United Kingdom - UK News

Tabloid accused of buying silence after persuading celebrity PR agent to drop case over interception of voicemail messages

The News of the World was tonight accused of buying silence in the phone-hacking scandal after it agreed to pay more than £1m to persuade the celebrity PR agent Max Clifford to drop his legal action over the interception of his voicemail messages.

The settlement means that there will now be no disclosure of court-ordered evidence which threatened to expose the involvement of the newspaper's journalists in a range of illegal information-gathering by private investigators.

The case had potentially important implications for Andy Coulson, media adviser to the Conservative leader, David Cameron, who edited the News of the World at the time of the illegal activity and who has said that he does not remember any of his journalists breaking the law.

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, who has asked questions in parliament about the affair, said: "This is a clear attempt to buy the silence of people who had their phones hacked by the News of the World's reporters. It would make more sense for the newspaper to come clean. The trouble with cover-ups like this is that they give no reassurance that the guilty parties have really changed their ways."

The settlement with Clifford is understood to be worth just over £1m, including legal costs and substantial personal payments which will not be described as "damages", leaving the News of the World free to claim that it has admitted no wrongdoing. It brings to more than £2m the amount paid by News International to victims of phone-hacking to secure their silence: in a separate case the paper paid more than £1m to suppress legal actions brought by Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, and two others who had sued the paper over the interception of their voicemail. The paper had always denied all involvement but paid for a secret settlement after a judge ordered disclosure of paperwork which implicated some of its journalists.

The two men at the heart of the scandal – the paper's former royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, and the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire – also have been paid money by the News of the World in settlements of unfair dismissal claims, the terms of which are believed to compel them not to disclose what they know about illegal activity at the paper.

Goodman and Mulcaire were jailed in January 2007 for intercepting the voicemail of a total of eight victims, including Clifford and Taylor. The News of the World originally claimed that it had no knowledge of any of the illegal activity. Coulson resigned on the grounds that he carried ultimate responsibility.

Since then it has emerged that other News of the World journalists were involved in handling illegally "hacked" voicemail messages and that there were numerous other victims. Three mobile phone companies found more than 100 customers whose voicemail had been accessed in the previous 12 months by the two jailed men.

Scotland Yard has admitted that in material seized from Mulcaire, it found 91 pin codes, which are used for the interception of voicemail, and that it warned people in government, the military, the police and the royal household that their messages may have been intercepted. Known victims include Prince William, Prince Harry, the former culture secretary Tessa Jowell, the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, the MP George Galloway and the former executive director of the Football Association, David Davies.

The Clifford case threatened to bring important new material into the public domain. In preliminary hearings, Mulcaire insisted that, contrary to the News of the World's denials, he passed information from the hacking of Clifford's voicemails to journalists on the paper. He did not identify them but on February 3, Mr Justice Vos ordered him to do so. The settlement means that Mulcaire is no longer required to name the names.

The judge had also ordered the Information Commissioner's Office to provide material seized from a second investigator, Steve Whittamore, which according to an ICO witness statement reveals "a widespread and unlawful trade in confidential information commissioned by journalists of the News of the World".

Through its barrister the News of the World accepted that contrary to its previous claims, Goodman's purchase of confidential personal information from a private investigator had not been an isolated incident. The ICO material would have identified individual journalists, but that, too, will not now be disclosed.

Finally, the settlement means the News of the World is no longer required to disclose the terms of its secret settlement with Taylor, nor the agreement with Mulcaire that is alleged to have bought his silence.

The settlement is unlikely to mark the end of the affair. Clifford's lawyer, Charlotte Harris, of JMW Solicitors in Manchester, said last night: "There are a number of public figures who are now contemplating issuing proceedings against the News of the World." Politicians, leading actors and sportsmen are believed to be among those who are preparing to sue. And MPs on all sides of the house are watching closely for the effect of the scandal on Coulson.

The House of Commons media select committee last month accused witnesses from the News of the World of "obfuscation" and "collective amnesia". A Labour member of the committee, Paul Farrelly, said last night: "This seems to be another settlement by the News of the World that preserves the cloak of secrecy and confidentiality around its affairs. It all mounts up to give the impression that silence is effectively being bought. People will draw their own conclusion about what are the real motives behind the settlement."

The News of the World declined to comment. Clifford said he was very happy with the outcome: "I'm now looking forward to continuing the successful relationship that I experienced with the News of the World for 20 years before my recent problems with them."

Russian oligarch awarded damages over claims he arranged polonium poisoning of friend and former KGB spy

The exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky was today awarded libel damages of £150,000 over "savage" allegations he was behind the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the poisoned Russian dissident who was his close friend.

In a chaotic high court battle in London, the 64-year-old tycoon successfully argued his reputation had seriously been damaged by a Russian state television broadcast in April 2007.

The programme, available to view for free by satellite in the UK, included an interview with a man who claimed he had been offered £40m by Litvinenko – who was working for Berezovsky until his death – to falsely confess to being a KGB hitman tasked with killing Berezovsky with a poisoned ballpoint pen.

When he refused to take the bribe, the man said, he was drugged and then forced to make a false testimony used to bolster Berezovsky's asylum application in the UK.

The purpose of this lie-filled testimony, the man said, was to "prove" the oligarch would be in mortal danger if he returned to his homeland.

His evidence was indeed crucial in proving Berezovsky's political refugee status and he was granted asylum in 2003, the court heard.

In the same programme the presenter suggested that Litvinenko, who died from poisoning with radioactive polonium in London in November 2006, was killed at Berezovsky's behest because Litvinenko was a witness to Berezovsky's fraudulent claim for political asylum.

The logic was that Litvinenko would be an important witness for Russian prosecutors investigating allegations that Berezovsky's asylum was based on lies, and thus Berezovsky wanted him dead – just in case.

Berezovsky claimed he was a victim of "selective editing" after the programme began with a clip of him saying: "If I particularly dislike someone I'll kill him." The remark was clearly "ironic or jocular", said his barrister, Desmond Browne QC.

The oligarch pulled up to court most days during the trial in a blacked-out limousine and sat in court flanked by his security guards.

Giving evidence, he explained why he took action. "I cannot imagine a more offensive and damaging allegation. It would be damaging enough to allege merely that I bribed or drugged a man so as to force him to give false evidence in order to help me secure my asylum status; that I was accused of Sasha's [Alexander Litvinenko's] murder, and to think people may believe it to be true, was, and still is, deeply upsetting.

"I have been portrayed as a man whom people should fear; this affects my relationships with everyone who is not already a close personal friend."

In his judgment today, the judge, Mr Justice Eady, said: "I can say unequivocally that there is no evidence before me that Mr Berezovsky had any part in the murder of Mr Litvinenko. Nor, for that matter, do I see any basis for reasonable grounds to suspect him of it."

Berezovsky, who has an estimated wealth of $1bn (£667m) according to Forbes magazine, told the court that Litvinenko was a dear and loyal friend who had saved his life "on more than one occasion" – chiefly by refusing to assassinate him in 1998 when Litvinenko was a KGB agent.

The grateful Berezovsky then became Litvinenko's benefactor, arranging his family's escape to the UK. Once in London he gave Litvinenko a house and thousands of pounds a month in "research grants".

To back up his case, Berezovsky enlisted a roster of high-profile witnesses including Litvinenko's widow, Marina.

After Litvinenko fell ill in 2006 after ingesting a radioactive isotope in a London sushi bar, Berezovsky told British journalists that his friend had been poisoned because he was an enemy of the then Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

The two-week trial was almost anarchic at times as officials from the Russian prosecutors' office repeatedly intervened despite not being party to proceedings. So obvious was their intention that when one of their mobile phones went off in court one day, Browne quipped: "That must be Mr Putin on the line."

At least three Russian prosecutors were in court each day to assist Vladimir Terluk, the man accused of giving the contentious interview about Berezovsky's bogus asylum claim. They whispered in Terluk's ear, passed him notes and smirked or laughed as the evidence was heard.

At one point they asked for the opportunity to cross-examine Berezovsky. "I thought that a step too far," said Eady in his judgment.

Terluk, a Kazakh who came to the UK to seek asylum in 1999, had been left to defend the libel action alone and without a lawyer after the Russian Television and Radio Company refused to take part.

He denied being "Pyotr", the man in the offending broadcast, yet maintained that everything Pyotr said was true, including "that [Berezovsky's] associates tried to organised the falsification of the assassination plot with the purpose of obtaining refugee status by Mr Berezovsky and his associates … and the late Mr Litvinenko himself was the one who was trying actively to implement that falsification".

In his judgment, Eady said: "I have no doubt that Pyotr was indeed Mr Terluk and that he must have known he was being filmed." But Terluk did not himself accuse Berezovsky of murdering Litvinenko, which was, Eady said, "the overall message conveyed by the programme".

Moscow has made no secret of its desire to extradite Berezovsky, who has been an outspoken critic of the Kremlin since he fell out with Putin in 2000.

In April 2009 Russian prosecutors charged Berezovsky with "knowingly false denunciation of a involvement in a serious crime" – a charge peculiar to Russian law that relates to the allegedly fabricated evidence in support of his 2003 asylum claim.

One of the Russian prosecutors admitted to the Guardian he hoped Berezovsky would lose the case so his asylum status would be called into question by the Home Office and he would be returned to Russia to face trial.

They were also intent, Eady ruled, on blackening Litinvenko's character. "He was portrayed as something of a wild man. It was said that he was an unreliable fantasist who was prone to emotional outbursts." The purpose of this "wholesale attack", said Eady, was to undermine the credibility of evidence Litvinenko gave in support of Berezovsky's asylum claim.

Speaking after the judgment, Berezovsky said: "I have no doubt that, in making this programme the purpose of RTR and the Russian authorities was to undermine my asylum status in the UK and to put the investigation of Sasha Litvinenko's murder on the wrong track. I am pleased that the court, through its judgment, has unequivocally demolished RTR's claims. I trust the conclusions of the British investigators that the trail leads to Russia and I hope that one day justice will prevail."

He was not optimistic about the prospect of recovering the £150,000 damages but said: "This was never about money." Mr justice Eady said in his judgment that "the quanitification of the damages may be academic in the sense that there are likely to be formidable obstacles in recovering the money".

Berezovsky is no stranger to London's law courts. In 1997 he sued the US magazine Forbes after it printed an article that asked: "Is he the Godfather of the Kremlin?" He won despite only 2,000 copies of the 785,000 sold worldwide having been purchased in the UK.

That case is often cited as an example of libel tourism – foreigners taking advantage of England's libel laws, which tend to favour the claimant by putting the burden of proof on the defendant.

In 2008 he began a £2bn legal tussle with another London-based oligarch, Roman Abramovich, over allegations Berezovsky was forced to sell shares in a string of huge Russian state companies. He is currently fighting the widow of his friend and business partner Badri Patarkatsishvili for half of the dead man's fortune.

Prime minister announces pay freeze for doctors, dentists and hospital consultants as well as senior managers across most of the public sector

Gordon Brown drew the election battle lines around the economy today, announcing a freeze on public sector pay and declaring he had the strength of character to lead the country to recovery.

Brown stressed the country was at a "crossroads" and faced "crucial decisions" in the months ahead. He warned that "ideologically-driven" Tory plans for cuts risked tipping the country back into recession.

The prime minister said he would save £3bn by freezing pay for doctors, dentists, and hospital consultants as well as senior managers across most of the public sector.

Brown also used his address to confirm that the budget will be in two weeks' time, on 24 March, leading to speculation that the prime minister will announce the date of the election on 6 April.

Speaking at Thomson Reuters in Canary Wharf, the same venue where the Tory leader, David Cameron, attacked Labour's record on the economy last week, Brown said the "resolve" and urgency felt during the 2008 banking crisis needed to be displayed again now.

He admitted that in hindsight, it was now clear just how close the world economy came to "economic meltdown".

The economy remained in "choppy waters", said Brown as he cautioned against any belief that the recovery would automatically continue.

"In my view we are nearly there ... but there is nothing preordained or automatic about the upturn either here or abroad," he said.

Brown turned the tables on those who accuse him of lacking character by insisting that the past 18 months had been a period demanding the "greatest test of character" as the country was brought through a "dreadful" economic storm.

The prime minister said: "I have heard people say it is about policy and I have heard other people say it is about character. But I don't think you can separate the two. It is for other people to judge.

"But I believe that character is not about telling people what they want to hear but about telling them what they need to know. It is about having the courage to set out your mission and take the tough decisions and stick to them without being blown off course, even when the going is difficult."

He told the audience that tough decisions needed to be made to keep the economy on course to recovery.

He said: "We face crucial decisions. The stakes are high. We dare not risk the recovery. We are weathering the storm and now is no time to turn back. We will hold to our course and will complete our mission."

This included a "disciplined approach" to pay and benefits right across the public sector.

Speaking on the day that the senior salary review bodies publish their recommendations for public sector pay rises, Brown announced he intended to freeze the pay of senior staff in the civil service, the military, the judiciary, the health service and the pay of consultants, GPs and dentists.

He said that the government remained committed to halving Britain's record £178bn deficit within four years.

Following on from the freeze on parliamentary and ministerial salaries for all government ministers which he announced last week, Brown said the curbs on public sector pay would save more than £3bn by 2013-14.

The government has decided to accept some, but not all, of the review body's recommendations.

It ignored a recommendation to increase the minimum pay for senior civil servants by £2,300 to £61,500 and has also rejected a recommendation to increase the pay for NHS managers earning less than £80,000 by 2.25%.

The announcement is likely to provoke fury among public sector unions just days after it was announced MPs will see an automatic rise of 1.5% in their pay.

Brown reminded the audience that he has already ruled that government ministers will eschew pay increases of any kind next year.

The prime minister also stressed that, while the worst of the recession is over, the economic recovery remains "fragile" and could be undermined if spending cuts were pushed through too quickly.

Brown emphasised the need to ensure the recovery is balanced and sustainable on a global basis as he called for the G20 to inject "new urgency into the delivery of the international agreements we have reached".

He said: "I believe that around the world we have to rediscover that sense of urgency and collective ambition that guided us a year ago. For it is our choices – and the wisdom resolve and judgments we bring to bear in making them – at both a national and global level – that will determine whether we secure a lasting recovery and indispensable reforms to safeguard our economic future."

Vincent Cable, the Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman, said: "Gordon Brown's speech shows he is leading with a weak hand.

"It's very difficult to see how the man who claimed to have abolished boom and bust can campaign on his stewardship of the economy after the greatest bust for decades. The only reason he is, of course, is because the Conservatives are even worse."

He added: "The budget must clearly spell out where Labour intend to make spending cuts in order to tackle the budget deficit."

Foreign Office officials believe elements of Taliban ready to talk but fears grow of long Afghan conflict, and growing casualties

Britain will today urge the Afghan government to put more effort into the pursuit of peace talks amid fears that the war could be prolonged – and more British lives lost – as a result of incompetence and lack of political will in Kabul.

A speech to be delivered in the US by the foreign secretary, David Miliband, will reflect growing anxiety in London that President Hamid Karzai's professed desire for a political solution has not been backed up by any serious planning or concrete proposals.

Unless more pressure is put on the Afghan government, some British officials predict that Karzai's proposed loya jirga, or grand peace council, due at the end of next month, will be little more than a PR stunt. "My argument today is that now is the time for the Afghans to pursue a political settlement with as much vigour and energy as we are pursuing the military and civilian effort," Miliband will say at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to a text of the address seen by the Guardian.

British officials believe that significant Taliban leaders are ready to start talking about a political settlement in which they would sever ties with al-Qaida and put down weapons in return for a role in politics. But there is also concern that opportunities to open a preliminary dialogue are being lost, and that the conflict, which has already cost more than 270 British lives, is being intensified by Kabul's inefficiency and corruption.

"The Afghans must own, lead and drive such political engagement," Miliband will say in his speech. "It will be a slow, gradual process. But the insurgents will want to see international support.

"International engagement, for example under the auspices of the UN, may ultimately be required."

Karzai presented a paper on political reconciliation at a conference held by Gordon Brown in London in January. But officials who saw it, and subsequent Afghan proposals on peace talks, have variously described them as "empty" and "a C-team effort".

Gerard Russell, at the Carr Centre for Human Rights at Harvard University, said: "We had a look at the Afghan government's thinking on reconciliation, but we haven't seen a concrete proposal or a workable methodology."

Russell, a former political adviser to the UN mission in Afghanistan, added: "There is a talk about having a loya jirga. But what is a loya jirga going to do? On its own, its not going to achieve anything."

The growing alarm at the lack of political initiative in Kabul comes at a time when back-channel contacts with the Taliban have also run into trouble, paradoxically as a result of a Taliban arrest hailed as a triumph last month.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the head of the Taliban's military operations seized in Karachi by Pakistani intelligence agents, had taken part in tentative and secret contacts with Saudi intermediaries last year.

One participant in those talks told the Guardian that Baradar's arrest had been "a huge blow" to the peace effort.

Britain's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, has been sent to Kabul as caretaker ambassador, with the primary mission of trying to inject more substance into the loya jirga planned for 29 April. Tomorrow, Miliband will also call for a direct international role in managing the peace process. Miliband's speech also carries a message for Washington.

While Britain's Foreign Office believes work on peace talks should begin straight away and be pushed behind the scenes by the Obama administration, most US officials, and some British generals, question whether such negotiations would produce results before Taliban morale has been depleted by the military surge.

"There is an important US audience for this," a British official said. "Nobody wants a PR stunt in Kabul that doesn't lead anywhere."

State department makes a point of thanking Conservatives as well as Brown government for role in transfer of policing powers to Stormont

David Cameron has been praised by the US administration for giving "strong support" to the deal between the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Féin that will see policing and criminal justice powers devolved to Belfast next month.

In an important boost for Cameron, who has faced criticism for forming an alliance with the anti-agreement Ulster Unionist party, the US state department made a point of praising the Tory leader for his constructive role.

Philip Crowley, a spokesman for the US state department, said last night: "Obviously, for a milestone like this, a number of players have played significant roles. We, the United States, including Secretary [of State Hillary] Clinton, have been actively engaged in helping Northern Ireland reach this point, as have a number of officials in the British government, including not only the Brown government but also the strong support that David Cameron and the Conservative party have given to the Hillsborough agreement."

The praise from the state department will be particularly significant because Crowley's remarks were scripted and were made in his opening remarks about Northern Ireland in the wake of the yes vote in the Stormont assembly yesterday.

Crowley gave a warm welcome to the overwhelming support for the final stage of the Good Friday agreement despite opposition from the 18 UUP members of the assembly.

Crowley said: "Devolution [of policing and justice] will mark a major milestone in achieving the aspirations of the Good Friday agreement, and the St Andrews agreement will help cement the hard-won gains over the past decade."

Washington had made clear to the Tories that it would make a point of praising Cameron, who issued strong support for the deal agreed between the DUP and Sinn Féin at Hillsborough Castle, County Down, last month. Cameron has faced criticism for interfering in the peace process by forming an alliance with the UUP, giving the struggling party the strength to oppose the policing vote.

Sir Reg Empey, the UUP leader, said he could not support the deal because he felt that the four-party power-sharing executive was not functioning properly. The UUP also criticised London for bullying their party.

George Bush, the former US president, telephoned Cameron last Friday to urge him to put pressure on Empey to endorse the deal. Congressman Richie Neal, the chairman of Friends of Ireland, today challenged Cameron to act as an "honest broker".

Cameron told Bush and US administration officials that he strongly supported the deal. But he said he could not force local parties in Northern Ireland to vote one way or the other.

Labour likely go to the country on same day as local elections in England as budget date confirmed

The Treasury will announce the budget will be held on 24 March, making 6 May a racing certainty for the general election.

The timing is likely to mean parliament debating the budget in the week of 29 March. Gordon Brown could then go to Buckingham Palace to call the election on 6 April, after the Easter holiday weekend. MPs and peers would spend a short time in parliament to negotiate remaining bills.

A 6 May election, on the same day as local elections in England, has for some time been regarded as the favoured date. But it runs the risk for Labour of seeing critical first-quarter growth figures published in the final fortnight of the campaign.

Ministers are increasingly optimistic, however, that the figures will not reveal a slide back into recession.

It is not expected that the chancellor, Alistair Darling, will have to reveal major changes to growth forecasts or the size of the public sector deficit.

He may have some cash spare from lower-than-expected unemployment forecasts.

In a speech in London Brown is expected to confirm a cap on public sector pay rises despite civil servants gearing up for strikes in the run-up to the election. Brown is expected to use a speech on the economy to reaffirm the government's position as set out in last year's pre-budget report.

He will tell public sector workers that from 2011 those at the higher end will see an absolute pay cap and that 700,000 middle-ranking civil servants, including police officers, nurses and teachers, will have pay rises capped at 1% for two years. That could amount to a real-terms cut.

The plans for senior public sector workers would affect 40,000 GPs, hospital consultants, Whitehall's highest paid civil servants and the chief executives of quangos.

When he announced the plans, the chancellor said the move would save the exchequer £3.4bn a year. Darling has written to the salary review bodies calling for a freeze on the pay of the highest-paid civil servants and a cap of 1% for those in the middle.

The full details will be published tomorrow, including exemptions for armed forces.

Some 200,000 civil servants ranging from 999 operators and coastguards to court workers began a 48-hour strike on Monday. Driving tests have been cancelled and police officers called on to man 999 emergency lines in London.

Yesterday the Policy Exchange thinktank published research showing that public sector productivity fell nearly 4% in the decade after 1997, while growing by 23% in the private sector.

Neil O'Brien, director of Policy Exchange, said: "Despite this, pay has risen by 15% more than in the private sector. The simple truth is that we need public services run on 21st century principles – not the rules of the 70s."

Korean company Samsung kicks off the industry-wide push by launching a 3D range that will be in British shops by the end of the month

The friendly green monster Shrek, the blue-skinned Na'vi of the planet Pandora and Wayne Rooney's shots on goal will shortly take on a new, three-dimensional glory.

Spurred on by the success of the Hollywood fantasy blockbuster Avatar, the world's top electronics companies believe they can make 3D television sets the norm for consumers in the US and Europe within three years.

The Korean company Samsung kicks off the industry-wide push – and battle for brand supremacy – by launching a 3D range that will be in British shops by the end of the month.

Billed as the world's first high definition, three-dimensional LED televisions, Samsung's range will be serenaded by the Black Eyed Peas at a glitzy global marketing debut in New York tomorrow.

At a press conference today, Samsung said its televisions and Blu-ray devices will come with a starter pack of two pairs of 3D glasses and a Blu-ray version of Monsters vs Aliens under a tie-up with the movie studio DreamWorks Animation.

"It's quite simply the entertainment revolution of our time," said DreamWorks' chief executive, Jeffrey Katzenberg. "It's as important as the introduction of sound or colour."

Keen to get in on the act, the Japanese company Panasonic will sell its first 3D television at a BestBuy electronics shop in Manhattan this week. And Sony, which expects to begin selling its sets in June, has set an ambitious target of selling 2.5m 3D televisions by March 2011 – amounting to roughly one tenth of all its global television sales.

In British shops, John Lewis's vision buyer, David Kempner, said he expected demand to be a "slowburn", with an opening price point of £2,000. "HD is still a relatively new concept and consumers are just getting used to it but 3D will be the next big thing. Given it has the support of all the major manufacturers, 3D technology has got momentum of its own but it also requires content providers to support it and there is a time lag there."

Experts say that 3D televisions are likely to enjoy mainstream uptake because the technology behind them barely costs any more than existing sets. To achieve three dimensions, manufacturers need more powerful processors but the fundamental make-up of the television changes only marginally. The only substantial extra cost is making 3D glasses.

"The add-on cost of manufacturing isn't significant," said Jim Bottoms, director of the technology consulting company Futuresource. "Set makers are starting to incorporate 3D in higher-end televisions this year. Very quickly, certainly by 2015, virtually every full-sized television will have 3D capability."

Although pricing for British shops is yet to be finalised, Sony's 3D televisions range in Japan from around £2,150 for a 40in set to double that amount for a 60in model, while Samsung is charging $2,000 (£1,350) to $4,000 in American stores.

Sport and films will be the early applications for 3D home entertainment. Under a deal with Sony, Sky has already begun showing certain Premier League matches in pubs on 3D televisions and this summer's World Cup could be a watershed for the technology: Sony will film 25 matches in South Africa using 3D cameras.

The opening ceremony of Vancouver's Winter Olympics was available in 3D. More than 20 movies in 3D are scheduled for release this year, including Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which topped Britain's cinema box office charts at the weekend.

Mainstream television programming will take longer. The BBC and ITV have expressed interest in experimenting with 3D content.

But Bottoms said everyday shows were unlikely to go 3D until technology arrives to eliminate the need for special glasses, which is thought to be up to five years away.

"We see the next three to five years as being 'event-driven' for 3D. When we get to a glass-less solution, then we'll really see 3D become more pervasive," he said.

It has taken decades even to get to this point. The first 3D film, The Power of Love, was made back in 1922 and dozens of movies came out in the 1950s including such gems as Creature from the Black Lagoon.

But a key problem was "3D fatigue" whereby viewers' eyes became tired from distinguishing the twin images needed to create depth perception.

Samsung's president of visual display products, Boo Keun Yoon, told the Guardian that 3D fatigue killed off three-dimensional filming in the 20th century but that new techniques have overcome this lingering problem by creating a more consistent image.

"We've recently had developments in how 3D films are shot," said Yoon. "I believe 2010 will be the year of the 3D television revolution. Probably by the end of this year, we'll see an explosive growth in demand."

• Waterboarding of 9/11 suspect was 'concealed'
• Manningham-Buller criticises Bush staff

The government protested to the US over the torture of terror suspects, the former head of MI5, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller revealed last night.

She also said the Americans concealed from Britain the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 2001 attacks.

"The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing," Lady Manningham-Buller told a meeting at the House of Lords.

She also admitted MI5 were slow to recognise that the US was torturing detainees. Asked if Britain protested, she replied: "We did lodge a protest." She declined to elaborate but it is believed that the protests were made at ministerial level.

Manningham-Buller was answering questions after delivering a lecture in parliament sponsored by the Mile End study group set up by Queen Mary, University of London.

She said that in 2002 or 2003 she questioned how the US was able to supply Britain with intelligence gleaned from Sheikh Mohammed.

"I said to my staff, 'Why is he talking?' because our experience of Irish prisoners and terrorists was that they never said anything," she said.

"They said the Americans say he is very proud of his achievements when questioned about it. It wasn't actually until after I retired that I read that, in fact, he had been waterboarded 160 times," Manningham-Buller said.

She criticised senior figures in the Bush administration, including the president himself, Dick Cheney, the vice-president, and Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary for their attitude towards the treatment of terror suspects. She added: "Nothing, even saving lives, justifies torture."

Referring to criticism of MI5, and notably evidence in the mistreatment of the UK resident Binyam Mohamed, she said in her speech: "The allegations of collusion in torture and lack of respect for human rights will wound [MI5 officers] personally and collectively and, in some respects, whether proven or not, will make it harder for them to do their job."

Last month, Lord Neuberger, the master of the rolls, said MI5's insistence in a court case that it was unaware of the harsh treatment of some detainees held overseas in CIA custody was unreliable.

Manningham-Buller confirmed that Britain was aware of mistreatment cases before she left office.

In an original draft of a ruling, Neuberger also criticised MI5's supposed lax attitude toward the mistreatment of detainees. Manningham-Buller's successor as MI5 director, Jonathan Evans, has rejected the claims, and warned that the courts risk being exploited by those seeking to undermine British counterterrorism work.

But Manningham-Buller said she believes the allegations of complicity in torture could disrupt the future work of MI5 staff.

She spent 33 years in British intelligence, and was head of MI5 between 2002 and 2007. She said British spies are proud to be quietly effective, unlike the "gung-ho UK" intelligence officers portrayed in TV dramas.

"One of the sad things is Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush all watched 24." Manningham-Buller said, referring to the popular TV show about a counterterrorist agent. She said future terrorist attacks would involve chemical, biological and radioactive weapons. "After the next terrorist attack, there will be cause for fresh legislation, which should be resisted. The criminal law as it stands is enough. We have masses of legislation that deals with terrorism."

She predicted the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, which was heavily criticised recently for its failure to hold MI5 to account, would be turned into a fully-fledged committee in the House of Commons.

Evaluation of Venables before his release in 2001 concluded the likelihood of the killer re-offending was minor

A psychiatric evaluation of Jon Venables carried out before his release from prison concluded that he posed a "trivial" risk to the public and that the likelihood of him re-offending was "so negligible as to not amount to a serious consideration".

The document, which was prepared by a leading psychiatrist in 2000 and is excerpted in today's Times, also noted that Venables had made "exceptional psychological progress" and come to terms with his part in the murder of James Bulger in 1993.

"The Jon Venables of today is a very different person to the Jon Venables aged 10," the report noted. "It has been a very important part of his rehabilitation so far that he has come to terms in a wholly realistic way with the awfulness of his behaviour."

It emerged last week that Venables, who was given a new identity and released on licence in 2001, has been recalled to prison following "extremely serious allegations".

Media reports over the weekend suggested that Venables, now 27, had been returned to prison in connection with child pornography offences. It has also been suggested in the press that Venables has become mentally fragile, has been known to drink heavily and use drugs, and has revealed his true identity to others.

Although the psychiatric report estimated that the chances of Venables being rehabilitated were "exceptionally high", it stressed that his progress depended on him being able to maintain his anonymity and continuing to receive the "appropriate support and guidance".

It also recommended that he be released from juvenile custody rather than placed in the prison system, where exposure to drug taking and criminals would prove a "very major setback".

The justice secretary, Jack Straw, has refused to bow to pressure to disclose the reasons for Venables's recall to prison, and has been supported by the judge who granted the former prisoner anonymity.

Lady Butler-Sloss, the former president of the high court's family division, reiterated "the enormous importance of protecting his anonymity now and if he is released, because those who wanted to kill him in 2001 are likely to be out there now".

She said: "This young man may or may not be tried. He may or may not have committed offences. There is, of course, at least the possibility that he has committed no offence.

"And consequently, he may therefore be allowed again to be out (of jail) on licence."

James Bulger's mother, Denise Fergus, has accused the government of treating the issue like a political football and of closing doors in her face.

She told ITV's This Morning that the days following the revelation of Venables' recall had been "a massive rollercoaster".

Fergus confirmed she found out about Venables's recall when officials visited her home in Kirkby, Merseyside.

"Any question I have asked them, I have had no answers and it's about time now I got some answers," she said.

"I am sick of them closing doors in my face. It's about time they started telling me what I think I should know. As James's mother I have a right to know."

However, Straw, who is due to meet Fergus later this week, said releasing further information was "not in the interests of justice" as it could threaten the fairness of any future trial.

The usual rules of sexual attraction go out of the window when men are stressed, say psychologists

Men are drawn to a wider range of women when they are feeling stressed out, according to research into the psychology of sexual attraction.

People are usually attracted to partners with similar facial features to their own, but after a brief but stressful experience, men's preferences changed to include a wider variety of women, the study found.

Relaxed men who took part in the study rated women on average 14% less appealing if they looked very different from themselves compared with women who looked similar. But a group of stressed men found dissimilar women 9% more attractive.

Johanna Lass-Hennemann, who led the study at the University of Trier in Germany, said the findings echo research suggesting that animals lose their normal mating preferences when they are under stress.

"Men have a tendency to approach dissimilar mates and to rate these to be more pleasant when they are acutely stressed," Lass-Hennemann said. "[But] we are not sure how this might reflect in true mating decisions."

Scientists suspect the appeal of similar-looking partners may be linked to our tendency to have more trust in a familiar face, a factor that is important for long-term relationships. Under stress, however, the importance of pairing up with someone similar-looking seems to vanish.

Lass-Hennemann speculates that stress might increase men's tendency to "outbreed", or reproduce with more genetically dissimilar women, with the potential benefit that any children born from the relationship might be better equipped to cope with a stressful environment.

"We think that chronically stressful environments should increase outbreeding, because inbreeding may lead to offspring that are not genetically diverse enough to deal with the varying circumstances that a risky and stressful environment imposes on them," she said.

In the study, 50 healthy heterosexual male students were divided into two groups. Those in the first group were asked to plunge one arm into a bucket of icy water for three minutes before taking part in the test. Those in the second group were asked to do the same, but with water heated to body temperature.

Measurements of the volunteers' heart rates and levels of the stress hormone cortisol indicated that the men in the first group were significantly more stressed before the test began than those in the second.

In the test itself, the men were shown a series of images on a computer screen. Some were of household objects, but others were of naked women. Some of the women's faces had been digitally altered to resemble either the person being tested or another man in the group.

Throughout the test, the scientists played occasional bursts of noise to startle the men and recorded their reactions. Previous research suggests people startle less when they are looking at something they find attractive. The men were also asked to rate the images by how appealing and arousing they were.

While men in the control group performed as expected and were more attracted to women who looked like them, the stressed men consistently rated the unfamiliar women as more appealing. Their startle reactions confirmed their preferences.

The research is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Lass-Hennemann said it is highly unlikely that the acute stresses of everyday life can switch someone's tastes when it comes to choosing a partner, but long-term stress might shift male preferences towards women who are more dissimilar.

Party's revised constitution would require all applicants to submit to a two-hour home visit, court is told

The British National party plans to send officials to vet all would-be members in their homes, a court heard today.

A clause in the far right group's revised constitution would require all applicants to submit to a two-hour home visit by two party officials, Central London county court was told.

That could operate as a form of indirect discrimination against non-whites, said Robin Allen QC, representing the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which is challenging the party's membership rules. "One way the provisions could operate would be to intimidate someone who wanted to join the party," he said, adding: "Of course, it could simply be a greeting."

BNP members last month voted to scrap the whites-only membership criteria after it was warned it faced legal action under equality laws.

The EHRC is arguing that the new constitution remains indirectly racist, even though the colour bar has been removed. That is rejected by the BNP, which argues that ever since it officially opened its doors to all ethnic groups it has acquired a "waiting list" of black and Asian would-be members.

The party's new constitution, which has yet to be published, remains prejudicial because it requires members to agree to clauses including that they are "implacably opposed to the promotion, by any means, of the integration or assimilation" of the UK's indigenous white population, Allen said.

"It would be jolly difficult for a mixed-race person to join the BNP without effectively denying themselves," he argued.

Gwyn Price Rowlands, representing the BNP, described the EHRC argument as nonsense and claimed the party already had a "significant number" of non-white members, all of whom were "welcome".

"I am informed that there is a waiting list of black, Asian and Chinese people to join," he said.

Judge Paul Collins is to rule on whether the new BNP constitution is indirectly racist on Friday.

An internal BNP memo seen by the Guardian tells members: "We don't expect any more than a handful of people of ethnic minority origin to apply to join the party nationally, and we will not let this deflect us from our political objectives of saving Britain and restoring the primacy of the indigenous British people."

The legal wrangling comes amid claims of a renewed challenge to the BNP from other extreme rightwing groups. The National Front says it has seen an upsurge in membership enquiries in recent months – mainly from BNP supporters who feel the party is "selling out".

National Front's spokesman, Tom Linden, said there had been a 70% increase in inquiries since Griffin appeared on BBC Question Time and the NF is expected to stand around 25 candidates at the general election.

"The British National party is no longer a white racist party, it is becoming a multi-racial party by giving into the race industry," he said.

Lord Laming's costly recommendations are overloading social workers, council leaders warn

The cost of implementing child protection reforms recommended in the wake of the Baby Peter case will run into tens of millions of pounds and new rules and targets have left social workers so overloaded that vulnerable children's safety could be put at greater risk, council leaders warn today.

The first independent costing of the action ordered a year ago by Lord Laming, which children's secretary Ed Balls backed and agreed to fund, put the price of hiring thousands of extra social workers to meet just one aspect of the requirements at £116m.

Children's services leaders backed the report and warned that councils were already having to cope with additional costs relating to an unexpected post-Baby Peter surge in referrals, child protection plans and court applications to take children into care.

The study, by researchers at Loughborough University and commissioned by the Local Government Association, found that nearly two-thirds of social workers had reported an increase in their workloads in the past six months, with child protection workers now dealing with an average of 14 cases at a time. Social workers said they were spending up to three-quarters of their time filling in paperwork rather than seeing families.

The study looked in particular at one of the 58 recommendations Laming made in his report – that every child protection referral to councils from police and health workers should lead to an initial assessment of the risk to the child. Social workers said it would lead to unnecessary assessments, which could compromise the quality of safeguarding work. On average, only 13% of the time taken to complete one was spent with the child or family, and the rest on form-filling.

The LGA called for the recommendation to be scrapped, allowing social workers to use their own discretion about when an initial assessment is needed, and for interim government funding to plug the gap if the proposal was left in place.

Shireen Ritchie, chair of the association's children and young people board, said: "Every right-minded person wants to know everything possible is being done to keep children safe from harm. Money is an ugly topic to raise when the issue is the safety and wellbeing of children, but it would be irresponsible to pretend social work teams can make major changes to how they operate without there being implications for their workload and resources.

"There has to be recognition of what dedicated social workers all over the country are dealing with every day, the pressures placed on them and the valuable expertise they can share. Children who are at risk, and families that are struggling, will benefit more from additional time with experienced social workers than they will from an increase in the number of forms filled in about them. Some paperwork is essential to doing the best possible job, but it is right to try to reduce bureaucracy where it can ease the pressure on social workers and increase the quality of care offered to children."

The Association of Directors of Children's Services backed the findings. Its president, Kim Bromley-Derry, said: "Prescribing that every referral has an initial assessment will … divert resources from the most vulnerable children to others whose needs can be assessed and met in other ways."

Some authorities were already predicting deficits for next year due to rising numbers of children needing services, he said.

The government said spending on children's social care increased by more than £3.5bn between 1997/98 and 2008/09 - a rise of more than 90% in real terms.

Children's minister Delyth Morgan said: "Ultimately, it is up to local authorities to decide when it is appropriate to carry out an initial assessment – over the last year the number of initial assessments they have carried out has increased. It is crucial that local authorities and their partners treat any concerns for children's safety seriously and on its merits, wherever and whoever it comes from."

Tim Loughton, the shadow children's minister, said: "This is yet further proof that the government is strangling social work with red tape. Lord Laming's proposals were supposed to improve child protection, instead they have made things worse. We need to prune back this bureaucracy so that social workers can spend time with children."

RenewableUK says inconsistencies in tariff favour solar panels, which takes microgeneration business out of UK

UK small wind turbine manufacturers say they will lose out to foreign solar panel manufacturers in the race to cash in on the UK government's new feed-in tariff scheme.

They claim their products will be penalised because solar panel owners will receive higher government subsidies than wind turbine buyers. As the arrangement stands, a wind turbine would qualify for 26.7-34.5p per KWh in government subsidies, while solar panels would typically bring in 41p per KWh.

Turbine manufacturers will also have to pay a fee of up to £100,000 to have their models certified for the scheme, and they argue that planning rules make it harder for customers to get approval for turbines.

Due to come into effect on 1 April, the tariff – also known as Clean Energy Cashback – will offer home owners a government subsidy for installing small-scale renewable energy technologies, including solar panels and wind turbines.

Alex Murley, RenewableUK's head of small systems, said: "Small wind is the only microgeneration technology which UK manufacturers dominate the market for. If we don't get this right we could be shooting ourselves in the foot and killing off a burgeoning UK success story."

According to Renewable UK, planning applications for small wind turbines have traditionally taken up to 14 months to process. Britain's oldest surviving small wind manufacturer, Ampair, has accused some local authorities of "systematically rejecting" applications.

The government promises to allow households to install small turbines without planning permission from June, but turbine manufacturers say the current planning allowance is too limited, restricting domestic wind turbines to a hub height of 10 metres and 2.2 metres blade diameter.

This will allow a 1.5KW turbine, producing an average of 800KWh a year in windy conditions – less than a fifth of the average UK household's electricity needs. By comparison, UK panel installer Solarcentury has estimated that the typical 18 metre square domestic solar panel installation would on average generate just over 2,000KWh – nearly half the average household's electricity consumption.

The government's Energy Saving Trust said that although such limitations are fine for urban roof top turbines, wind turbines in rural locations need to be bigger for small wind turbines to generate a significant amount of energy for the UK. It is these rural locations that will generate the lion's share of energy from "small" turbines. EST figures published last year show small turbines could meet 4% of the UK's electricity demands but only 4% of that energy would come from small turbines in urban locations.

UK manufacturers currently produce four-fifths of the country's small turbines, 3,500 of which were installed in the UK in 2008. All larger wind turbines and the vast majority of solar panels are manufactured abroad.

David Sharman, managing director of Ampair, claims the UK government is penalising its own manufacturing industry through inequalities in the feed-in tariff.

He also claims that the rigorous tests to qualify for the tariff's quality assurance certificate, the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS), are prohibitively expensive at at £50,000-£100,000 per product certified. No small wind turbines have so far been MCS accreditedbut the government has set up an MCS 'transition list' for small wind turbines, which allows them to temporarily qualify for the tariff for one year while they complete the accreditation scheme.

Responding to criticism of planning restrictions for wind, a spokesperson for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: "We consulted on the proposals to find the right balance for these technologies. We want to enable homeowners to install microgeneration easily and also make sure we're fair about planning permission for larger installations. Different homes will be suitable for different technologies based on a number of factors – it's not a one size fits all."

Michael Gove shook hands with Simon Burns straight after John Bercow criticised him

An intriguing vignette from today's lively session of prime minister's questions in which David Cameron lost his cool when Labour MPs shouted that retired defence chiefs were Tories.

John Bercow, the Speaker, was so annoyed with the noise that he singled out two MPs by name – the former Labour defence minister Derek Twigg and the Tory whip Simon Burns.

The Speaker was so angry with Burns that he told him he was being boring and boorish. As Burns smirked at Bercow, fellow Tory MPs jokingly banged their Commons order papers over the whip's head.

And then Michael Gove, the shadow schools secretary, walked up to Burns to shake his hand. So there we have it: a public display of disapproval of the Speaker from a key member of the Cameron circle.

Critics of the recent PCS strike have their numbers wrong – cuts pose a real threat to vulnerable, low-paid civil servants

I read with dismay the two articles on Comment is Free written during our 48-hour strike on 8 and 9 March.

The first, by the pseudonymous "Kurt Chapman", is a frightening combination of mathematical inaccuracy and personal attack. PCS members are not the dupes of my ego, as he insultingly suggests, but well-informed and dedicated public servants who know precisely what an attack on their terms looks like, and overwhelmingly supported the strike. If the ethereal Kurt wishes to join the debate he should discard the cloak of anonymity.

Phillip Inman, like the cabinet office minister Tessa Jowell, talks about bringing the civil service into line with the rest of the public sector, but there is no attempt to do this on pay. That renowned friend of the workers Margaret Thatcher agreed our redundancy terms, which recognised that our pay rates are lower than elsewhere. Civil servants earned an average salary of just £22,850 last year, lower than the averages in both the rest of the public sector and in the private sector.

It seems only a levelling-down of workers' entitlements is OK. Yes, some workers have worse conditions, but as our rep Andy Thomas pointed out in a media interview yesterday, "that's an argument for everyone in the country to be paid the minimum wage, it's an argument for everyone in this country to sleep under Waterloo Bridge".

People join unions to defend their interests against employers' attempts to attack their terms and their job, and to stop an employer-driven race to the bottom on pay, pensions and other terms and conditions. PCS members have contractual rights, and they are determined to defend them. The action on 8 and 9 March was tremendously well supported, showing the depth of feeling on this, with rallies in every region and widespread media coverage.

To compare civil servants with fat-cat bankers getting bonuses of millions on top of six- or seven-figure salaries, as Philip Inman does, is like comparing common assault with genocide. Few of my members will recognise the picture painted of "generous pay, homes and sundry benefits". Bailed-out banks, which caused this whole economic crisis, are giving away billions in taxpayers' cash to already ludicrously wealthy individuals.

Like his anonymous companion, Inman also gets his maths wrong, and my union would love to meet the actuary who came up with his pension figures of a civil servant paid £30,000 enjoying a £20,000 pension. The average civil service pension is just £4,200.

Any civil servant earning more than £20,000 will be worse off under the government's proposals. Anyone leaving on voluntary terms will also see a potential cut, and for most people the entitlement to an early pension is lost. And because of these savings, everyone's job is more vulnerable because entire workforces will be cheaper to sack or to privatise – and all three parties are telling our members that's what's in store.

Nearly 100,000 posts have been lost in the civil service in the last five years, and this attack on redundancy terms makes every single member more vulnerable. The reality of those working in the civil service is one of lower pay than in the rest of the public sector and the private sector, and considerable job vulnerability.

The government's motivation is crude cost-cutting, not justice for the low-paid or equity for the young. None of the proposed savings are being recycled into better pay or better pensions for the young. They are part of the grand redistribution from taxpayers and all workers to prop up the bank-led casino economy, which the government was lauding right up until it collapsed causing this crisis, and seems determined to excuse from any reparations now.

The message from PCS members, echoing around Europe, is that we will not pay for the failure of the bankers and the politicians who deregulated and let it happen. Attempts to create false divides between young and old or public and private will not wash. The people of the UK know they are being fleeced not by low-paid civil servants, but by fat-cat bankers and their compliant politicians.

The 2012 Olympics offer the perfect chance to mark the anniversary of a great mathematician – and marathon runner

Last year I led a campaign to obtain an apology for the mistreatment of the British mathematician Alan Turing. Turing's prosecution for homosexuality led to the death of a true genius at the age of only 41 in 1954. On 10 September last year, Gordon Brown issued an apology that recognised Turing's stature as one of the greatest Britons. But Britain has a final opportunity to unapologetically recognise Alan Turing in two years' time, at the 2012 Olympics.

It's now well known that Turing laid down the foundations of computer science in the 1930s, helped shorten the second world war by breaking Nazi codes at Bletchley Park and investigated artificial intelligence. He went on to design early computers during the late 1940s and just before he died he was untangling the process of morphogenesis to understand why and how living beings take the shape they do. Only today are scientists appreciating the work he did in his last years, and every computer user can be thankful for his theoretical Turing machine, which captured the essence of the machines we all use.

What is less known is that Turing was also an accomplished physical athlete. He was an excellent marathon runner, with a best time of 2 hours 46 minutes. He ran for a local club in Walton, Surrey while working at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington. He is also said to have run between London and Bletchley Park for meetings during the second world war, and at age 14 he cycled 60 miles from Southampton to school at Sherbourne during the general strike of 1926.

The last time Britain hosted the Olympics, in 1948, Turing tried out for the British Olympic marathon team. He came fifth in the trials. He ended up attending the games as a spectator taking along two of his young nieces as guests. That year Britain took a silver in the marathon when Thomas Richards ran for 2 hours 35 minutes. Alan Turing was only 11 minutes slower.

2012 has great significance: it's the centenary of his birth on 23 June. To celebrate "Alan Turing Year", mathematicians and scientists across Britain and around the world are arranging events throughout the year. Celebrations of Turing's work will be held in Manchester (where he was living and working when he died) and at Bletchley Park. There's even a suggestion that Unesco should designate 2012 the year of computer science.

Turing's life also deserves celebration far from the places he's most associated with. As Britons, we live in a world Turing helped create: computers have permeated our lives and his work at Bletchley Park with thousands of others helped bring the war with Nazi Germany to an end. As London shows off what's great about Britain through the Olympic games, let's show off a great Briton of whom we should be proud. What better way to honour Turing than by naming the 2012 marathon the "Turing marathon" and inviting his surviving nieces to witness the event? One of them could even be invited to fire the starting pistol that will set the runners off. Those little girls are elderly now, but their memories of Uncle Alan are bright. Inviting them would be a fitting tribute.

Of course, detractors may be concerned about sullying the games by associating an individual with an event. But such concerns didn't stop Greece in 2004 from naming their entire Olympic stadium after Spiridon Louis (who won the marathon event in 1896). Honouring the life of a man would be a welcome antidote to the heavy commercialisation surrounding the games.

Others may worry about raking over the embers of the dark days of anti-homosexuality laws. But there's little need to be concerned: celebrating Turing doesn't mean focusing on just that one aspect of his life; it means recognising a mental and physical athlete, a mathematician and marathon runner, and a man to whom we owe so much. It's rare that events coincide to give us one moment in time when a man like Turing can be celebrated in all his complexity. Let's not miss the chance in 2012.

• This article was commissioned after the author contacted us via a You Tell Us thread

Have your medical records been placed online? Has social mobility ground to a halt? And, why are the poor unhealthy?

Todays top Society Guardian stories

Gordon Brown announces public sector pay freeze

Child protection reforms will cost millions

Political parties clash over cost of care for the elderly

Failure to reduce reoffending rates of short term prisoners costs £10bn, says report

Evaluation of Jon Venables prior to his 2001 release concluded be posed 'trival' risk to public

All today's Society Guardian stories

Highlights from today's Society Guardian

Tom Clark asks if social mobility has ground to a halt

Glasgow council is making massive cuts - can others learn from their experience?

Profile: Joe Gerstein, the addiction campaigner who says AA doesn't work

Eric Allison on new starts for ex-offenders

All today's Society Guardian stories

Other news

* Confidential patient records are being placed online without consent, the Daily Telegraph reports

* A psychiatric report prepared ten years ago that led to the release of Jon Venables concluded that he posed a "trivial risk" to the public, according to the Times

* The civil servant who headed the government's programme of personalised social services, John Bolton, is quitting to set up his own consultancy, reports Community Care

Apathetic eating

Why are the very poorest and most socially excluded people most likely to be unhealthy? Apathy it seems, plays a big part. When asked by researchers in a study published today what were the main barriers to a healthy lifestyle, over half answered: "laziness." The study, Reaching Out, also found "lack of money" was blamed by half the respondents for preventing them getting fit. One in five believed their unhealthiness was genetically inevitable, because all their family were in poor health too. And most didn't see their sedentary lifestyles and poor diet as risks to their health: 84% said "they did not really worry about their health at the moment."

The study of 258 "hard to reach" individuals in the North west of England (where 50% of the population is classified as 'deprived') by ourlife, Pfizer and NHS north west, suggests that this group was unaware that they were in poor health (or in denial about it). While rates of clinical obesity were high (26%) only 7% believed themselves to be overweight. When it came to alcohol there were similar findings: 40% regularly drank to excess; just 6% believed they were binge drinkers. There was slightly more self awareness when it came to nutrition: of the 72% that had an unbalanced diet, 59% realised they were eating badly.

But being unhealthy, suggests the report, didn't feel particularly out of the ordinary to many respondents: over half of those who were clinically overweight regarded themselves "as being as healthy as others in their community."

The NHS has struggled to improve the health of the worst off, and the report suggests it may not be best placed to conduct health promotion campaigns. Respondents felt the health service had little overall influence on their general health and lifestyles: most went rarely to their local health centre, believing the GP to be someone they go to only when acutely ill - not for health advice. Of the 16% who had visited their GP in the past year, the majority went to get certification for illness benefit payments.

Those surveyed were stubbornly ignorant of conventional health promotion campaigns. But they were receptive to the idea that financial incentives could change their lifestyles: the offer of free swimming and fitness classes was popular, as was the concept of fee vouchers for food and vegetables.

Society Guardian events

The Public Procurement show. The UK's leading event for public sector procurement. 15-16 June, ExCeL, London

Society Guardian links

Sign up to Society daily email briefing

Society on Twitter

SocietyGuardian.co.uk

Public - The Guardian's website for senior public sector executives

Get ahead: the Guardian's public and voluntary sector careers page

Hundreds of public and voluntary sector jobs

Email the SocietyGuardian editor: society@guardian.co.uk

Caroline Thomson, the BBC chief operating officer, defends 'tough' decision to close digital radio station 6 Music

Caroline Thomson, the BBC's chief operating officer, has defended the decision unveiled in the corporation's strategy review last week to close BBC 6 Music.

Thomson told an audience of media executives in London that the digital radio station, which is now the subject of a high-profile public campaign to save it, competed directly with commercial radio.

"The average age of its listeners – 37 – is at the heart of the demographic targeted by commercial radio", she told delegates at a Westminster Media Forum event.

There were also questions, she said, about whether the BBC should run three popular music stations – Radio 1, Radio 2 and 6 Music.

Thomson described the recommendation to axe 6 Music, which will now be considered by the BBC Trust following public consultation, as "tough". But she added: "There just isn't the luxury of closing something that no one cares about ... all the BBC services are loved by some."

She added that the money saved by the closure would be reinvested in radio, with a particular focus on digital services. Digital station BBC Radio 7 will "move towards [becoming] Radio 4 extra... with all the extra investment that implies".

Thomson conceded that some of the BBC's critics "have a point" when they complain that it was encroaching on markets that were previously off limits. "We must be prepared to define the boundaries of our public service. We must be prepared to know our limits," she said.

Some competitors had legitimate concerns about the corporation's "existing boundaries and its future ambition", Thomson added. "We are in a world where we can't do everything. We need to move to the world of 'either/or'."

In a thinly disguised attack on Rupert Murdoch's media empire, she also said there was a "small but influential group of critics with vested interests" who want to see a smaller BBC.

"Their underlying objective is death by a thousand cuts," Thomson added, and the BBC "ought to stand up to" them.

Echoing the words of the BBC director general, Mark Thompson, who some believe she may eventually replace, Thomson said that the corporation exists in a "public space" alongside libraries, museums galleries and other public institutions, "without which Britain would just not be Britain".

The BBC "has remained remarkably relevant, perhaps even more relevant", she added. "[The idea that] it would lose relevance amongst a ubiquity of content has proved false."

Thomson repeated the BBC's pledge to cut back on overseas acquisitions, but made clear that did not mean that popular US imports would be banned altogether.

BBC2 recently screened all five series of US drama The Wire and BBC4 shows Mad Men, another series that has won critical acclaim, but relatively small audiences.

She also said the BBC reserved the right to screen big Hollywood films at Christmas, because licence-fee payers demand it.

She praised "marvellous American series" and said: "We do need to be able to keep that as well as the capacity to have the central film on Christmas Day, like Harry Potter."

Thomson confirmed that the cap on the money spent on sports rights, which was also announced in the strategy review, commits the corporation to spend at "roughly the same level as we are now" and does not reduce it.

• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.

• If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

An assisted dying law wouldn't just benefit the terminally ill, but bring peace of mind to those terrified of a 'bad' death too

While working as a part-time carer, I was part of a team looking after a young woman who was dying from Huntington's disease and cancer. She suffered against her will for six months and endured more than I think I could bear. It was this experience that reinforced my belief that we need a compassionate law to allow the choice of assisted dying, in certain circumstances.

Critics of legalising assisted dying often cite the "vulnerable granny" who could be coerced into an assisted death as a reason not to have safeguarded assisted dying here in the UK. Oregon's Death with Dignity Act summary from 2009 has been published this week, and shows that, consistent with their decade of experience, the people who chose an assisted death tended to be white men or women, aged between 65 and 84, often university educated, always terminally ill and almost always enrolled in palliative care.

My personal experience is that while my granny who didn't fit into this "type" would have neither suffered nor benefitted from an assisted dying law, the granny who ended up being vulnerable was the one who did fit this "type" – she was well-educated and desperate for an assisted dying safety net.

"Granny number one" was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the age of 88. She lived alone, was poorly educated and became the epitome of what we imagine a vulnerable granny to look like. She was treated in hospital and was facilitated to go home to die, as she had family around to support her care.

As the end of her life drew near my mum (her daughter) and my uncle stayed with her. She was experiencing a lot of pain. The doctor visited and told her, with her family there, that he could relieve her pain, but that the amount of medication needed to do that may well result in her death (although his intention was not to end her life). She and her family acknowledged that, and she decided she would take the pain relief. She died peacefully that night surrounded by those who loved her. She had the best death possible given the circumstances.

"Granny number two" died suddenly in the night, with no physical suffering or long-term illness. The difference is that she was suffering untold mental anguish because she was terrified of what her death might be like. We as her family knew that she wanted to have the choice to end her life if she became terminally ill and suffered in the same way she had seen numerous people she cared for suffer, but we didn't realise just how terrified she was about her own death until after she had died.

In her bedside table were hundreds of sleeping tablets, painkillers and other drugs she had squirrelled away over the years, and several syringes she must have "foraged" from her time working in a hospital. She must have planned her "way out" in complete secrecy, out of the intense fear she felt about the process of dying. In my opinion, there really was only one vulnerable granny in this scenario, and it was the one no one would have considered vulnerable until after she had died.

I believe, by the grace of God, that granny number two had the death she wanted. Had she known that she would die in this way she would have spent the last 10 years of her life enjoying it and not contemplating taking her own life alone. None of us can know how we will die. However, if assisted dying legislation were in place in the UK we would all know that we could, at the very least, be afforded the kind of death granny number one had. A death at home, surrounded by the people and things that are important to us, free of suffering, and importantly at a time of our choosing.

The report from Oregon not only shows us that the people who choose an assisted death are not in the social groups considered at risk of becoming vulnerable under assisted dying legislation, but it also shows that just under half of the people who have the life-ending medication go on to have natural deaths, safe in the knowledge that if their suffering becomes unbearable they can take control and end that suffering.

Had assisted dying been legal when granny number two died, she wouldn't even have had to go through the process of getting the life-ending prescription to benefit from the change in the law – in fact she wouldn't have been able to get the prescription because she wasn't terminally ill.

What she would have been able to do was to live all of her life fully, knowing that if the situations her active imagination allowed her to envisage materialised at the end of her life, she would have been in control of her own suffering, and would be able to replace the bad death she was terrified about experiencing, for the good death she ended up actually having.

This is why I will continue to campaign for the legalisation of assisted dying in the UK. I firmly believe that the stereotypical vulnerable grannies will not suffer from a change in the law, but those people like my grandma (number two) who suffer in silence will be able to live happier lives in the knowledge that they will have control over their deaths, should they need to take that control.

ISPs, Google, Facebook, eBay and Yahoo sign letter saying clause threatens free speech and could lead to blocking of sites

Amendments made to the digital economy bill by the House of Lords threaten freedom of speech and will lead to British websites being blocked without due judicial process, the chief executives of leading technology companies said today.

The heads of the four largest UK internet service providers – BT, Orange, Virgin Media and TalkTalk – as well as Google, Facebook, eBay and Yahoo have all co-signed the letter, along with consumer groups, academics and the technophile television host Stephen Fry, objecting to amendment 120A to the bill, which was added to the bill last week with support from Liberal Democrat and Conservative peers.

Ministers had been seeking powers to amend copyright law and impose conditions or fees where infringements were taking place.

But the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats succeeded in removing the measures from the bill last week, replacing them with a more specific amendment handing courts the power to force internet service providers (ISPs) to block certain websites.

In a letter to the Financial Times , the online giants argue that the rules, if they become law, would fail to tackle copyright infringement as intended. The amendment has "obvious shortcomings", the 16 signatories say.

The letter says: "Endorsing a policy that would encourage the blocking of websites by UK broadband providers or other internet companies is a very serious step for the UK to take.

"There are myriad legal, technical and practical issues to reconcile before this can be considered a proportionate and necessary public policy option."

The amendment had been roundly criticised last week when it was added, as critics pointed out that it could be used to block sites such as YouTube.

But Lord Tim Clement-Jones, one of the backers of the amendment, said last week that the intention was to deal with "cyberlockers" – a system that allows individuals to swap large files directly, rather than sending them by email or storing them on websites.

The House of Lords passed the amendment last week, replacing a clause that would have given broad powers to ministers to change the Copyright Act to respond to new forms of online infringement without the need for primary legislation.

But the letter's signatories called the amendment "bitterly disappointing", and explained: "Put simply, blocking access as envisaged by this clause would both widely disrupt the internet in the UK and elsewhere and threaten freedom of speech and the open internet, without reducing copyright infringement as intended. To rush through such a controversial proposal at the tail end of a parliament, without any kind of consultation with consumers or industry, is very poor law-making."

Responding to the letter, the chief executive of UK music industry body the BPI, Geoff Taylor, said that the amendment provided a "clear and sensible" way of dealing with illegal downloading.

Taylor added that the signatories to the FT's letter have acknowledged that illegal downloading has to be dealt with.

"The amendment adopted by the House of Lords provides a clear and sensible mechanism to deal with illegal websites," he said.

"Contrary to the claims in the letter, service providers would in every case be able to ensure that the decision as to whether a site should be blocked is made by the high court. The court would be required to consider the extent of legal content on a website, any impact on human rights, and whether the website removes infringing content when requested. So the suggestion that the clause would lead to widespread disruption to the internet or threaten freedom of speech is pure scaremongering.

"The signatories to the letter recognise that dealing with illegal websites is a legitimate concern, and have argued in the past that action against illegal downloading should focus on commercial operators. Removing unfair competition from clearly illegal websites will encourage investment in legal online services and improve the legal internet experience for everyone."

The digital economy bill is expected to be pushed through before parliament is dissolved for the general election, widely expected to happen on 6 May. If it reaches a second reading by early April, when an election would be called, it could go into the "wash up" – the process at the end of a parliament when bills that have not been passed are hurried through. The government would need cooperation from the opposition to achieve that with the bill – but it is not clear whether the Tories, who have objected to elements of the bill, as the "landline tax" of £6 a year to help pay for next-generation broadband, would support it.

Lord Clement-Jones had said the provisions, approved by 165 votes to 140, would protect the creative industries by preventing access to websites where films and music were being provided illegally.

He told peers: "I believe this is going to send a powerful message to our creative industries that we value what they do, that we want to protect what they do, that we do not believe in censoring the internet but we are responding to genuine concerns from the creative industries about providing a process whereby their material can be satisfactorily accessed legally."

Lord Clement-Jones said the "blanket nature" of the government's original intention was "objectionable". He argued the new proposals were "more proportionate, specific and appropriate".

The bill extends the role of media regulator Ofcom to include communications infrastructure and media content, and to appoint providers of local news in ITV regions.

It also includes powers to stop under-age children getting hold of violent computer games and contains measures to help the switchover to digital radio.

Minute-by-minute coverage of PMQs from midday

11.24am: Gordon Brown has decided to make his character an issue in the election. He gave a major speech on the economy this morning. We've got a story about it on the website, and Downing Street have issued the full text, but a colleague who was there tells me that the key passage was not in the text released to the media. Luckily I've got the missing words. Here they are:

I've heard some people say this coming election will be about policy choices and I've heard other people say the issue is not policy; it's character. But I don't think you can separate the two. It is for other people to judge. But I believe that character is not about telling people what they want to hear but about telling them what they need to know. It is about having the courage to set out your mission and take the tough decisions and stick to them without being blown off course, even when the going is difficult. For better or worse, with me - what you see is what you get.

This is interesting. Brown's "character" is normally perceived as an electoral liability. This is an attempt to turn it into an asset.

And who do you think he is referring to when he talks about people who "tell people what they want to hear"? David Cameron, of course. We may find out what Cameron thinks about that at 12pm.

12.01pm: Nick Robinson on The Daily Politics has just said that Brown is trying to present himself as an "economic Churchill". He even tried reading extracts from Brown's speech with a ham Churchill accent. Robinson has a point; it did sound a bit Churchillian.

12.02pm: Brown starts with tributes to the servicemen killed in Afghanistan over the last week. He says their heroism will not be forgotten.

12.03pm: Brown also pays tribute to Michael Foot, who will be remembered as a man of passion and conviction, he says. He was the greatest parliamentarian of his generation, Brown says.

12.03pm: Service families

Richard Benyon (Con) says most servicemen serving abroad will not be able to vote in the election.

12.04pm: Brown says Jack Straw is making "the best arrangements possible" to ensure soldiers abroad can vote.

Lord Ashcroft

David Drew (Lab) asks if the Cabinet Office is investigating the tax affairs of Lord Ashcroft.

12.06pm: Brown says he has ordered no such investigation. But he believed the assurances given about Ashcroft's tax status by William Hague.

12.06pm: David Cameron

Cameron also pays tribute to Foot and to the dead servicemen.

12.07pm: Yesterday there was an inquest into four soldiers killed in Afghanistan. At the time the defence minister, Quentin Davies, said their equipment was not to blame. That was proved to be untrue. Will Davies apologise?

Brown says Davies apologised at the time.

He says there are three areas to be looked at. First, vehicles. Brown says he has ordered 1,800 new vehicles. Second, training. That will be improved. Third, roadside bombs. The army's capacity to deal with them will be improved.

12.09pm: Brown also pays tribute to the "dignity" shown by the relatives who attended yesterday's inquest.

Cameron asks about Brown's evidence to the Iraq inquiry. He quotes from two former chiefs of the defence staff (Lord Guthrie and General Sir Richard Dannatt). Labour MPs shout: "They're Tories." Cameron says that illustrates Labour's "tribalism". He asks Brown to reject this.

12.09pm: Brown says that Cameron praised the government for purchasing more vehicles.

12.10pm: Cameron again asks Brown to distance himself from the remarks of his Labour MPs. He says Guthrie and Dannatt "fought for their country".

12.10pm: Brown says he has never criticised the military. "I want to applaud the patriotism of everybody who serves their country."

12.11pm: Cameron says:

The prime minster has given us a lecture this morning on character. But he has not got the character to stand up to his own backbenchers.

12.12pm: Cameron quotes from more military figures who have criticised the MoD budget decisions.

Brown says he put the facts before the Iraq inquiry. He says the chief of the defence staff has said Britain has "the best equipped force that we have ever seen". He says he will "take no lectures on integrity from the man who won't even answer one question on Lord Ashcroft".

Cameron again quotes Guthrie and Dannatt. He says Brown has "tried to fight two wars on a peacetime budget". Will he confirm the Treasury "massively underestimated the cost of the war in Afghanistan"?

12.14pm: Brown says the defence budget has been rising every year. It was last cut under the Tories.

Cameron says:

The reason the defence budget was cut in the 1990s was that under the Conservatives we won the cold war.

12.14pm: John Bercow is having difficulty getting the Commons to keep quiet. Labour MPs are jeering at Cameron, because they thought his claim was daft.

12.15pm: Cameron goes on:

And we all remember who was wearing the CND badges at the time.

The government "failed in their duty of care", he says.

12.15pm: Brown says:

First of all, on defence, he cannot deny the fact that the budget is rising in real terms.

12.16pm: Brown says Cameron was "at school at the time" of the cold war. He also says that Cameron's comments undermine what he said earlier about partisanship. Then he concludes with a riff about Ashcroft.

12.16pm: Earlier Bercow rebuked the Labour MP Derek Twigg. Now he rebukes the Tory Simon Burns. He says Burns' heckling is "as boring as it is boorish".

12.17pm: Nick Clegg

The Lib Dem leader starts with condolences to the dead servicemen. And he pays tribute to Michael Foot. He was "a man of great integrity".

12.18pm: He says an NAO report out today "lifts the lid on Labour's dark secret".

12.19pm: It shows that reoffending is costing the country millions.

Brown says reoffending is down.

Clegg says nine out of 10 young men who go to prison on short sentences reoffend within two years. "The victims end up paying the price."

12.21pm: Brown says if the Lib Dems would support the government on CCTV and DNA, the government would be able to catch more criminals. Youth reoffending is down 25%.

12.27pm: Here is one of the key quotes from Cameron:

Following his evidence, one former chief of the defence staff said the prime minster was being "disingenuous". Another former chief of the defence staff said he was "dissembling". Both these people worked with the prime minister [heckling] ... It's because they're Tories, is it? That is what this tribalist, divisive government thinks about ... I think this prime minister should get up and disassociate himself completely with what those people have said.

12.34pm: And here is one of the key quotes from Brown:

First of all, on defence, he cannot deny the fact that the budget is rising every year in real terms ... As for his talk about the cold war, talk about his call for non-partisanship in the House of Commons! Mr Speaker, I seem to remember he was at school at the time. The Conservative party talk about the new politics. But how can there be new politics with Lord Ashcroft? They talk about modernisation. How can there be modernisation with Lord Ashcroft? The Conservative party talks about change. How can they ever change as long as Lord Ashcroft is vice chairman of the party?

Back in the chamber, Brown says he is worried by "the Conservative campaign to undermine the BBC".

Instant summary

Who won? Brown, although it was a particularly ill-tempered and undignified exchange that did not particularly bring credit to anyone. Cameron made a spontaneous decision to turn the Labour heckling against Brown, but his indignation sounded just a tiny bit feigned. He made a perfectly good point about defence spending in the 1990s, but the way his remark about the Tories winning the cold war came out almost made it sound as if he was trying to take credit himself. He wasn't, of course, but that doesn't matter; his remark was open to that interpretation. Brown's put-down, about Cameron being at school, was masterly.