| Which country has the best brains? This week has seen a new round of Nobel prize winners - but over the years, which countries have won the most awards? bbc.co.uk |
Baroness Thatcher misses 85th birthday party Ill health forces Baroness Thatcher to pull out of her Downing Street party. telegraph.co.uk |
Ruthless Tories have chewed up and spat out Nick Clegg | Andy Burnham Through coalition, the Lib Dems have broken not one but two education promises: university fees and the pupil premiumIt will take time for people to absorb the full impact of Wednesday's spending review, but one thing will be clearer today to many voters. Raucous Tory cheers for deep cuts will have helped cement an impression that had been forming in the public mind. This is no coalition government. This is a Tory government in which Liberal Democrats have accepted jobs.It is hard to detect any discernible Liberal Democrat influence in the detail of Wednesday's announcements. One by one, Nick Clegg's reassurances to his MPs, councillors and members are falling to bits.On Wednesday, his position was severely weakened on two fronts. First, on university funding, the full extent of Clegg's ideological journey was laid bare. When Vince Cable said the Browne report was "on the right lines", it was sold to Lib Dems as practical politics in the current financial climate to revisit their "no rise in fees" pledge. But something completely different emerged on Wednesday. The Treasury green book describes an ideological shift, pledging "major reform … to shift a great proportion of the funding from the taxpayer to the individuals who benefit".For years, Lib Dems have said the state should bear the biggest burden. Labour has been in the middle, arguing for a partnership between student and state. The Tories have hinted at an individual, market-based approach. In a few short days the Lib Dem leadership has leapfrogged Labour to embrace this ideology.This intellectual turmoil on fees provides the essential context for what is about to become an even bigger problem for Clegg. Recognising his weakening ground on universities, Clegg has begun in recent weeks to bet the shop on his pupil premium. Bite the bullet on fees, he's been telling his members, because we've got our manifesto commitment on schools.That was the message behind his "fairness premium" speech in Chesterfield last Friday, as he sought to rally his unhappy troops. He promised that schools will receive "additional funds to offer targeted help to every pupil eligible for free school meals" and "this pupil premium will grow to an additional £2.5bn of investment each year".It sounded clear enough. But, as with fees, the green book told us something different. The pupil premium would not be additional but would "sit within" a schools budget that, once increases in pupil numbers were taken into account, would see spending per pupil falling in real terms over the spending period.The political significance of Clegg's failure to fund the pupil premium is huge. It goes to the heart of the politics of the coalition, and raises real questions about Clegg's influence within it. The issue is politically charged because it was one of the points on which the Lib-Lab post-election talks foundered.Back in May, David Laws told Ed Balls that the Lib Dems had secured a promise from the Tories that the pupil premium would be funded on top of real-terms growth for the schools budget. Balls was never convinced, as this intriguing exchange in the House of Commons on 7 June with Sarah Teather shows:Balls: "The old chief secretary [David Laws] and the new chief secretary [Danny Alexander] made a commitment to me, Lord Mandelson and Lord Adonis in the coalition talks that there would be additional money, on top of rising spending this year, next year and the year after. Does the honourable lady agree – I will not quote her this time; I will quote the deputy prime minister – that 'without money, that commitment will continue to be meaningless – more spin without substance which will yet again leave thousands of children short-changed'? Are the Liberal Democrats being shortchanged by their Conservative colleagues?"Teather: "The prime minister made it clear from the dispatch box last week that the pupil premium would involve substantial extra money from outside the education budget. Perhaps I should remind the right honourable gentleman that one of the sticking points during the coalition talks with the Labour party was that it would not agree to the pupil premium."So there it is. The green book confirms that the Lib Dems have failed to nail down promises made to them by the Tories in post-election talks – promises that have been Clegg's fig leaf for staying in the coalition.I want to be clear that Labour supports the idea of giving more money to children with the greatest needs. It was what we did as a government. But it's hard to accept the policy as it stands as the effect of a new pupil premium within a schools budget that is keeping pace with inflation will be to recycle existing money from one school to another and create lots of winners and losers.And it gets worse for Clegg. Under the draft terms of the funding mechanism for the pupil premium, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that it could have the perverse effect of siphoning funding away from more disadvantaged inner city schools to those in more affluent areas.It is important to see all this in the context of other education policies announced on Wednesday: the scrapping of education maintenance allowances that help the least well-off stay on; a breathtaking 60% cut to schools capital; the paring back of Sure Start. It is clear that, going forward, remaining resources will be used as bait to lure schools into Michael Gove's ideological experiment of free schools and academies.Taken all together, I don't think this is an education policy that most Lib Dems can sign up to. We now have not one but two major Lib Dem broken promises on education. Ruthless Tory ministers have chewed up and spat out Mr Clegg. For a party proud of its principled approach to education policy down the years – and which famously promised a penny on income tax to fund it – these are bleak times indeed.Nick CleggEducation policySpending review 2010University fundingSchool fundingHigher educationTuition feesStudentsSchoolsLiberal-Conservative coalitionAndy Burnhamguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Unions agree to council's pay cut A council that warned 7,000 workers it may have to dismiss and then re-employ them reaches an agreement with unions on savings. bbc.co.uk |
Prince Andrew and the Kazakh billionaire US embassy cables' exposure of duke's dealings aren't the first time his eastern European links have been questionedPrince Andrew's dealings with the allegedly corrupt regime in Kazakhstan are already causing him awkward publicity.One exiled businessman seeking asylum in Britain is alleging in a high court battle that laundered money was used to buy the prince's former house at Sunninghill Park in 2007, for £3m over the asking price.The 12-bedroom mansion, provided by the Queen for Andrew and Sarah Ferguson after their marriage in 1986, was bought through apparently concealed links to a series of offshore companies.It was purchased by a wealthy figure in the Kazakh regime, Timur Kulibayev, for £15m after five years on the market. In September, a spokesman for Kulibayev denied the use of "corrupt" funds and said the allegations against him were "politically motivated".The dilapidated property has remained vacant ever since. Its sale may or may not have been facilitated by the prince's friendship with Goga Ashkenazi, a 29-year-old London-based Kazakh businesswoman who had a baby by Kulibayev in December 2007.Prince Andrew and Ashkenazi have dined and gone to Royal Ascot together. Buckingham Palace told the Mail that the prince "totally and utterly rejected" any suggestion that the house sale was anything other than a straight commercial transaction. Or as the prince himself told the Telegraph last year: "It's not my business the second the price is paid. If that is the offer, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth and suggest they have overpaid me."But Andrew might squirm if he was able to read all the private remarks collected by the US state department about Kulibayev, whom they call a "manicured billionaire". His oil-rich country is termed a "cesspool" by one western ambassador, and the leaked US cables are replete with quotations from Kulibayev's enemies.One western oilman said: "Kulibayev and his ilk prey on foreigners and locals alike."The "perfectly tanned" presidential son-in-law, as the diplomats describe him, also has his western admirers, however.They include Sir Richard Evans, former head of BAE, where he was the architect of a network of allegedly corrupt payments to promote arms deals which eventually led to $400m fines for BAE in the US. Evans subsequently went on the payroll of the Kazakh regime, as chairman of the state holding company Samruk.In 2008, the cables record: "Richard Evans … told the ambassador that Kulibayev was the one real businessman he had met in the entire Samruk structure."In January 2010, US ambassador Richard Hoagland wrote: "Timur Kulibayev is currently the favoured presidential son-in-law, on the Forbes 500 list of billionaires (as is his wife separately), and the ultimate controller of 90% of the economy of Kazakhstan."Prince AndrewMonarchyThe US embassy cablesKyrgyzstanUS foreign policyUnited StatesDavid LeighStephen Batesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |