funding for the police would be decided by the government's spending review, due in October.

Last week the then head of Cambridgeshire police, Julie Spence, said the reductions could lead to a policing armageddon and warned that police could be reduced to a 999 emergency service.

Ian Learmonth, the chief constable of Kent, said cuts were likely to reduce staff and officer numbers to levels not seen for a decade - and warned that crime could rise.

The chief constable of Essex, Jim Barker-McCardle, has warned the funding cuts could force senior officers to "design a new blueprint" for policing. The force's policing budget could be reduced by £45m - about a sixth - by 2015 and hundreds of jobs might go, he said.

However, he added, the cuts would give senior officers an opportunity to challenge the way things were done and forces would have to "rise up ... and slay the last breaths of the fire-breathing monster of bureaucracy".