Tony Blair's closest aides say that he will step down as Prime Minister before the end of the year.

At the beginning of the week, we asked you whether Mr Blair was a lame duck leader and it now seems that the Prime Minister's inner circle would agree that he is.

Strangely though, while his friends think he will go, many of his opponents, including the Telegraph's Simon Heffer, would like to see him stay. For them, the alternatives are worse.

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Posted at: 09:11 | Permalink | Comments 138

MPs are to plug a deficit in their pension fund with the help of £1.2 million a year from the taxpayer.

The shortfall has been brought about by lower-than-expected investment returns and increasing life expectancy.

The announcement is likely to infuriate local government unions, whose members went on strike over cuts in their pension entitlement.

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Posted at: 16:50 | Permalink | Comments 64

More than a million public sector workers are on strike today in protest at proposed changes to their pension rights.

The unions are protesting Government plans to scrap a rule which allows council staff to retire at 60 if their age and length of service adds up to 85 years.

The strike, which is thought to be Britain's biggest in 80 years, has forced hundreds of schools and public buildings to close, brought chaos to Britain's transport network and badly disrupted services including refuse collection, street cleaning and the running of courts.

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Posted at: 09:57 | Permalink | Comments 110

In an interview with an Australian journalist, Tony Blair has conceded that he may have made a mistake in announcing his intention to stand down as Prime Minister.

Mr Blair announced in September 2004 that he would not go for a fourth term after the party conference in Brighton had been dominated by tensions with Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, who is impatient to get to No 10.

Do you think Mr Blair's latest admission makes him a lame duck? Or was he a lame duck from the moment he made the original announcement in Brighton?

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Posted at: 09:23 | Permalink | Comments 87

There are many charity workers who, like Norman Kember, have gone to Iraq to provide aid to a country stricken by life under Saddam and three years of war.

Given the volatile region in which they are operating, it is not suprising that many of these aid workers are killed or taken hostage. Indeed, Mr Kember acknowledged the risk he was taking in an interview before he travelled to Iraq.

Undoubtedly, the people involved in these projects are extraordinarily brave but are they taking an unnecessary risk?

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Posted at: 10:28 | Permalink | Comments 156

Gordon Brown has delivered what may be his last Budget speech before his likely move to replace Tony Blair as Prime Minister.

Will the Budget make you and your family better off? Or will you be worse off after Mr Brown's changes?

Has the Chancellor made the best decisions for Britain's economy? What measures do you think he should have taken?

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Posted at: 15:16 | Permalink | Comments 101

The Labour Party's National Executive Committee (NEC) has announced it is to reclaim control of party funding from No 10 as the "peerages for loans" controversy rumbles on.

Tony Blair's premiership has been threatened by accusations that he secretly solicited funds from businessmen, several of whom he simultaneously recommended for peerages.

Jack Dromey, the party's treasurer, revealed he knew nothing about the loans. Labour has subsequently published a full list of individuals who bankrolled last year's general election campaign, and announced legislation requiring parties to declare all future loans

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Posted at: 15:16 | Permalink | Comments 69

The Government has given the green light to Britain's first American-style car-sharing lane, which will open on a one-mile stretch of the M62 next year.

The lane will give priority entry to cars carrying more than one person from the M606 southbound on to the eastbound M62 in West Yorkshire, at a cost of £2.5 million.

It is hoped the lane will cut rush-hour journeys by eight minutes on average, and is the latest plan to relieve traffic jams on Britain's roads.

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Posted at: 12:00 | Permalink | Comments 39

Six people are still in hospital, two of them fighting for their lives, after a clinical trial of a new leukaemia drug went horribly wrong.

All the men have suffered "multi-organ inflammation", and the girlfriend of one has described him as looking like the Elephant Man.

It was the first time that the drug in question, TGN1412, a monoclonal antibody, had been tested on human beings, but the parents of the victims have been told by the company behind the drug that it had previously been trialed on monkeys, dogs and rabbits.

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Posted at: 10:00 | Permalink | Comments 40

A High Court judge has ruled that doctors may not withdraw life support treatment from an 18-month-old boy with an incurable wasting disease.

The boy, who suffers from spinal muscular atrophy, cannot breathe for himself, has to be fed through a tube and is only capable of movement in his eyebrows, feet and fingers. He is not mentally impaired but his condition is expected to deteriorate until he is totally paralysed.

One of the boy's doctors said: "I think the cumulative effect of all of that is that he has an intolerable life."

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Posted at: 10:00 | Permalink | Comments 26

On March 13, 1996, Thomas Hamilton walked into a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland, and shot dead 16 pupils and their teacher before turning the gun on himself.

The killings caused shock and revulsion around the world, and the Government responded by banning handguns and promising a national firearms database.

Ten years on, the families of the child victims are dismayed that the register has not been set up, and is unlikely to be operational for another year.

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Posted at: 12:36 | Permalink | Comments 35

John Profumo's life was dominated by his affair, in 1963, with call girl Christine Keeler.

The emergence of the scandal forced him to resign from the Government and is seen by many as being a key factor in the downfall of the Conservative Government the following year.

His offence was compounded by the fact that he lied to Parliament about the affair and the revelation that Miss Keeler had also been sleeping with Commander Eugene Ivanov, a Russian intelligence officer.

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Posted at: 12:56 | Permalink | Comments 58

The financial crisis blighting the NHS gets more acute every week.

Wards are being closed, staff made redundant and operations cancelled as hospital trusts struggle to cope with an annual deficit that is reported to be more than £1bn.

On Tuesday Sir Nigel Crisp, the NHS chief executive, stood down, admitting that "not everything has gone well" during his five-year reign. Some have called for Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, to follow him out the door.

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Posted at: 10:27 | Permalink | Comments 50

It is the middle classes who pay under this Labour Government, Alice Thomson argues in today's opinion section.

She says the rich are allowed to get away with not paying their way in modern Britain, perhaps because Labour is afraid to upset them.

Meanwhile, the poor are indulged every step of the way, Alice says. They are being offered personal trainers, nannies and a wealth of tax credits without being expected to take on any responsibility in return.

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Posted at: 09:27 | Permalink | Comments 83

Natallie Evans has lost her legal battle for the right to have a baby using frozen IVF embryos created by her ex-fiancé's sperm.

Ms Evans, who was left infertile by cancer, took her case to the European Court of Human Rights after exhausting the British legal system.

But the court in Strasbourg upheld the previous decisions that her former fiancé Howard Johnston had a right to withdraw his consent for Ms Evans to use the embryos.

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Posted at: 12:27 | Permalink | Comments 133

Tessa Jowell is facing pressure to resign as Culture Secretary after allegations that her husband accepted a bribe from Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister.

Despite being cleared by Sir Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, and announcing that she has split up with her husband, questions over Miss Jowell's financial affairs continue to surface.

Cabinet colleagues including Margaret Beckett have urged her to "tough it out" and stay in her post. Tony Blair has also voiced his support for Miss Jowell, saying was doing an "excellent job" and should be allowed to carry on.

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Posted at: 10:00 | Permalink | Comments 82

The 2006 Acadamy Awards may have held one or two surprises - emotive race-relations drama Crash pipping Ang Lee's western-with-a-twist Brokeback Mountain to Best Film, for instance - but for the most part the ceremony stuck to the script.

Among many straight replays from last month's Baftas, Ang Lee picked up Best Director, while Philip Seymour Hoffman took Best Actor for his portrayal of the novelist Truman Capote in Capote and Reese Witherspoon was named Best Actress for playing June Carter Cash in the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line.

Deviations from the Bafta precedent included George Clooney and Rachel Weisz who were named Best Supporting Actor and Actress for Syriana and The Constant Gardner respectively, and Britain's favourite plasticine pest-controllers Wallace and Gromit, who claimed Best Animated Feature for The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

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Posted at: 10:00 | Permalink | Comments 15

The Government will announce plans later this month to cut tax on condoms and the morning after pill as part of an attempt to cut teenage pregnancies and limit the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

Reports yesterday said the present 17.5 per cent VAT on the morning after pill and condoms would be reduced to five per cent.

The move would save consumers £5 million on the cost of condoms alone. Euan Sutherland, the managing director of Superdrug, said: "We are delighted that the Treasury has heeded our calls to make a change in the VAT rules. The rules do not make sense and this is just the first of a series of challenges we will mount to ensure our customers don't pay a luxury tax on the items we know are real essentials."

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Posted at: 15:00 | Permalink | Comments 39

Sir Menzies Campbell has seen off Simon Hughes and Chris Huhne to be named the Lib Dems' new permanent leader.

Sir Menzies, who received 57 per cent of the party vote after Simon Hughes was eliminated, was generally viewed as the most experienced statesman in the contest and had already served as the Lib Dems' acting leader after scandal forced Charles Kennedy to stand down two months ago.

However, at 64, Sir Menzies will be the oldest of the three main party leaders by a clear decade. This fact, coupled with some lacklustre performances at the despatch box, has prompted many observers to view him as a caretaker leader only.

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Posted at: 15:00 | Permalink | Comments 34

Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall joined the Queen in Wales today for the opening of the National Assembly's new debating chamber.

Her Majesty, wearing a 'biscuit-coloured' outfit, officially opened the £67 million Senedd building in Cardiff Bay.

As part of the St David's Day celebrations, there was a 21-gun salute and an RAF flypast before the Queen unveiled a plaque and made a speech.

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Posted at: 15:00 | Permalink | Comments 72