| Two men found dead at house in Burnley Double murder inquiry under way after police discover bodies in Lancashire townA double murder inquiry was under way tonight after police found the bodies of two men.Officers made the find after being called at 12.30pm to an address on Waddington Avenue in Burnley, Lancashire.The victims have yet to be identified.A Lancashire police spokesman said: "The deaths are being treated as suspicious and an investigation is now under way."It is a double murder investigation. No arrests have been made."Crimeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Girl, 16, stabbed baby 27 times A 16-year-old stabbed her newborn baby to death while in shock after giving birth without realising she had been pregnant, a court hears. bbc.co.uk |
West End millionaire Sir Cameron Mackintosh in court battle with crofter Sir Cameron Mackintosh, the West End impresario, will this week enter a David and Goliath court battle over a remote corner of his Scottish estate. telegraph.co.uk |
Nick Clegg's smoking gun | Nicholas Lezard Admitting to a periodic penchant for cigarettes may yet prove to be a very shrewd moveForget about devastating cuts or shocking revelations of civilian abuse in Iraq. The big news that has got everyone in a flap is that Nick Clegg has confessed his preferred luxury on a desert island would be a stash of cigarettes.Interviewed on BBC's Radio 4 today by Kirsty Young, after choosing his preferred castaway music, Clegg revealed he "did enjoy the occasional cigarette", although he insisted he never lit up in public and that his children were entirely ignorant of the fact.It just goes to show how times have changed. Norman Mailer asked for marijuana, and Sir Peregrine Worsthorne for hallucinogenic drugs, but these are not bad things to have to pass away the time, if one is inclined in that direction. (Cameron, if I recall correctly, opted for a crate of Scotch, and if by that he means 12 bottles then either he drinks so little of the stuff that you wonder why he bothered to ask for it in the first place, or else he imagines he's going to be rescued within a month.)But the point was that when these requests were made, no one batted an eyelid. But now that Clegg has asked for cigarettes, he is being told he is a bad influence. His wish that his children do not find out about his secret will be unfulfilled.The strange thing is that cigarettes are now seen as so evil that it is impossible to explain to people that a modest habit such as Clegg's is really not so bad for one on the continuum of harms. Why has smoking become the Worst Thing Ever?I would suggest that this is because it has come to be considered a legitimate outlet for the expression of people's self-righteousness. People are now hooked on looking down their noses at anyone else whenever they can, and there are few easier targets than someone who confesses to being a smoker.To admit to being a smoker is to admit to being weak, to being in thrall to an addiction (albeit not a glamorous one), to not knowing what is best for one. And, worst of all, for not doing as the majority tell you to do. There is no excuse for smoking, not really – you can manage without it – and so it enrages people all the more when someone admits to it.But the more people act like that, the more the smokers will entrench. Like the last village in Gaul that resists the occupying forces of the Romans, there will always be a group of smokers who do so not only because it can relax one wonderfully (think of all the soldiers who smoke) but precisely because it enrages an enormous number of busybodies.And so maybe there is something shrewd about Clegg's confession. It looks as though he's not reading from the script, but maybe he's smartly aligning himself with the disaffected. There is something endearing about politicians who smoke: it shows they are human, and as such subject to human failings, and take the responsibility of high office seriously indeed. (What kind of a maniac, one might think to oneself, does not smoke when in control, or part-control, of one's country?) The news that Barack Obama had failed to give up entirely didn't, amazingly, stop him from being elected president.We like off-message politicians: they're rare these days (Clegg has been here before, when he announced a liking for the works of Samuel Beckett). Clegg's lustre has dimmed these days, so to break this last taboo, to admit in public that one smokes – why, one wonders, is this such a no-no, considering the habit is still, just about, legal? – could be seen as a last-ditch appeal to voters not to dismiss him as a disastrous caretaker of the Liberal tradition. In fact, when you consider his position, it's a miracle he's not an eighty-a-day man. Desert Island DiscsNick CleggSmokingNicholas Lezardguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
'Decent' pension for all proposed The government is considering a "radical" overhaul of the state pension to ensure everybody has a "decent" income in retirement, says Vince Cable. bbc.co.uk |