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Young, urban professional seeks home – vacant premises will do

August 23rd, 2010   by Isabella

The number of people living in squats in England and Wales has risen by 25 per cent in the last seven years, according to new figures. But contrary to popular belief, greater numbers of squatters are now professional, middle class and upwardly mobile.

The Advisory Service for Squatters (ASS), a voluntary group, believes there are as many as 22,000 people living in squats, up from 15,000 seven years ago. In 1995, estimates put the number at 9,500. The figures are believed to be a conservative estimate.

Experts say the increase is fuelled by an increase in rents and house prices, a decline in public housing stock and tighter restrictions on mortgages, meaning there are fewer opportunities for people to secure homes. This, together with a greater number of vacant properties as a result of repossessions or buy-to-let landlords unable to rent properties, has resulted in more squatting opportunities.

Agencies dealing with squatters are reporting increases in the number of cases they handle. Will Kahn, senior adviser at Tenant Eviction UK, said: "We have seen a rise in the cases relating to squatters in the last year or so. I would say this increase is a result of the recession, because there are more empty houses. We're dealing with seven to eight squatter cases a month. A couple of years ago, we were doing two a month, so it is a significant increase."

Squatters were typically associated with parts of London or other big cities. But many solicitors are now seeing a shift towards smaller towns and cities throughout England: "You do see it happening in towns such as Leicester, Peterborough, Norwich, and we've had a few cases in Bedford," said Gail Sykes from Buckles Solicitors. "We are seeing a different kind of squatter. You used to have a lot of travellers moving in and camping on land. We now tend to be dealing with people breaking into or obtaining access to clients' vacant properties. We've seen that change within the last 18 months."

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Ian Teh’s China

August 21st, 2010   by Isabella

The Olympic torch passes by Tang Jie, a Chinese Ph.D. student whose YouTube clip crystallized an outburst of nationalism in the country.

At his Letter from China blog, Evan Osnos writes about the photographer Ian Teh, who has taken pictures for a number of Osnos’s dispatches in The New Yorker. (Granta and the Times’s Lens blog have also recently featured Teh’s work, and Panos has a multimedia presentation.) Here’s a slide show of photos by Teh, with links to the corresponding Osnos stories.

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While Cameron is away Clegg targets Trident

August 20th, 2010   by Isabella

Nick Clegg exacerbated coalition tensions over Trident as he said the "huge, huge" £20bn cost of renewing the nuclear weapons system was hard to justify when benefits were being cut. He spoke out as he delivered a passionate defence of the Government's record on the eve of its 100th day in office, arguing it was proving to be "radical and reforming".

The Deputy Prime Minister also struck an upbeat note in his first appearance since assuming charge of the day-to-day running of the administration while David Cameron takes his summer break.

He cautioned against excessive gloom over the tough economic times ahead and insisted there was "light at the end of the tunnel" for the country.

Speaking at a town hall-style event in central London, his comments on Trident cast a fresh spotlight on one of the most contentious decisions facing the Con-Lib Dem administration.

Tory ministers Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, and George Osborne, the Chancellor, have already clashed publicly over where the money for renewing Trident would be found.

Mr Clegg reiterated his party's hostility to replacement – and chose emotive examples to argue his case.

"I think the priority within the defence budget should be absolutely to make sure that our brave troops, our brave servicemen and servicewomen, particularly now on the front line in Afghanistan, have what they need," he said.

Mr Clegg, who said he was not altering his views on Trident just because he was in office, suggested it was the "kind of technology and hardware that we acquired as a country in the past, in an era of Cold War conflict". He said Britain's role in the world was changing very fast and had to be "reflected in the kinds of things we spend money on".

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Met whistleblower forced out by officer he exposed

August 16th, 2010   by Isabella

A senior police officer cheated to get a promotion and then used his new position to wreck the career of a detective who blew the whistle on him, an employment tribunal has found.

Detective Inspector Kevin Williams – who accessed questions on an internal database shortly before he was interviewed for a promotion in the Metropolitan Police e-crime unit – still retains high-level security clearance and now works in the counter-terror unit. In the meantime, Detective Sergeant Howard Shaw, who blew the whistle, has been forced out of his job.

The tribunal found that senior Scotland Yard officers colluded in bringing a false disciplinary case, and Commander Nigel Mawer – who led the investigation into the loss of government disks containing the information of 25 million people in 2007 – was criticised for being "surprisingly and exceptionally careless" in his handling of the case. The judge concluded that Mr Mawer "did not consider and did not care whether or not the disciplinary proceedings against the claimant were properly founded".

When Shaw, 47, discovered that Williams had asked a colleague for the questions on an interview panel, he reported the incident to Detective Superintendent Charlie McMurdie. But no action was taken and Williams was appointed to the e-crime unit soon afterwards. When it emerged that he had accessed the questions online, Shaw again complained to McMurdie. Days later McMurdie and Williams instigated disciplinary proceedings against Shaw, making a false allegation that he had broken an order not to continue with an outside business interest, and removed him from the e-crime unit, the tribunal found.

"There is an assumption in the police that if you are disciplined then you are guilty," said DS Shaw, who has been a police officer for 38 years. "I was ostracised by my peers, it was a lonely two years. I was under the care of my doctor and on medication, I had counselling. It had an effect on my whole family."

DS Shaw returned to the e-crime unit – a £7m project established in 2008 to tackle cybercrime – after the internal hearing exonerated him, but he found working with colleagues who had brought false proceedings too difficult, and transferred to the extradition and international assistance units.

"My story shows how difficult it is to be a whistleblower in the police, where senior officers are not challenged. The culture in the organisation is to protect men of the same cloth," he said after the hearing.

A Remedy Hearing will be held on 13 October to determine how much compensation DS Shaw will receive. His solicitor, Lawrence Davies, of the firm Equal Justice, said: "Essentially, the Met ran two defences. The first was that Shaw never whistle-blew. The second was that if Shaw did complain, he did so because he had been correctly disciplined. Both were untrue. They sought to ruin his career because he is an honest cop and dutifully complained when he witnessed Williams break the law."

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Follett backs Balls with £100,000 gift

August 13th, 2010   by Isabella

Ken Follett, the millionaire thriller writer, has lavished £100,000 of his fortune on the apparently doomed campaign by Ed Balls to become Labour leader.

The six-figure donation will give fresh impetus to the shadow Education Secretary's attempt to succeed his political mentor Gordon Brown.

Despite putting up a spirited fight, Mr Balls seems to be lagging behind David and Ed Miliband in the battle for the Labour crown.

But Mr Follett last month pumped another £100,000 into his campaign, the Electoral Commission disclosed as it published the major donations – gifts of more than £1,500 – to the Labour hopefuls in July.

The author is no doubt a fervent admirer of Mr Balls's leadership credentials, but conspiracy theorists might detect an after-shock from the Blair years. Mr Balls was firmly in the anti-Blair camp in the in-fighting that beset Labour in government.

Mr Follett, a long-standing Labour supporter whose wife Barbara was an MP for 13 years until she stood down at the general election, had a spectacular fall-out with Mr Blair soon after he became leader.

He described the former prime minister as "immoral, unmanly and lacking conviction" and claimed he would be remembered for making "malicious gossip an everyday tool of modern British government".

Mr Follett was not available last night to explain the reasons for his gift, while a spokesman for Mr Balls declined to comment.

Almost half of the £310,000 pledged last month to the leadership contenders was paid into David Miliband's coffers.

He received almost £139,000, including £50,000 from Anthony Bailey, a Labour fundraiser who gave money to both Mr Blair and Mr Brown, and nearly £33,000 from the former minister Lord Sainsbury.

Sir Gulam Noon, the "curry king" businessman, handed over £10,000 to the shadow Foreign Secretary's campaign, while the film producer Duncan Kenworthy donated £5,000.

Mr Miliband said: "It's humbling that people are giving up both their time and their money to help me."

Ed Miliband lagged behind his older brother, collecting £46,450 for his campaign, well over half of which (£28,000) came from the GMB union.

A spokesman said he had also received close to £60,000 from hundreds of backers whose donations were too small to notify to the Electoral Commission.

Perhaps the most surprising donation was the £10,000 given by Jamie Carragher, the Liverpool defender, to Andy Burnham, a supporter of the club's arch-rivals Everton.

The shadow Health Secretary, who received donations of £12,400 and a £10,000 loan, said the figures did not take into account the "fivers and tenners" being contributed through his campaign website.

For the second month, the fifth leadership contender, Diane Abbott, did not receive any donations of more than £1,500.

In the contest to become the party's candidate for London Mayor, Ken Livingstone raised £35,000, including £10,000 from the union Unite and £5,000 from the train drivers' union Aslef.

His rival, the former MP Oona King, collected £14,000, including £10,000 from the media mogul Lord Alli and £2,000 from the television historian Simon Schama.

Labour leadership donors

David Miliband £138,835.12

Including: £50,000 from Anthony Bailey; £32,835.12 from Lord Sainsbury; £25,000 from the Usdaw union; and £10,000 from Gulam Noon.

Ed Miliband £46,500

Including: £28,000 from the GMB union; £5,000 from Betterworld Ltd; and £5,000 from Q Hotels Group Ltd.

Ed Balls £103,000

Including: £100,000 from Ken Follett, pictured top with his wife, Barbara, the former Labour MP for Stevenage.

Andy Burnham £22,400

Including: £10,000 from Jamie Carragher, a £10,000 loan from Kevin Lee

Diane Abbott £0

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Ex-Manly man Perry still on for Saints start

August 12th, 2010   by Isabella

St Helens' new signing, Josh Perry, has been in touch with the club to reassure them that there is no danger of him missing the start of his first season with them.

The Manly and Australia prop was thought to have broken his leg in the victory over the Melbourne Storm at the weekend. But now the injury has been identified as a dislocated tibia and Perry could be back in action in three weeks. He has spoken to the chairman of Saints, Eamonn McManus, to pass on the good news.

The Storm have admitted defeat in their battle to retain Greg Inglis, rated by many as the world's outstanding player. Inglis is joining the Brisbane Broncos on a two-year deal as Melbourne try to get below their salary cap after being heavily punished for breaking it in previous seasons.

Three of their players – Brett Finch, Ryan Hoffman and Jeff Lima – are already earmarked for the move to Wigan next season. Wigan have seen the last of Lee Mossop for this season, as the Cumbrian second-rower needs surgery on a recurrence of a shoulder injury.

Wigan will also check on Amos Roberts' knee before Sunday's game at home to Huddersfield, while Martin Gleeson is definitely out after a hernia operation.

Salford's long-serving hooker Malcolm Alker has agreed to take on a full-time coaching role starting from next season, after combining it with playing this year.

"This is great news for the club," said the director of rugby at Salford, Steve Simms. "Malcolm is a highly respected professional and his reputation at Salford and beyond is thoroughly deserved."

The City Reds have already signed three new players for next season – Luke Patten, Steven Wild and Chris Nero – and can be expected to make a move for a new hooker to replace the 31-year-old Alker, who will miss this Sunday's game against Hull KR with a back injury.

Championship 1's newest club, the South Wales Scorpions, are bracing themselves for one last effort as they try to make the play-offs at their first attempt.

The Neath-based club need just one point from their remaining two games, starting with Sunday's visit by York, to guarantee finishing at least seventh in the table.

"As a club, we have overachieved this year," said their coach, Anthony Seibold. "We have two massive games to go and our destiny is in our own hands."

Steve Ganson will not be officiating at aSuper League game this weekend, but not because of his arrest at the weekend.

The 40-year-old St Helens referee was held by police on Saturday night after an altercation which left an 87-year-old woman seriously injured in hospital.

Ganson has not been named as an official at any of the seven Super League fixtures this weekend, but the Rugby Football League has confirmed that this is because of a prior engagement.

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Gus O'Donnell 'to quit before next election'

August 11th, 2010   by Isabella

Britain's most senior civil servant, Sir Gus O'Donnell, has decided to quit before the next general election, giving David Cameron the chance to appoint a successor, it was reported last night.

Mr Cameron would like to score a historic first by appointing a woman as his successor, it was claimed – although he may find that a challenge given how male-dominated the top of the Civil Service is.

As Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus, 57, played a major part in negotiations between the political parties when the May general election produced the first hung parliament since 1974.

He revealed in a BBC documentary that he was afraid that a minority government, coupled with the economic crisis in Greece, could upset the markets, so he urged the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to come to a comprehensive agreement as fast as possible. Labour accused him of going beyond the required neutrality of the Civil Service.

Sir Gus came to prominence when John Major transferred him from the Treasury to be his press secretary in 1990, but he had his best years under Labour. Back at the Treasury in 1997, he helped to draw up the conditions to be met before the UK could adopt the euro. He considers this "good example of evidence-based policy" a highlight of his career.

Born in 1952 and educated at a state school in Battersea, he studied economics at Warwick and Nuffield College, Oxford. He lectured at Glasgow University for four years before joining the Civil Service in 1979.

On one of his press trips with Mr Major, he came upon a roulette table with no zero, and astonished the press pack by demonstrating what he said was an infallible method of winning.

He was appointed Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet in 2005, with a salary of £240,000. He will have a lump sum of £305,000 and an income of £105,000 a year when he retires.

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Former agent and Farrow line up to contradict Campbell

August 10th, 2010   by Isabella

Naomi Campbell's description of how she came to be given "blood diamonds" by an African warlord was flatly contradicted by her former agent yesterday.

Testifying at The Hague, Carole White said that the supermodel knew she was going to be given diamonds by Charles Taylor and that she had stayed awake waiting for the stones to arrive, before sharing Coca-Colas with the men who delivered them.

White's sequence of events is almost unrecognisable from the version given to the court by Campbell last week. During her 90 minutes of evidence, the supermodel maintained that, following a dinner at which she had met Taylor, she had been woken in the night by men she did not know and given what she described as "dirty-looking pebbles".

The supermodel said she did not know who was responsible for the gift and that she did not realise they were diamonds until it was suggested to her the following morning. This was rebutted by the actress Mia Farrow, who was also a guest at the 1997 dinner hosted by Nelson Mandela.

Giving evidence yesterday, Farrow said Campbell had come to breakfast the following morning and told a very different story. She told the court: "Miss Campbell entered the room. She was quite excited and said in effect, 'Oh my God, in the middle of the night I was awoken by knocking at the door and it was men sent by Charles Taylor and he sent me a huge diamond.'"

If Farrow's evidence highlighted discrepancies in her and Campbell's recollections, White's testimony painted an altogether different picture of the evening.

She said that Campbell had been sitting next to Taylor during the meal and that the pair had been "mildly flirting". She said that it was here that the supermodel had learnt she was going to be given diamonds. White said Campbell was "very excited" and told her: "He is going to give me some diamonds."

She added that after the dinner there was talk about how the diamonds would be delivered, and it was decided that two men would collect them from Johannesburg and bring them to the house in Pretoria. After this, according to White, she and Campbell waited for the stones to arrive.

White told the court: "Naomi was very excited about these diamonds about to arrive. We were sitting in the lounge... she was in communication with her phone, most likely by text. I believe she was in communication with a driver. Someone was informing her that the car was nearly there."

Twice, according to White, she and Campbell went into a garden to look for any approaching vehicles. But when the stones still failed to arrive, she and the supermodel went to their respective bedrooms.

White said she was then disturbed by two men throwing stones at her window. She continued: "When I looked down there were two guys and they said: 'We have something for Ms Campbell, can you let us in?'. I knocked on Naomi's door and told her that the guys with the diamonds had arrived.

"I did not want to let them in, but she really wanted to let them in so I said: 'Give them a drink and be as quick as we can'."

White said the men shared Coca-Colas with the model before giving her a piece of paper containing, according to White, "five or six" diamonds. Ms White added: "They handed it to Miss Campbell and said, 'These are the diamonds'. She opened them and showed them to me. They were quite disappointing because they were not shiny."

White agreed with Campbell's testimony that she had, while on the Blue Train the following day, given the diamonds to Jeremy Ractliffe, then the head of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, with the suggestion that he could use them to raise money for the charity.

The issue of whether or not Campbell received diamonds from Taylor is crucial to the prosecution's case against the former president of Liberia. They are trying to prove that he armed rebel groups from Sierra Leone with weapons in exchange for conflict diamonds. If it can be proven that he gave diamonds to Campbell, it will show that he was easily able to source uncut diamonds.

Yesterday the defence team sought to discredit the evidence of White and Farrow, both of whom are adamant that the diamonds received by Campbell came from Charles Taylor.

Courtney Griffiths QC suggested that White's motivation for testifying was to strengthen her ongoing civil dispute with Campbell. White claims she is owed two years of royalties by the supermodel – about $600,000 (£377,000) – and 25 per cent of any future earnings she makes from her brand of perfume.

He told the court that White had "betrayed" Campbell, producing photographs taken from the Facebook page of one of White's employees at Premier Model Management. The pictures showed White at a party on Thursday evening, hours after Campbell had given evidence at The Hague, bearing the caption: "blood diamond night".

The defence also claimed that Mia Farrow had a "preoccupation" with Africa and was trying to further her own agenda by attempting to help in the prosecution of Taylor.

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Tories move swiftly to avoid 'milk-snatcher' tag

August 9th, 2010   by Isabella

Cameron the milk kleptomaniac, Dave the dairy cutter? Journalists would have struggled to devise a sobriquet as damaging as Thatcher the milk snatcher for the current Conservative leader, but David Cameron was taking no chances on acquiring a nickname yesterday when he strangled a plan by one of his ministers to abolish free milk for nursery children.

The politically awkward proposal had been under active consideration by the Department of Health but was now "not happening", the Prime Minister's aides stated firmly – at the very moment one of his lieutenants was defending it on television.

The U-turn came hours after Mr Cameron had written an article in a Sunday newspaper explaining that the Government should allow "no sum of waste too small to escape the microscope of efficiency".

Looking for cuts, Anne Milton, a Health minister, had proposed ending the £50m-a-year Nursery Milk scheme, describing it as ineffective and expensive. In a letter to the Scottish Executive, leaked to a Scottish newspaper, she wrote: "There is no evidence that it improves the health of very young children yet the cost of delivering it is increasing significantly."

The Department of Health confirmed the plan was an "option" for the forthcoming spending review that all departments are grappling with, and the Universities minister David Willetts, one of the PM's brightest colleagues, was appearing live on television seeking to justify it on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show when Mr Cameron's aides baldly stated he "did not like" the idea. A BBC presenter broke the news to Mr Willetts on air.

Cutting nursery milk would have drawn comparisons with Edward Heath's Tory administration in the early 1970s, when Mrs Thatcher, as Education Secretary, ended free school milk for children aged seven to 11. Under the remnants of a scheme rooted in 1940s food shortages, children under five retained their right to milk. One and a half million children in England receive one-third of a pint a day.

With every Whitehall department required to identify cuts, Ms Milton concluded the scheme was a waste of money because it was available to all children, rich or poor. She set out her views to the Scottish Public Health Minister Shona Robison, who runs the scheme in Scotland, on 3 August: "We think the scheme is out of step with the principle that public funding should focus on the most needy." She warned: "Abolition of the scheme will be contentious and we can expect opposition from the media, parents, nurseries, childminders and the dairy sector. However... this would clearly be the best time to do it given the state of public finances and the need to make savings."

Health campaigners and opposition politicians criticised the plan. Tam Fry, honorary chairman of the Child Growth Foundation, denounced the idea, saying milk was "absolutely vital for children in their growing years, particularly pre-school". David Miliband, one of the two Labour leadership front-runners, said: "A new Tory government scrapping free milk has dark echoes of Thatcher snatching milk from a previous generation and will cause as much fury as before."

The BBC relayed Downing Street's displeasure to Mr Willetts, who replied: "We have an endless process of assessing options. It is inevitable that if you go through those decisions some options go ahead and others don't. That is how decisions are taken."

What is little known is that Mrs Thatcher actually opposed ending school milk and was forced into the position by the Treasury. She was so upset by the public response that she considered quitting politics. In her autobiography, she wrote: "I learned a valuable lesson. I had incurred the maximum of political odium for the minimum of political benefit." Mr Cameron is likely to have read those words.

School milk controversy

Introduced in wartime

Free milk began in 1940 to ensure that young children had strong bones and teeth at a time of food shortages. The policy continued until the 1970s when, as Edward Heath's government struggled to control public finances, the Education Secretary Margaret Thatcher scrapped free milk for seven- to 11-year-olds. Despite the "Milk snatcher" moniker, she had privately opposed the plan and successfully argued for keeping free nursery milk.

One third of a pint a day

Labour revived and then abandoned free milk for older children, but under-fives have always had it. Children under five in approved day care receive 189ml (one third of a pint) each day, while babies under 12 months can receive dried baby milk made up to 189ml. Healthy Start food vouchers are available to poor parents.

More expensive every year

In five years the annual cost of the scheme in England has almost doubled to £50m. Instead of giving free milk to all under-fives, Anne Milton, a Health minister, suggested raising the value of Healthy Start vouchers.

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