(Image © PA)

 

 

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, a seasoned crusader against the sex industry, has apologised after mistakenly claiming the cost of two pornographic movies on her parliamentary expenses. The pay-per-view films were watched by her husband, Richard Timney, at the family home while Smith was away. The humiliating revelation not only threatens to undermine her authority, but has called into fresh question exactly what MPs should be claiming for at taxpayers’ expense.

 

 

Conservative leader David Cameron described the incident as “deeply embarrassing”, but stopped short of calling for Smith’s resignation (to do so would invite closer scrutiny of the Tories’ own expense claims). Prime Minister Gordon Brown rose to Smith’s defence in a Downing Street press conference: “The Home Secretary is doing a great job and I do not think this issue should be allowed to detract from everything she is doing to ensure we protect the public and keep our neighbourhoods safe.”

 

British taxpayers are becoming increasingly angry at the secrecy surrounding MPs’ expenses.  In recent years, several MPs have fallen foul of Whitehall’s sleaze watchdogs for alleged expense-fiddling. Tory MP Derek Conway was suspended from the Commons in 2008 for paying his son too much from parliamentary allowances and the ‘John Lewis List’ caused a public outcry when it was released under the Freedom of Information Act. Only last week Brown ordered the Committee on Standards in Public Life to launch a review of the whole system of parliamentary pay and allowances, but it’s unlikely to report before the general election. Cameron today urged the prime minister to speed up the review, due to start in September, calling for “complete transparency” in relation to claims made by MPs.

 

Your thoughts?

 

P.S. On a slightly less serious note, which films do you think Smith’s husband was watching? Tongue-in-cheek title suggestions welcomed (but please remember this is a family-friendly news blog!)...
 

 (Image © DAVE MARTIN/AP/PA Photos)

 

 

The number of people sentenced to death worldwide almost doubled last year, according to a new report by human rights group Amnesty International. Between January and December 2008, at least 2,390 people were executed by 25 countries, up from 1,252 in 2007. “There is no clear answer as to why the numbers have gone up,” Amnesty spokesman Neil Durkin told me. “The problem is China. It was responsible for 72% of all executions, but classifies all information about capital punishment as a state secret.” The good news, says Amnesty, is that only one in four countries still retain capital punishment, “which shows we are moving closer to a death-penalty free world. The bad news is that judicial killings are still being carried out at an average rate of seven per day.”

 

 

In the report, Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan called for the death penalty to be universally abolished. “The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment,” she said. “Beheadings, electrocutions, hangings, lethal injections, shootings and stonings have no place in the 21st century. Capital punishment is not just an act, but a legalised process of physical and psychological terror that culminates in people being killed by the state. It must be brought to an end.”

 

 

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty “because it is a violation of two fundamental human rights, as laid down in Articles 3 and 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the right to life and the right not to be tortured or subject to any cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.” But the enormity of certain crimes, such as the murder of five Ipswich prostitues by “Suffolk Strangler” Steve Wright, inevitably prompts calls for capital punishment to be returned to our statute books. In a poll by the Sun, 99% of 95,000 readers said Britain needs a death penalty. In recent decades, however, restoration has been consistently voted down with big majorities in Parliament. The British government believes whole life sentences, as handed down to Wright, remain the ultimate sanction.

 

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(Image © PA)

 

 

Many universities in England and Wales want to raise tuition fees from their current capped level of £3,500 to as much as £20,000 per year to help cover costs – a move that could prompt students, particularly those from low-income backgrounds, to abandon higher education in droves, according to new research.

 

 

In one study, more than 50% of university heads, speaking anonymously, told the BBC they want students to pay at least £5,000 a year, or for there to be no upper limit on fees. A separate report commissioned by Universities UK said students would begin to turn their backs on higher education if annual fees were raised to £7,000, but wouldn’t react if they were raised to £5,000. The National Union of Students (NUS) warned annual fees of £7,000 would saddle graduates in 2016 with debts of £32,000 – more than double the average total debt predicted by Universities UK for graduates in 2011.

 

 

In 1997, when Sir Ron Dearing’s landmark report into the future of education concluded students would have to help pay university costs, undergraduates took to the streets in 14 cities to protest that fees would deter young people from low-income families from going to university. Today’s findings have renewed the debate about how to maintain the nation’s higher education standards just five years after tuition fees sparked one of the biggest backbench rebellions faced by the Labour government. NUS president Wes Streeting told the BBC: "In the context of the current recession, it is extremely arrogant for university vice chancellors to be fantasising about charging their students even higher fees and plunging them into over £32,000 of debt." The Tories have dropped their opposition, but accuse the government – which has yet to comment – of delaying its review of the system. Backbench rebels, however, are already mobilising: MP Paul Farelly warned the government would ignore the risks “at its peril”.

 

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P.S. Apologies for the prolonged absence. Went on annual leave, but forgot to tell you beforehand. Senior moment...