Guardian Online

Thursday 01:15

Live coverage as the health and social care bill returns to the Lords

10.10am: Welcome to the NHS reforms live blog. Today the health and social care bill returns to the House of Lords for the report stage, where peers will begin to discuss the details of the proposed changes to the NHS – though the more contentious debates, on competition and regulation, will come later, in March.

The Guardian's political team reports today that David Cameron will back his beleaguered health secretary, Andrew Lansley, and is determined to force the bill on to the statute books.

Juliette Jowit and Patrick Wintour report:

Cameron and Lansley have met within the last 48 hours to discuss tactics. There is widespread frustration inside Downing Street at the way in which the professions were brought on side, but then slipped from the coalition's grasp over the past two months. Cameron is to undertake a series of NHS events next week, and is said to be confident that opposition to the bill in the Lords will be overcome. He is determined to set up the battle as one between a bureaucrat-run NHS and a doctor-run NHS.

Writing in the Times (£), former Labour health secretary Alan Milburn labels the bill "a roadblock to meaningful reform". He goes on:

As the enfeebled Health Bill limps its miserable way through Parliament the warning klaxons are sounding once again about the fitness of the NHS. Rising hospital waiting lists, lamentable standards of elderly care, local budgets at bursting point – a perfect storm is gathering. If we are not careful it will engulf our care system …

We need a new wave of reform to replace the existing model of how we deliver care. It should be based in the community, not obsessed with the hospital; focused on prevention rather than treatment; and it should put power into the hands of patients rather than providers.

10.34am: The health and social care bill has had a long and troubled path through parliament since it was introduced in January 2011 – there's a helpful timeline here

Our health correspondent Denis Campbell explains how the next few weeks will look:

Today is the first of at least seven separate days of report stage debate in the House of Lords on the health and social care bill. The only other three confirmed apart from tomorrow are Monday 13th, Monday 27th and Wednesday 29th February, the House of Lords Information Office tell me. A minimum of three other days will be added, but that could easily become even more if there are even more amendments and/or if peers decide to add more in order to give themselves more time to debate the legislation more fully. Depending on events there could be one, two or even more extra days added beyond the seven planned. There is no date for the Lords to finish with the Bill by, a spokeswoman added. "The government whips will decide that", she added.

10.45am: My colleague Andrew Sparrow on the politics live blog has news of Downing Street attempts to "humanise" Lansley, with Cameron's speechwriter, Julian Glover, asked to write a speech explaining the health secretary's passion for the NHS.

But then the speech was sent to Lansley - and it all went wrong.

And so "knowing what it is to have the NHS at your side" became "outcomes frameworks" and "structural integration"…

11.33am: Hi Randeep Ramesh is taking over from Claire. Randeep's the social affairs editor and you can email him at randeep.ramesh@guardian.co.uk or tweet him at @tianran.

11.44am: My colleague Patrick Butler has been lookin at the coverage of the influential report from health select committee which took the government to task over failing to integrate care for a rapidly ageing population into its vision for the NHS. The report is here.

From today's health select committee's report emerges a crucial question: if we are agreed that integration of health, social care and housing services is the best and most cost effective way to address the complex and growing care needs of older people, why does the health bill do nothing to make it happen? Obeisance to the idea of joined up care for senior citizens is standard political convention across all parties. But as the report makes clear: "Although the government has signed up to the idea of integration, little action has taken place to date. The committee does not believe the proposals in the health and social care bill will simplify this process."
The Tory MP Sarah Wollaston, a GP and member of the select committee, does not mention the health bill by name in her comment piece on the committee report published in the Guardian today, but her article is nonetheless shot through with implicit concern about the impact of the proposed NHS reforms on the bigger, long term picture of social care. She writes: "without integration, patients will continue to face delays or duplicated assessments and services which may be completely inappropriate for their own situation. And there is a risk that this issue will drop off the agenda as newly formed clinical commissioning groups take over the controls from dismantled primary care trusts."
Richard Humphries, writing on the Kings Fund blog welcomes the report's call for integrated care ,but notes that the effect of the government's restructuring of the NHS (already happening in advance of the health bill) will make it more tricky to achieve. "Some places have made good progress in developing integrated commissioning, only to see their efforts threatened by PCT (Primary care trust) clustering. This illustrates just how hard it will be to achieve genuine integration in a hostile climate of complex organisational change.
Lord Adebowale, the chief executive of Trunimng Point, the social care soical enterprise, made similar points (again without mentioning the bill by name): "Whilst efforts to progress integration have been taken forward, it is actually disappointing that we are still talking about health and social care as separate entities. The fact is that they are inextricably linked: not only in terms of spend, but also in terms of savings and where these are achieved. Such savings are more important than ever during the current financial uncertainty we are facing."
In its obsession with NHS reform, say critics, ministers are failing to get a grip on one of the most crucial policy issues facing the UK. As Wollaston points out, the government refuses to even acknowledge the funding gap in adult social care. It has dithered over tackling the Dinot commission proposals on how we should paycare in old age. The forthcoming social care white paper may address some of this.
As Humphries suggests, takcling social care needs a degree of long term vision and commitment that is little in evidence. "[Issues around social care] are long-term challenges that will endure long beyond the topical controversy about the NHS reforms. Everyone agrees that to meet the needs of an ageing population and to transform the experience of people with long-term conditions, integrated care is vital. It should be given the same priority over the next decade as NHS waiting times was given over the last".

11.56am: More bad news for health secretary Andrew Lansley. The 116-year-old Community Practitioners' and Health Visitors' Association (CPHVA) has become the latest professional organisation to come out against the "controversial and pro-privatisation" Health and Social Care Bill.

Health visitors were assidiously wooed by Lansley in opposition who made good on his promise to find money to increase their numbers. The health secretary was unstinting in his praise for their work with the disadvantaged.

However the love-bombing did not work. Instead the health visitors point out that ministers have blocked attempts by newspapers and the opposition to get hold of the government's own risk assessment. CPHVA chair, Alison Higley says:

"One of the key concerns is that the government has continually refused to make public its risk assessment on the impact of the 'reforms', so health visitors can't make professional judgements about the future care for patients and clients, for example, in relation to safeguarding issues."

"The ministerial rhetoric that staff and the public will influence and chose what health provision will be provided is a mirage that will never materialise, as the financiers will hold the power as the government directs that vast savings are made."

Instead ministers will face a tribunal hearing - right in the middle of the Lords debate - on whether the public has a right to read the risk register. Not exactly the open government we were all promised.

12.04pm: Burgess2 from below the line asks us to

Check out 'A song for Lansley and his pals'

And thanks to the magic of Youtube we can

The refrain everyone seems to remember is

It has its faults our NHS, but still it's up there with the best
Yet still you want your Bill made law to kill our NHS
You promised not to shake it up but launched this bloody mess
We'll never re-elect you if you wreck our NHS

12.09pm: I've just had a reliable Tory source on the phone. Apparently a shot of fear ran through Andrew Lansley's office when the BBC's Nick Robinson announced on the news that another major health body would come out against the reforms. A sigh of relief was heard though when they realised it was the health visitors. Tin hats anyone?

12.18pm: My colleague Andrew Sparrow is following Ed Miliband and David Cameron slugging it over the NHS. Here's some choice slices of Sparrow's instant analysis:

Milband says the Tory Reform Group have come out against the bill. It comes to something when even the Tories don't trust the Tories on the NHS.... Miliband says the number of people waiting more than 18 weeks has risen by 43%. Cameron knows in his heart that the bill is not a success. That is why people are saying Lansley should be taken out and shot.

Cameron says Lansley's career prospects are better than Miliband's. Miliband is making an issue of this to help his own leadership.

And

Miliband quotes from what Cameron said at the end of the health bill pause. Cameron said he was "taking people with us". Why has he failed?

Cameron says 95% of the country is covered by GPs implementing the health reforms. Just today 50 foundation trusts have written to the papers supporting the reforms and objecting to Labour's plans. Anne Campbell, the former Labour MP for Cambridge, has signed the letter, he says, because she heads a trust.

Miliband says it is nice to see Lansley in the chamber. Lansley is "some distance away" from Cameron. Cameron wants the "voice of doctors to be heard" in the NHS. Why won't he listen to them?

I just caught Cameron calling Labour's amendment to allow hospitals to raise the extra cash from private patients that hospitals by 5%. This would lead the Royal Brompton's income by a quarter. "A crazy, left wing idea" says the PM. Instead the coalition wants a cap of 49% on private patient income - which Labour says is too big a step towards privatisation of the NHS.

Fraid that the PM's wrong. Labour is proposing allowing hospitals to raise the amount of cash they can raise from current levels by 5%. So instead of 20% of income, the Royal Brompton and Harefield, the UK's largest cardio-respiratory centre, can increase this to 25%.

Since the hospital in question used to devote an entire section on its website to marketing its "personalised, world-class service" offering patients a city guide and suggesting trips to the "high-end shopping facilities" of nearby Sloane Street and Harrods, there's no question it will be happy with both Labour's idea and the coalition's.

12.49pm: There's a Twitter storm developing around Clare Gerada, the widely respected doctors' leader who has been a fierce critic of the government's health bill. In today's front page Independent story on the health bill written by health editor Jeremy Laurance and Whitehall reporter Oliver Wright, there are hints that behind the opposition lies financial gain for Dr Gerada. This stuff could be explosive or it could be a smear.

The relevant paragraphs are:

An investigation by The Independent indicates that one of the Bill's most assiduous critics, the chairwoman of the Royal College of GPs Clare Gerada, could gain financially if it were abandoned. Dr Gerada is a partner in one of London's biggest health centres, the Hurley Group, which runs 13 practices across the capital and could suffer from the increased private competition proposed by the Bill. Ms Gerada has condemned the reforms, saying they will result in a "fragmented, expensive and bureaucratic" health service.

But some of her colleagues within the Royal College have questioned whether she is "practising what she preaches" against competition. A statement on her behalf by the Hurley Group said competition could improve the NHS "in the appropriate setting" but "forced competition" in all parts of it would not.

The resulting punch up on Twitter is notable for who stepped up to the plate. Richard Horton is editor of the Lancet. David Rose is former health reporter who now works on the Times news desk. John Rentoul is the Independent's chief political commentator. Toby Young... well he needs no introduction.

Enjoy.

1.00pm: Kailash Chand, the GP who has been a critic of the coalition reforms, has emailed to point out his epetition to "drop the bill" has now got more than 50,000 people signed up.

Dr Chand hopes his petition will get the 100,000 signatures needed to force a debate in the Commons, which could add more delay to the bill's parliamentary progress. So far it's been retweeted by Rio Ferdinand, Jamie Oliver, Stephen Fry and John Prescott.

If you are so inclined sign here.

1.14pm: Can the NHS transfer or hive off its services to bodies outside the health service's control? That issue is very topical, given the coalition's drive to get more private and voluntary outfits starting to offer healthcare through the introduction of "any qualified provider". Today sees the start of a test case at the High Court in London which could have a major impact on the NHS's ability to outsource certain services. Denis Campbell reports:

Michael Lloyd, a retired railway worker from Stroud in Gloucestershire, is challenging Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust's decision to transfer some key patient services to a specially created Community Interest Company, called Gloucestershire Care Services CIC. Lloyd will argue at the two-day hearing that, because the CIC is not an NHS body and its staff are not NHS employees, the planned new arrangement is likely to prove contrary to local patients' long-term interests.

District nursing, community physiotherapy and out of hours medical and pharmacy services are among those that have been transferred to the CIC, as well as sexual health services, community dental services and the running of community hospitals. The value of these services is thought to be about £80m a year, according to Lloyd's lawyers, Leigh Day & Co.

The case is significant because, as Leigh Day & Co point out, "Government policy seeks to separate NHS commissioners [PCTs] from NHS providers [hospitals] by requesting PCTs to transfer their provider services to other organisations." Campaigners may hope that a victory for Lloyd would help stop what some see as the break-up, or creeping privatisation, of the NHS in England. Members of the Stroud Against The Cuts campaign group gathered at the High Court this morning to show their support for Lloyd at the judicial review hearing.

Leigh Day & Co add: "Lawyers argue that the proposal by NHS Gloucestershire to enter into a contract with a company such as GCS for the provision of their NHS community services, without undergoing a fair and transparent process, is unlawful for domestic public law reasons and for EU public procurement reasons.

"The PCT is legally able to transfer its community services to another NHS body without undergoing a procurement process the Claimant's preferred option. However, if the PCT chooses to offer up the NHS services to non-NHS bodies, it has to undergo a proper and fair procurement process, offering the opportunity to other potential providers, in particular from the Claimant's perspective to other NHS bodies with a proven track record of community service provision."

Rosa Curling, Lloyd's solicitor, added: "It is clear that the PCT's decision-making process has not been open and transparent and they have not properly considered the options available to it, which would allow the services to remain provided by an NHS body. The PCT is under clear legal duties to do so and its failure renders the decision to enter into a contract with GCS unlawful."

Lloyd wants the High Court to declare the PCT's contract with the CIC unlawful and force it to reconsider its decision, thereby prompting a new bidding process.

UPDATE: Dan Gregory, who tweets at @CommonCapital, points out that the question is not whether the NHS can farm out services but whether it's legal "to give work to a social enterprise with no competition". Thanks Dan.

2.37pm: Apologies. A phone call dragged me away from the blog. But things are hotting up. On Comment is Free, Ali Parsa, the founder of Circle Health which became the first company to take over the running of an NHS hospital, takes on his critics

Concerns over independent companies competing with the public sector often centre on accountability and profit. It is true that some lost their way in recent years in the quest for profit. Profit for an enterprise is like oxygen, food and water for the body: necessary to sustain life, but not the point of life. Just as the entire public sector can not be condemned for the failure at Mid Staffordshire hospital, it is wrong to judge every non-state operator according to the actions of a guilty few. The key here is the accountability of all operators to public scrutiny.

In fact, the search for new solutions in healthcare gives us a great opportunity to create a fairer society. At the moment, two single square miles – the City and Whitehall – control over 90% of our productive assets. This concentration of ownership is unique among developed countries, and has produced unacceptable consequences. For instance, the richest region in Germany is two times more prosperous than the poorest; in France this ratio is four times; in the United States five times; in Britain it is a shameful 10 times.

Healthcare professionals must be empowered to set up their own alternatives. GPs provide a great example of how healthcare professionals can be freed to own and deliver their own services. They set up and own their practices, and sell their services back to the NHS as single-handed practitioners or small partnerships. This model could be expanded to nurses, midwives, hospital consultants and countless others, so that many more professionals could come up with new solutions that they control for their patients.

However in a sharp riposte Ian Greener, professor of social policy at Durham University, writes "Why Ali Parsa is wrong about healthcare (and the NHS)". He writes, in somewhat more restrained language than some commenters, that:

First, the NHS is facing an efficiency saving, not a deficit, and this is a political decision, not a shortfall in funds. It is a political decision how much money the NHS gets, not a market-based one. It is seeing just as many patients as ever – it is not short of demand.

Second, the NHS is better funded than it has ever been. But it started from a low base, and is still one of the worst-funded healthcare systems in the developed world. It has been systematically underfunded for much of its existence. To call it unsustainable is plain wrong – it is arguably, in terms of how much it costs and the services it providers, the most efficient healthcare system in the world.

Third, the reason why so much British manufacturing is overseas-owned is because of the openness of our economy, not because we've been protecting it. Will Hutton has been making this clear since the mid-1990s (and even before that). Germany and France have protected theirs from hostile overseas bids – he is just plain wrong on this point. The City of London he appears to be castigating for concentrating ownership is a significant beneficial of this, while at the same time also being an example of what he regards as offering examples to us of how great Britain is. There is contradiction after contradiction here.

Fourth, the idea that concentration in ownership leads to inequality is a massive confusion. There is the world of difference between the jobs most public sector organisations provide and those provided by the City of London – to conflate the two is ridiculous. Regional differences in income and wealth are important – but to imagine that breaking up the NHS will make things better is bizarre. The problem is the stupid rewards we allow those working in the City of London, not the ownership of the NHS. The problem is inequalities in income and wealth, not public ownership.

Finally, the free-for-all in healthcare that he suggests follows from his argument is completely misplaced. Healthcare is not unsustainable, and the near public monopoly on it has made it fantastically affordable in the UK. As I've said many times in this blog, the entry of providers of others types means we have to keep comprehensive providers open (as Circle have benefited from at Hinchingbrooke), meaning that those providers cannot fail, while at the same time pretending we are introducing competition. There is no real failure if particular providers cannot fail. If there is no competition.

Postscript: The Health Service Journal (paywall) has this rather timely story on Circle

Circle will have to cut costs at Hinchingbrooke Healthcare Trust by 10 per cent if it is to break even next year, it has emerged. The private sector company took over the running of the trust in Cambridgeshire last Wednesday – the first such arrangement in the NHS. A progress report on Circle's business plan for 2012-13, presented to the trust board last week, predicts income could fall to £98.7m next financial year. Meanwhile, costs will increase marginally, leaving the trust with a £10.1m hole. "Based on the most likely scenario, the quantum of savings required is circa £10m in 2012-13. This represents circa 10 per cent of total trust revenues," the report says.

2.49pm: (corrected) Ed Miliband's reprising of an attack on the Tory Reform Group blog on the health bill is worth a second look. Craig Barrett, a TRG columnist, wrote yesterday that the health secretary is not the man to run the NHS!

The Government was wrong to push these changes as a flagship bill. The fact that many of the reforms do not even require primary legislation makes the resulting headache look embarrassingly self-inflicted. Without a proper mandate, it looks undemocratic.

Mr Lansley seems like a man clinging to a time-bomb that only he cannot hear ticking. The Government urgently needs to look at what he is trying to do and accept that it needs drastic, perhaps total, reconsideration.

Is politics truly the art of the possible? What is certainly impossible is ploughing on without confidence. This is the situation in which Andrew Lansley now finds himself, where self-confidence is no match for the lack of confidence held other people.

That we need urgently to consider what this Health Bill is doing is obvious. In all likelihood that means starting all over again. Moreover, it is clear to me that the current Health Secretary is not the man to preside over this process.

Ouch!

3.00pm: Dr Kevin O'Kane, head of the London region of the BMA, has been a loud critic of the reforms proposed by the coalition. He writes:

Last night, around 200 doctors & medical students from BMA London met to discuss the disastrous Health and Social Care (HSC) Bill, or as it is sometimes known, "The Abolition of the NHS Bill". In spite of the Prime Minister's much vaunted "pause for reflection" earlier this year, and a slew of meatless amendments, the damaging essential elements remain intact. If it becomes law, this legislation will result in the break-up of our comprehensive, publicly funded publicly provided health service. In its place will be a post code lottery patchwork provision from private providers, voluntary groups and the remaining rump of our public hospitals. Funding will depend on top-ups from patient charges and private insurance. Crucially, the Secretary of State for Health will no longer be responsible for health care provision such that patients - voters - can no longer hold the government of the day to account for health care. It may sound apocalyptic, but this really is the end of
the NHS.

In spite of pre-election promises of no more "top down NHS Re-organisations" the Prime Minister has brought upon us the biggest and most expensive management reconfiguration ever to visit the Health Service. The transition costs to the next system have been estimated as the equivalent of 6,000 nurses' salaries in the first year alone. This exercise is totally unnecessary. If the real aim is to involve clinicians more in the design of health care systems, doctors are up for it - and we can do it without expensive damaging legislation.

The message from London's doctors is that it is not too late to save the Health Service. It is not enough for the Prime Minister to make his Secretary of State a sacrificial lamb: if Lansley goes he needs to take the Bill with him. If this Bill goes through, the winners will be the management consultants, the private health care providers and the insurance industry. Patients - and tax-payers - will be the ultimate losers.

3.07pm: Is there anybody who is actively supporting Andrew Lansley's bill. The Institute of Healthcare Management (IHM), the professional organisation representing the rank and file NHS managers, has publicly opposed the Health and Social Care Bill, claiming its advice has been disregarded.

An IHM member opinion poll found managers had experienced "worsening conditions" for both patients and NHS staff thanks to the reforms. The results were so powerful that within minutes of the request being posted online, the IHM was able to "confidently" say Health and Social Care managers do not support the Health Bill and the "inevitable consequences" of it.

Read more here

3.19pm: Éoin Clarke who blogs over at the Green Benches has (another) exclusive. He's got hold of an October version of the risk register for the NHS in London. And it does not make pretty reading: rising costs, big hospital deficits and services wilting.

London NHS risk report categorically states that Commissioning groups (GPs) may 'not be able to secure [services] [...] within the running cost range'. The potential consequences raised by the London report are that 'quality' of health care may be 'poor'. The London report also says that there may be a 'skills deficit' among commissioners (GPs).

3.23pm: The Welsh government are taking issue with the PM over his comments about the health service in Wales. In the past Mr Lansley accused the NHS in Wales, run by a Labour administration, of denying patients cancer drugs, failing to control killer infections and cutting the health budget.

But the PM seems to have been caught out by the Welsh administration's rapid response unit:

Claim: The Prime Minister claimed a third of Welsh patients were waiting over 18 weeks for treatment.

Fact: The Prime Minister is wrong. At the end of November 2011, 22 per cent (1/5) of Welsh patients waiting over 18 weeks and over from referral to treatment. Our target is that 95 per cent of patients should be waiting less than 26 weeks from referral to treatment.

Claim: The Prime Minister claimed 27 per cent of patients treated in Wales are waiting over six weeks for direct access to diagnostics at end November 2011.

Fact: The Prime Minister is wrong. 18 per cent of Welsh patients are waiting over six weeks for direct access to diagnostics. Our target for direct access to diagnostics is eight weeks

3.28pm: Another couple of hours, another voice of dissent over Andrew Lansley's bill. The Faculty of Public Health (FPH), has today joined the growing number of medical organisations which want the Health and Social Care Bill dropped. The faculty, which represents 3,300 public health specialists working in the NHS, local government and academia, announced its decision after finding in a survey of its members that 93% of them believed the Bill would damage both the NHS and the health of people in England.

Responsibility for public health is due to transfer from the NHS to
local councils in England from April 2013 as part of Lansley's plans. My colleague Denis Campbell has been talking to FPH president Dr Lindsey Davies, who was a senior civil servant at the Department of Health before taking up her current role in July 2010. Here's the highlights:

Based on our members' expert views it has become increasingly clear that the Bill will lead to a disorganised NHS with increased health inequalities, more bureaucracy and wasted public funds. The Bill will increase health inequalities because there is rthe real danger that vulnerable groups like homeless people will not be included when health services are being planned.

Clinical commissioning groups and service providers will be able to pick and choose what procedures they perform and which services they put in place. Like our members we make decisions based on the best available evidence, and we have a clear mandate from them to take this position. We do not do this lightly. We will continue to do all we can to make sure this Bill is fit for purpose.

Denis points out that the "faculty's U-turn follows its emergency general meeting two weeks ago when members disgruntled that it was not more strident in its opposition to the Bill passed motions calling for it to harden its stance. That led the faculty to consult its entire membership, who appear to agree with the 200 members who attended the EGM".

3.37pm: Andrew Lansley's plans to overhaul #NHS in England have just begun being debated in Lords. To watch live point your browser here. The blog will be following the debate...

3.48pm: Earl Howe, the government's man in the Lords, tells peers there's no plan B and the no chance of the bill being dropped. The department of health says that by changing the NHS now - in the form of collapsing primary care trusts and setting up GP commissioners - the taxpayer will save £3.2bn by the end of this parliament.

3.52pm: Over in the upper house Lord Naren Patel, former head of the National Patient Safety Agency, is putting forward an amendment backed by Thatcher's former Lord Chancellor Lord Mackay. It is about getting the Secretary of State to put mental health on an equal footing with physical ailments. It's a largely symbolic amendment to emphasise that ministers have a duty as to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of "physical and mental" illness.

3.56pm: Lib Dem councillor and HuffPo blogger Matthew Hulbert says that the health bill has to be dropped because it's

a Tory Bill, one cooked up by Lansley and his colleagues.

Despite valiant attempts to shave off the rough edges by the Lib Dems, says Hulbert, there's nothing else to do but "Cameron needs to swallow his pride, sack his Health Secretary, and bin this bad Bill".

Meanwhile over at the blueliberalism blog - "ramblings of a right-wing liberal", the cross-dressing politics of blogger Liam Quinn asks is it not time for David Laws to replace Andrew Lansley. After all, Quinn argues, wasn't Laws idea of compulsory health insurance payments into competing funds a really good idea. Seriously.

Sounds like the Lib Dem grassroots are worried about how the NHS reforms - and Andrew Lansley - are playing on the doorstep. After all the local elections are just round the corner.

4.34pm: Hi, it's Patrick Butler, here and I'm taking over the blog from Randeep Ramesh until close of play today. You can tweet me at @patrickjbutler

4.39pm: Earl Howe asks the House not to pursue a vote on Amendment One. He says he is aware of the issues but would much rather "promote parity of esteem between physical and mental health" through ministerial discussions.

Lord Patel is unconvinced however. He's called for a vote, and peers are voting now.

4.58pm: The amendment passed! Content 244 Not content 240

This was meant to be a "symbolic" amendment, but Lord Patel - who made some powerful interventions in the Welfare Reform bill - has won the backing of his peers. Could this be a sign of things to come?

5.24pm: Everyone seems a bit surprised by the government's defeat on that vote, which called for the secretary of state to give mental health equal parity with physical health on the face of the bill.

Here's Lord Hunt, Labour's deputy leader in the Lords, on twitter (@LordPhilofBrum):

Vote on mental health #healthbill #stopthebill we win by 2 votes Wow and well done

I think it was by 4 votes, by the way. But, wow, indeed.

The bill was backed by Lord Mackay of Clashfern, the former chancellor under Mrs Thatcher, who also rebelled on the welfare bill over Child Support Agency charges, and Lord Alderdyce, a Lib Dem

It was a close vote, but it feels a highly symbolic moment. Health minister Lord Howe's offer to peers to open up discussions with ministers over the issue might have been expected to succeed. But Lord Patel was having none of it.

Why? I'm speculating, but peers are feeling bruised by the government's implacable resistance to second chamber concerns over the Welfare reform bill.

There seems to be a trust issue here.

5.34pm: Peers are now discussing a series of amendments relating to the education and training of health workers in the NHS.

There are concerns that the bill's proposed arrangements could disrupt the plaiing, provision and quality of nurses, doctors and other health workers.

Lord Howe says the government is committed to the training of the healthcare workforce. The secretary of state for health will still have a duty to guarantee effective health workforce education, he says.

5.44pm: Here's the breakdown of that vote on amendment one.

For the amendment
Crossbench 65
Labour 167
Liberal Democrat 3
Other 9

Against
Bishops 1
Conservative 153
Crossbench 18
Liberal Democrat 65
Other 3

Three Lib Dem rebels - including the serial rebel Baroness Tongue. It looks like Baroness Shirley Williams, who has led much of the Lib Dem attempts to amend the bill, abstained.

You can see the full breakdown here

5.45pm: The Lords agree not to go to a vote on the amendments around medical training.

5.49pm: Baroness Thornton, the Labour peer, is setting out Labour's position on the bill.

She asks the minister whether the government will use financial privelidge to steamroller the bill through, as they did with the welfare reform bill.

She says she has rarely seen a bill which is:

A piece of legislation that is so unwelcomed by those that have to deliver it

5.53pm: More reaction on that defeat for the government.

Here's Rethink, the mental health charity, which tweets:

Who would have thought that the first successful amendment on #NHSreform would be to put physical and mental health on an equal footing?

5.57pm: Ok, I've got to finish now. A colleague of mine from the news desk will be taking over the blog and keeping an eye on this evening's business.

6.49pm: Department of Health said it is committed to balancing both mental and physical health needs equally.

The government is already ensuring this becomes reality, such as through the cross government mental health strategy. We don't think this amendment is the best way to achieve this aim, so we are disappointed that the House has voted this way. We will look at the best way to take this forward.

7.21pm: Paul Jenkins, chief executive of charity Rethink Mental Illness, said the government has a duty to put mental and physical illness on an equal footing.

Historically, mental health services have always been the poor relation within the NHS. The stand the Lords have taken today is an extremely encouraging sign that things are heading in the right direction. We urge the Government to accept this amendment and take this opportunity to help ensure the new NHS finally offers a fair deal for everyone regardless of whether they have a physical or mental illness.

8.42pm: A round up of today's events:

The government suffered its first defeat on highly controversial plans to reform the health service just hours after the Prime Minister mounted a passionate defence of the shake-up.
David Cameron, whose disabled son Ivan died in 2009, told the Commons the overhaul was essential to ensure that everyone received the "amazing" care his family had.
But peers backed an amendment, by a majority of four, to the Health and Social Care Bill that called for greater emphasis on mental health when it returned to the Lords. There were three Liberal Democrat rebels - Lord Alliance, Lord Carlile of Berriew and Baroness Tonge.
Earlier, the reforms - which puts GPs in charge of budgets - were branded a "disaster" by Labour and respected medical organisations have lined up to criticise it.
During Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons, Labour leader Ed Miliband urged Cameron to "give up" on the bill.
"This is a matter of trust in the Prime Minister," he told MPs. "Can he honestly look people in the health service in the eye and say he's kept his promise of no more top-down reorganisation?"
But Cameron insisted GPs were not just "supporting our reforms, they are implementing our reforms".
"I care passionately about the NHS, not least because of what it has done for my family and because of the amazing service that I have received," he said.
"I want to see that excellent service implemented for everyone and that means two things: it means we have got to put more money into the NHS, and we are putting the money in, but it also means we have got to reform the NHS."
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has been widely criticised for his handling of the flagship bill, which Mr Cameron was forced to "pause" last year after the fierce backlash.
But the Prime Minister dismissed suggestions Lansley's job could be on the line over the issue.

9.06pm: Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham gives his reaction to the defeat:

This health bill is an unfolding disaster for the government. On the day the Prime Minister launched his fight back on the bill, the House of Lords has sent him a message of defiance and defeated the government on the very first vote. As three more professional organisations join the ranks of NHS staff opposed to the bill today, the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary are looking increasingly isolated. The government is damaging frontline patient care with its top-down reorganisation of the NHS.

12.13am: Health minister Simon Burns speaks out in defence of the bill and insists that many professional health organisations support elements of the reforms.

Because of the size of the bill and the range of subjects being dealt with there are things that those organisations like, there are things that they don't like. A number of those organisations, like the Royal College of GPs, like the BMJ today, they have formed their opinions on surveys they have carried out which are self-selecting, they are of a very small minority of their members, you can vote as often as you like in these surveys to give distorted views, and then they have reached a conclusion, which is not representative.

1.00am: It's time to wrap up the live blog on the NHS reform debate for today.

In the meantime here's a round up of the main developments.

• The government suffered its first defeat on the controversial plans to reform the NHS in the House of Lords after peers backed an amendment calling for a greater emphasis on mental health.

• But Prime Minister David Cameron launched a passionate defence of the shake up claiming that the reforms were needed to ensure everyone receives "amazing" care.

• Labour urged Cameron to give up on the bill with shadow health secretary Andy Burnham claiming the government was damaging frontline patient care with the reorganisation.

• The Prime Minister gave his backing to health secretary Andrew Lansley has been widely criticised for his handling of the flagship bill, saying his job was not under threat.

• Mental health charities said the defeat was an encouraging sign that mental health was being given an equal footing to physical health.

Thursday 06:00

Ministry of Defence is planning to cut 54,000 jobs without a coherent strategy, a parliamentary watchdog warns

The Ministry of Defence is planning to cut 54,000 jobs without knowing how the department will be able to run itself without them, warns a parliamentary watchdog.

The need to cuts costs quickly to plug a £38bn budget black hole has led the MoD to start the redundancy programme without a coherent strategy for the future, a report from the National Audit Office says.

This has increased the danger that the department will lose skilled people it cannot afford to replace. A halving in recruitment for the military and among civilians could also have the same effect.

The NAO report is the first in-depth study into the potential consequences of the redundancy programme that was announced in the Strategic Defence and Security Review 18 months ago.

It says the cuts to the military are relatively easy to understand, because commanders can prepare for the loss of equipment, and tailor what they do.

But the report says "the relationship between personnel numbers and the department's other activities is less clear".

And while the report acknowledges the MoD is developing a "new operating model" which will set out how the UK will meet all its defence commitments, this work hasn't been completed.

"The department has had little choice other than to make cost cuts early if it is to meet spending review targets. Consequently it has commenced reducing its headcount before the full detail of the new operating model has been determined.

"Recognising the risk inherent in this approach, the department has taken steps to retain skills ... there remains a risk, however, that some of the skills it needs now and in the future may be lost."

Ideally, the MoD would have waited before starting the redundancy rounds, the report says.

"Without real change to ways of working, cutting headcount is likely to result in the department either doing less with fewer people or trying to do the same with greater risk."

The report notes that MoD will not make the savings it hoped for from the second tranche of military and civilian redundancies, which was announced last month.

A three-month delay to the programme will have cost the department £100m, which will have to be recovered from other savings.

The NAO says the MoD needs to develop further contingency plans to cut costs because "our experience shows that reduction programmes often deliver less than anticipated".

With surveys showing low morale across the military and civilian sides of defence, the MoD needs to clarify how it intends to run the department as quickly as possible, the report says.

Jim Murphy MP, Labour's shadow defence secretary, said: "This is astonishing criticism from the government's own spending watchdog. There will be real worries that the drive for redundancies is rushed and wrongheaded.

"Real savings have to be made, including from personnel reductions in the military and civilian workforce, but they must fit within a clear plan of how the MoD will do more with less at home and overseas. The rush to show personnel the door has led to higher costs which could lead to further cuts, while important skills are being lost."

Thursday 06:00

Snow expected on high ground in north-west, Midlands and East Anglia, and forecasters say milder, unsettled weather on way

A second bout of substantial snow or sleet is expected to move across the UK from Thursday night, as two stubborn weather fronts refuse to give ground.

A fresh band of rain from the Atlantic is expected to turn to snow on high ground in the north-west initially, and 3-6cms is expected in the Midlands and East Anglia on Friday, with sleet to the north and south.

Temperatures falling as low as -10C for a third night running have left icy ground conditions across England east of the Pennines, where level-three warnings of black ice on roads remain in force.

The government appealed for communities to watch out for vulnerable neighbours after two people caught out in sub-zero temperatures were found dead.

Chill easterlies have established a stronger hold than expected along the entire North Sea coast and as far as the Pennines, Birmingham, Oxford and Hampshire. Longer-range forecasts predict milder and unsettled weather gaining the upper hand from next week and to the end of February.

The Meteorological Office warns that high winds rather than low temperatures are likely to be a hazard going into March, the month traditionally said to come in like a roaring lion and go out like a little lamb.

The 30-day forecast says: "The period looks to be dominated by changeable, often unsettled weather, primarily moving in from the west. This means a risk of heavy rain and strong winds at times, and by the end of the period rainfall totals, especially across southern areas, could be above average."

Snow fell in western Scotland on Wednesday and began a push south towards Northumberland and Cumbria. Victoria Kettley, a forecaster with MeteoGroup, said its progress could be variable further south, depending on the relative strength of the easterly chill.

"There could be rain, sleet and snow on high ground as the leading edge of the front pushes through, as well as the risk of freezing rain. Some weather models are showing significant snow for the Midlands of up to 6cm on Friday, but it is uncertain more widely if the precipitation the front is bringing will fall as rain, sleet, or snow."

Dry, bright but cold weather dominated in England and Wales on Wednesday, with cloudier conditions in Scotland and northern Ireland. Temperatures struggled to top 3C and forecasters do not expect better on Thursday.

A homeless man in his 40s was found dead in the porch of St Luke's church in Cambridge, close to a hostel where staff said room would have been available had anyone known. In Hull, a man believed to be in his 50s was found dead in a park after overnight temperatures of -7C.

Snow saved a cyclist from serious injury when he was caught by a rope strung across an offroad track at Hamsterley, County Durham. Police are investigating the incident, which left Lukasz Sikorski, 29, with bruises and a rope-burn.

Tributes have been paid to a well-known cheesemaker and a schoolboy who died during the cold spell, although the weather has not been confirmed as the cause. Mandy Reed, 47, whose Swaledale cheese has won many awards, was found dead in a neighbour's garden near Richmond, North Yorkshire, after returning late from a family do. In Castleford, West Yorkshire, 10-year-old Joshua Houlgate collapsed and died while playing in the snow.

Gary Verity, chair of Welcome to Yorkshire, the regional tourist board, said of Reed: "She was a familiar sight at Leyburn market on a Friday, and was known as the cheese lady. She will be sadly missed." Julie Murray, headteacher at Smawthorne Henry Moore primary school, in Castleford, said Joshua, who had suffered epilepsy when younger, "held a very special place in our hearts. He was a much-loved pupil who was well liked by his friends and all the staff at school."

Southern Trains apologised to 30 passengers who were forced to break out of Streatham Hill station in freezing conditions after agency staff left and locked up before the last service from central London arrived late. Passengers filmed the scene on mobile phones as they squeezed through a window at 1.30am.

Thursday 04:09

Thousands of complaints after insult that followed Fernández accusing Britain of militarising south Atlantic islands

Falkland Islands newspaper the Penguin News has triggered uproar on Argentinian social networks by calling President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner a bitch.

The newspaper's website uploaded a photo of Fernández briefly using the insult as a file name on Wednesday, a day after she accused Britain of militarising the south Atlantic islands.

The word triggered an immediate avalanche of complaints and abuse from Argentinians, reflecting heightened sensitivity towards the archipelago in the run up to the 30th anniversary of the war with Britain.

The Buenos Aires daily La Nacion said the word, "perra" in Spanish, was a strong "anglo-saxon term ... signifying disrespect". Within hours more than 2000 readers responded with comments, many vitriolic.

The Penguin News, which is printed weekly and online updated daily, usually has a tiny readership – the islands have a population of 3,000 – but the escalating diplomatic row between London and Buenos Aires has in recent weeks attracted many readers in Argentina, which calls the islands Las Malvinas and asserts ownership.

To illustrate a story about Fernández's speech on Tuesday it uploaded a photograph of the president with the offending word. Those who saved the image found that the default file name was "bitch".

Challenged by an Argentinian on her Twitter feed the editor, Lisa Watson, replied: "emmm oops - not now you'll find." The word was removed. Watson referred to colleagues' "dry humour". By then however the page had been saved and posted on multiple websites, prompting online fury.

The editor's Twitter feed reflected angry and often vicious hate messages. Penguin staff did not reply to emails or phone calls last night but last week, before the controversy, Watson told the Guardian she had been receiving abusive messages for weeks.

"I receive threats and insults via our work email address and on Twitter. The threats I try not to take seriously, particularly as the individuals tend to sign their name and even offer 'besos' (kisses) after claiming they are coming to the Falklands and their first task will be to kill me. Mainly I am referred to as a prostitute, liar, thief and pirate, other words I really wouldn't like to mention."

She did not keep such emails, she said. "I read and delete immediately because it's not something you want to keep as a souvenir, but one said 'Die you decadence whore', others say things like 'I am coming to the Malvinas so walk softly because I will find you.'"

She did not take them seriously. "I assume it is simply people momentarily angry because they have read something in their newspaper about the islands – I suppose we all feel like that sometimes but threatening to kill me seems a little extreme."

Watson said she was more upset about random calls to islanders. "It's intimidating to be woken in the night to someone shouting at you in Spanish."

Nevertheless she said it was important to have dialogue. "I have no objection to chatting and debating with Argentines. My reason for doing so is in the hope they will see us as a people with our own culture and our own thoughts. I live in hope that they will understand we are not 'British imperialists' but a population that has struggled to develop this little country and deserve to be allowed to live in peace.

"I should say that I also receive many messages of support from Argentines or messages from people who do not agree with my point of view but want to offer kind thoughts anyway."

Thursday 01:22

Mark Thompson has admitted the broadcaster does not have enough older female newsreaders and presenters

The BBC director-general, Mark Thompson, has admitted the broadcaster does not have enough older female newsreaders and presenters. He said the corporation had a "case to answer" over the lack of older women in "key news and current affairs presenting roles".

He acknowledged that the landmark age-discrimination employment tribunal brought by ex-Countryfile presenter Miriam O'Reilly, 54, had been an "important wake-up" call for the BBC.

In recent years, the BBC has come under criticism for perceived ageism and sexism in its handling of senior female presenters including O'Reilly, newsreader Moira Stuart and former Strictly Come Dancing judge Arlene Phillips.

In an article for the Daily Mail, Thompson writes that there are too few women among the BBC's most senior on-air specialist journalists, particluarly those who conducted the "big political interviews".

While he said there had been a "revolution" in the number of older women in leadership roles at the BBC, he said this had not been reflected at the "same rate or scale of change" on screen.

Thompson said a "thoughtful critic" of the BBC might observe two failures.

"First, that there is an underlying problem, that – whatever the individual success stories – there are manifestly too few older women broadcasting on the BBC, especially in iconic roles and on iconic topical programmes.

"Second, that as the national broadcaster and one which is paid for by the public, the BBC is in a different class from everyone else, and that the public have every right to expect it to deliver to a higher standard of fairness and open-mindedness in its treatment both of its broadcasters and its audiences."

In recent years, the BBC has come under criticism for perceived ageism and sexism in its handling of senior female presenters including O'Reilly, newsreader Moira Stuart and former Strictly Come Dancing judge Arlene Phillips.

Thompson also notes that a survey, called Serving All Ages, found that a significant minority of men and women throught that older women were "invisible" on television. The report revealed that more than a third of women over 55 said there were not enough of their contemporaries on screen.

"That perception, and the reality behind it, is what we have to change," Thompson writes.

The BBC chief said the broadcaster must "develop and cherish" its many outstanding female staff and ensure that they know "age will not be a bar to their future employment" at the corporation.

Thursday 00:05

Captain Wales has qualified as an Apache helicopter pilot, giving the MoD a headache about how, where and when to deploy him

The conclusion of Prince Harry's training as a fully qualified Apache pilot gives the army another specialist to fly an attack helicopter, and several headaches about how, where and when to deploy him.

The prince, or Captain Wales as he is known in the military, has consistently made clear he wants to go back to Afghanistan, and there is every chance he will return, possibly this year.

And though it is in some ways a potential PR dream for the Ministry of Defence, those tasked with ensuring he remains away from the spotlight during what will be his second tour may not see it that way.

Four years ago, all of the UK's major media groups, including the Guardian, agreed not to publicise the prince's deployment to Afghanistan with the Household Cavalry regiment.

The request was underpinned by fear that drawing attention to his presence would make him, and his colleagues, high priority targets for the Taliban.

Ten weeks into his tour, the secret was out – in the foreign press, at least.

Once details started appearing on websites, the MoD withdrew the prince immediately, with the then chief of the defence staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, arguing the "worldwide media attention … could impact on the security of those who are deployed there, as well as the risks to him as an individual soldier".

This time round, it seems unlikely there will be any such brokered agreement between the MoD, Buckingham Palace and the media.

The world has moved on since 2008, and most people in Whitehall accept there is no point trying to contain the uncontainable, especially with social network sites such as Twitter and Facebook to contend with.

The media also found itself in an awkward position last time – there was criticism in some quarters that newspapers and broadcasters had effectively conspired to keep secrets from their readers and viewers. There is no guarantee the media would want to sign up to the same kind of agreement again.

With that option neither possible or desirable, what can the MoD do?

There are genuine safety issues to consider if, say, the media got hold of images of where the prince was based, or information about his day-to-day activities. The MoD always asks the media to behave responsibly when reporters are given, or stumble upon, material that compromises "Op Sec" (operational security).

That advice will likely be underlined when it comes to the prince, along with the standard plea to think twice before publishing anything that might compromise British troops in the field.

The MoD has always been reluctant to provide running commentaries on certain issues, and has consistently refused to discuss subjects such as Special Forces operations. It would be fanciful to think that golden rule would be broken if the prince returned to Afghanistan.

After his last tour, the MoD provided the media with a pooled interview and photos when he came home.

The same carrot next time might help persuade newspapers to stay in line. But there is a more over-arching consideration for the media, which was not a factor four years ago.

In the current climate, with Lord Leveson conducting his hearings into journalistic ethics, Britain's newspapers and websites are on their best behaviour; this may help to restrain some "above the line" coverage, but almost certainly won't prevent rumours, pictures and gossip about the prince circulating "below the line" on the internet.

The MoD will not send the prince to Afghanistan unless it has a robust extraction strategy, and the dilemma military chiefs will face is when to push that button.

To make the judgment, officials will have to constantly monitor the stories pinging around the world, and assess the quality of the information within them.

The MoD could avoid all this fuss by telling Captain Wales he would not be going to Afghanistan. Who could blame the military if the prince was reminded that the risks outweighed the benefits, and that for his own sake, as well as those of his colleagues, he should go somewhere safer and out of the way? The Falklands, perhaps, to join his older brother.

But that does not appear to be an option. He wants to go, and his commanders may not feel inclined to deny him the opportunity.

They wouldn't, couldn't, deny it to anyone else, so why should Captain Wales get special treatment?

An alternative answer to that question is one most insurgents won't need rehearsing; he's the brother of the future king of a country that has been at war with the Taliban for a decade.

Thursday 00:01

Ministry of Defence confirms that the prince has qualified as best pilot in his class to fly Apache attack helicopters

Prince Harry could return to combat duties in Afghanistan within the year following an announcement on Thursday that he has successfully completed an intensive training course to fly the army's Apache attack helicopter.

The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that the prince – Captain Wales to his colleagues in the military – has qualified to fly the aircraft, which is one of the most sophisticated in the armed forces.

But a return to Afghanistan will raise difficult issues for his commanders, who are likely to be accused of putting PR before common sense if he is deployed back to the conflict zone. His first tour four years ago ended in semi-farce when a worldwide media embargo was broken, albeit inadvertently, by a weekly gossip magazine in Australia. The prince was rushed back to the UK for his own safety.

Since then he has made it clear he wants to return to Afghanistan to complete a mission cut short last time – and, perhaps, to finally put behind him a reputation for unedifying youthful buffoonery.

Thursday's announcement may help, because the Apache course has defeated even experienced pilots, and the prince appears to have been the best in his class of 20, trumping the achievements of his older brother, William, who is currently in the Falklands flying Sea King search and rescue helicopters.

The MoD said Prince Harry had been awarded a prize for being "best front seat pilot" – an accolade to "mark out the student whose overall performance during the course is assessed as the best amongst his peer group".

He was told of the honour at a dinner on Wednesday night during which Colonel Neale Moss, the Apache force commander, congratulated the group for completing a 16-month course that, he said, "requires composure, dedication and hard work".

In military jargon, the prince is now on "limited combat ready" status, which means he could be sent to Afghanistan with 662 Squadron, part of the 3 Regiment Army Air Corps, based at Wattisham in Suffolk. "It is true to say that he might be deployed in the next six to 12 months," said a source. "The media needs to act responsibly over this."

The MoD wants to avoid endless speculation about when and where he might go in Afghanistan, and there seems to be no suggestion at this stage that he might be prevented from doing so for his own safety or that of his colleagues.

Those exact concerns led the then head of the army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, to stop the prince being deployed to Iraq in 2007, saying that to send him to Basra would "expose not only him but also those around him to a degree of risk that I now deem unacceptable".

A year later, however, he was in Afghanistan, where he spent 10 weeks with the Household Cavalry Squadron before being whisked back to the UK following the publication of his whereabouts in New Idea magazine.

How the MoD will attempt to restrain coverage this time is unclear, particularly as it has no leverage over social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook – a factor that renders meaningless the kind of embargo agreed by all major media organisations four years ago. The MoD will devise an emergency extraction plan to get him out of Afghanistan if details of his whereabouts begin to filter out.

The prince has made no secret of his desire to go back to Afghanistan, despite the risks and the likelihood that his deployment could act as a rallying call for insurgents who would regard him as a prize target.

The 27-year-old appears to genuinely love military life, and wants to make the most of his time in service. "I really enjoy the army," he said in an interview. "Anyone who says they don't enjoy the army is mad. You can spend a week hating it and the next week it could be the best thing in the world and the best job you could ever, ever wish for. It has got so much to offer."

The prince can count on the support of "granny", who was behind his deployment last time, and the rest of the royal household.

The consensus seems to be that the army has been the making of him. A few years ago Prince Harry was probably the last person you would want at the controls of an Apache helicopter, which can fire several types of rockets, including laser-guided Hellfire missiles, and has a 30mm cannon for close-quarters fighting.

In 2005 he was forced to apologise after he was photographed wearing a swastika armband at a friend's "colonial and native" fancy dress party. The Board of Deputies of British Jews led the uproar, saying the costume was in bad taste, and a former armed forces minister declared the misjudgment showed the prince was "not suitable" for the royal military academy, Sandhurst.

In a statement from Clarence House, the prince admitted it had been "a poor choice" of outfit.

His regular evenings at the Boujis nightclub in London often led him to come out unsure on his feet and swinging, often in the direction of the nearest paparazzi.

Wednesday 22:50

The new approach to energy in the UK. Call for Arthur Scargill

• A week of highs for eco-sceptic Tories. First Chris Huhne, their bete noir, retires hurt. Then there is ammunition for all who would debunk the current thinking on renewables. Led by backbencher Chris Heaton-Harris, 101 Tory MPs signed a letter to David Cameron attacking the government's renewable energy policy. They were egged on by a new report from the thinktank Civitas, which itself borrowed heavily from research conducted by Colin Gibson, the former power network director at National Grid. He's obviously a knowledgeable guy, though he did retire 15 years ago and freely admits in his web paper that his study needs "further work". Still, let's for a moment accept that his is an approach to follow. What else does Gibson say about the future of our energy generation? "We could reach a situation where we will not be able to afford to buy foreign gas", thus: "An obvious strategy to be considered is to reduce coal imports by using more coal from national sources." Oh my! Do 101 Tory MPs owe Arthur Scargill an apology?

• Highs, too, for Tony Blair as he submits, via his interfaith foundation, to a Twitter interview. Some of the questions aren't what one would wish ("Did it feel good to be shopping in luxury stores during operation Cast Lead? Do the benefits of going to war alongside US presidents always include congressional medals?") But it's quite exciting, all the same.

• Lows for Maria Miller, the minister for the disabled, who triggered outrage with her assertion that in this, the highest period of unemployment in 17 years, there is no shortage of jobs, just a lack of skills and fear of work. Whack – that was the right hook from Labour. Biff – that was the cross from the TUC. She probably meant well but it was pretty difficult, because she was being interviewed on Radio 5 Live, and when the red light glows, anyone can get into a bit of a muddle. Still, one does wonder about the thousands the department of work and pensions spent last year on giving Miller, among others, media training. How was that value for money?

• Highs and lows, meanwhile, for BBC2's Newsnight. The high of Jeremy Paxman's interview with Katie Price last night. A low of sorts today, as head honchos at the BBC are forced again to fend off accusations that they dumped a viable investigation into sexual abuse allegations once levelled against the late Sir Jimmy Savile. First raised in the Sunday Mirror, the claims are expanded and re-ventilated in the Oldie magazine, of all places, by journalist Miles Goslett, who says the investigation was dropped to protect a clutch of tribute shows planned to mark Sir Jimmy's death. The Oldie claims that two celebrities other than Savile were responsible, that some of the misbehaviour occurred in Television Centre and that BBC director general Mark Thompson was involved in the recent discussions about what should happen. Not so, says the Beeb. Our inquiries did not relate to the allegations themselves – which were investigated by Surrey police in 2007 but not proceeded with. "The angle we were pursuing could not be substantiated." Sir Jimmy is gone; the controversies continue.

• Finally, these are scratchy times. So let us be charitable and suggest that last week, when Dirty Des's Daily Star ran a photo taken from the internet of figures in white hoods and the text "Police launched a hunt for Ku Klux Klan thugs in Essex", they really did suppose that the lynch mob might have made its way across the Atlantic. And that it would have been able to parade without hindrance. Let's assume that when the Daily Mail got in on the act (The Only KKK Is Essex?), it really thought such a thing was likely. For we learn from the Church Times – and from the organiser – that the photos depicted nothing more than a harmless Candlemas procession, organised by Anglicans and Methodists. Nothing sinister. The Christian festival of lights. And it wasn't in Essex. It was in east Barnet. Complaints have been sent to the Press Complaints Commission and Lord Leveson. But with all the rage out there, an easy mistake to make.

Twitter: @hugh_muir

Wednesday 21:30

Nick Clegg has taken the Lib Dems on a traumatic journey. But his battle-hardened party now has real grounds for confidence

It is old hat to pretend that there's nothing new to say about the Liberal Democrats. Stereotypes about Nick Clegg and his party put down deep roots early in the coalition's life. Trying to do the right thing in tough times for the country, the Lib Dems assured themselves. Selling out their principles for a taste of office, thundered Labour. A distasteful but temporary necessity, sneered the Conservatives. Meanwhile, the Lib Dems' ratings and electoral support all plummeted.

Some of that remains, of course. But time has nevertheless moved on since 2010. So has politics. And so, insufficiently noted by those who prefer their politics set in aspic, have the Liberal Democrats. The plummeting has stopped. The party is less traumatised than it was a year ago. There are signs of greater assertiveness and perhaps, viewed through some rose-tinted glasses, of politics beginning to move in their direction. Even the numbers are getting a little better, just about.

The challenge in talking about all politics, and about the Lib Dems in particular, is always to get the balance and the words right. Rule one is not to exaggerate either the setbacks or the advances, as so many do. All honest Lib Dems have to accept they have taken a massive, potentially disastrous hit since May 2010. The parliamentary byelection record, once glorious, is abject. In local government the Lib Dems lose one in every two seats they defend, far worse than Labour or the Tories. The AV referendum was a humiliation.

But the polling has levelled out and may even be inching very slowly up. In local government byelections the Lib Dems are running at a 17% average, nicely ahead of the 11% average in the national polls. Last week they took a seat from Labour in Newcastle-under-Lyme and one from the Tories in Amersham. Hardly the sunlit uplands. But at least the party now has room to breathe again.

Indisputably the party is also less apologetic now. The shock of the new experience of being in government has worn off a bit. Insiders at last week's Eastbourne awayday say the mood is amazingly chipper. But the Lib Dems are still in a far worse position, and are facing much tougher problems, than they expected. Mood and predicament are out of sync. We're like a galleon that has lost a lot of rigging and masts in a tremendous storm, says one, before adding that the vessel is still afloat and immensely seaworthy.

One small thing is clear, though. Chris Huhne's cabinet resignation last week, widely regretted even by those who disliked him, does not inflict wider damage on the party. That's not to say Edward Davey is a heavyweight in the way that Huhne almost was. Nor to say that Vince Cable is not now a little more isolated on the Lib Dem left in the cabinet. What it is to say, however, is that the Lib Dems, both in government and more widely, are a more resilient and coherent party than their critics generally allow. The Lib Dems are indisputably in a difficult place, but the party exists for reasons that still make sense. It's a more politically self-confident party than outsiders understand. Don't write them off.

Instead consider three things that make the Lib Dems freshly interesting. The first is that it is increasingly public that the Lib Dems stand – albeit still within the agreed parameters of the coalition agreement – for priorities that are distinctly different from those of their Conservative partners. Different parts of the party highlight different things. The official line emphasises the recalibration of the economy away from financial services, the emphasis on early-years spending and, a little nervously, Europe. Others put the spotlight on banking reform, the rearguard action on the green economy, perhaps even on an alternative to Trident. A frequently heard line is that this is a party that can look at itself in the mirror.

Clegg's speech setting out the party's budget priorities was an important public sign of the new willingness to differentiate at the top. So, against the odds, is his possibly futile persistence with House of Lords reform. So, more furtively, was the failure of the education minister Sarah Teather to vote for the coalition's welfare reforms last week. "When you strip it all away, the Tories are just nasty," says another minister. Never forget that most Lib Dem MPs have to defeat Conservative challengers in 2015, not Labour ones. That's not going to change. So the differentiation matters.

The second is the renewed evidence, clear from recent polling as the economy increasingly stagnates, that public opinion may be converging around a fusion of economic competence and social justice – in Lib Dem eyes, their natural territory. The current Lib Dem positioning of themselves as more economically competent than Labour but more socially just than the Tories is classic centre-ground politics. It is a sea change from the understandable but short-lived rose garden naivete of 2010. There's little trace there of the 2010 conceit that the coalition represented a liberal convergence against statist Labourism.

Instead, a version of equidistance is back in vogue. Clegg said at Eastbourne that he wants the Lib Dems in the sweet spot of British politics. This positioning may not be as progressive as the new Liberal Left grouping would like, but the direction is savvy and clear. The Lib Dems are moving towards the social liberal tradition, not away from it. And that means towards Labour, just as Labour finally seems to be moving slowly towards the centre. These days, unlike a year ago, you can find Lib Dem ministers who speak well of Ed Miliband.

This is where the third reason for thinking about the Liberal Democrats more seriously comes in. You can say what you like about Clegg and the journey on which he has taken his party. But the fact is that he is in the middle of proving that coalition governments can work. This is a big deal, not least because much current polling suggests the 2015 general election may produce another hung parliament. The latest seat projections from the current polls show Labour needing Lib Dem support to form a government.

The Lib Dem experience of government is undoubtedly traumatic. But it is a widely underestimated achievement, especially in such tough times. The result is that the Lib Dems are not just battle scarred but battle hardened. They have been through the fire – and survived. Now they are beginning to think about how to give themselves a chance to govern again. It would be rash indeed to assume they will not do so.

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Wednesday 21:00

Another bothersome Lib Dem out of the cabinet, the NHS one step closer to the abyss – it's been another great week for Cams and Ozzy

The DPP: We are taking Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce to court.

Huhne: Mmm. I guess that half time during a World Cup game wasn't the best time to tell my wife I was having an affair and would she mind OKing my press release about our separation before the second half started.

Pryce: You could have waited until the final whistle. So what will you do now?

Huhne: I suppose I will have to bloody well resign from the cabinet to spend more time with my family.

Cameron: Mr Huhne's resignation is a huge personal tragedy …

Osborne: But a great result for us …

Cameron: Too right, Ozzy. He was a pain in the arse. We didn't invite the Lib Dems into the coalition to have them throwing their weight around, did we Cleggster?

Clegg: No Daddy.

Osborne: Thing about Huhne is he was a closet commie. All that green shit he used to go on about. Thank God we won't have to bother about that again.

Cable: Who would have thought the Lib Dems could get any weaker?

Cameron: Be a good boy, Vincey, and get me a drink. I've got Theresa coming to see me.

May: Sodding Europe. It's just made us let Abu Qatada out of the nick …

Cameron: We can't have that. It sets a totally unacceptable precedent. I mean, if foreigners can force us to let Qatada out, what's to stop them saying we have to let Huhne out if he gets banged up?

May: That would be a disaster.

Cameron: Quite right. We can't afford any distractions from our task of running the country into the ground. How's it all going chaps?

Lansley: On target, sir. The NHS should be toast by 2015.

Cameron: Great stuff. Can you top that, Ozzy?

Osborne: You bet, Cams! The public accounts committee has just reported the Treasury has accidentally written off £11bn in tax …

Cameron: Was that the Vodafone deal?

Osborne: Good God no. We gave away that money on purpose.

Milidee: I wonder if I ought to make something of this …

Milidum: Even if you did, no one would listen. You're a loser, bro.

Cameron: I love my life.

Wednesday 21:00

Your diary column (8 February) seeks to deride the nomination of Tony Ball for the title of Council Leader of the Year and also gets the facts wrong about the final cost of the operation to clear Dale Farm last October. Tony was nominated for the leadership which he demonstrated throughout 2011 and in particular for leading the council through the difficult clearance of the illegal traveller settlement at Dale Farm.

The council did not spend £18m as originally budgeted on the operation – the final cost, released last week, was just £7m. Dale Farm is now clear. A minority of its former residents are parked illegally along the road and on the legal site. As with the original clearance, the council is duty-bound to uphold the law and these people will be moved on in due course.

We know that the vast majority of right-minded people, both locally and nationally, support the council's actions in this respect. Above all else Dale Farm is about treating the travellers the same as any other citizen, and that means insisting they obey both the planning and criminal laws of our country. In Basildon we are proud of Tony and wish him success when the judges make their final decision.
Cllr Malcolm Buckley
Cabinet member for the environment and former leader of Basildon council

• In your interview with Stephen Greenhalgh (Localism hero, Society, 8 February), you assert that "To Labour, he is a tyrant for keeping council tax low at the expense of frontline services". That is not our view. I'm afraid your article fell into the trap of presenting a caricature of the left-right divide on tax and spend and one that does the local and national debates a disservice. In fact, Labour has supported all council tax cuts in Hammersmith and Fulham and promised a raft of further cuts in all council taxes, should we win control of the council in 2014.

Labour's objection to the Conservatives' tax programme is that they have introduced vast hikes in a range of stealth taxes. Far from keeping taxes low, they have increased or introduced nearly 600 new stealth taxes. If you are elderly or disabled; if you're a local motorist, or even someone who uses a personal trainer in one of our local parks, you have been targeted with extra fees and new charges.

And let's take a moment to unpick Hammersmith and Fulham Conservatives' rhetoric of efficiency you touched on by considering just three of the projects they waste public money on. The Conservative chair of the culture, media and sport parliamentary select committee rapped their knuckles for wasting millions of pounds on "political propaganda". They have been shown to have wasted millions more on unnecessary consultants and, last December, they voted to build £35m worth of new town hall offices, but will gift up to £70m of land to make the deal work.

So maybe this flagship Tory council offers wider lessons for the country. Let's get past the easy left-right stereotypes and examine the real economic and financial choices before us. Financial management of public money matters. In Hammersmith and Fulham Labour is not standing on a tax-and-spend platform. We know where there is waste to be cut and different choices to be made. We will fight the next local elections with those issues at the forefront of our campaign.
Cllr Stephen Cowan
Labour leader of the opposition, councillor for Hammersmith Broadway ward

Wednesday 20:59

For every person who smoked and died young I can give you other names, especially in my own profession, who didn't: Picasso, Matisse, Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, and a lot more (Letter, 1 February). Are there no doctors who would admit they haven't a clue why this is so? I for one am not sure medicine is a science – human beings are messy and all a little bit different, and I rejoice in that. I will be even more impertinent. I will continue to ask some questions of doctors. Looking around the Leonardo exhibition it occurs to me that they had better eyesight than we do. Flemish painting has also suggested this to me. Could very bright lights cause this? What will gazing at a computer screen all day do to us?

If Mr Chapman is concerned about children, this week's news that 3 million children in the US are on Ritalin, a drug prescribed for attention deficit disorder horrified me. I intend to stick with my far more natural, delicious, pleasure-giving tobacco.
David Hockney
Bridlington, East Yorkshire

Wednesday 20:47

Leveson inquiry website publishes fresh statement saying actor has evidence of misbehaviour by Associated Newspapers

The row between Hugh Grant and the Daily Mail's editor, Paul Dacre, took a further turn on Wednesday, when the celebrity actor said he had uncovered evidence of misbehaviour by Associated Newspapers.

In a fresh statement published on the Leveson inquiry website, Grant said he had obtained letters contradicting several aspects of the Mail's version of the way it had tracked down and "persistently hounded" Tinglan Hong, the mother of his newly born daughter.

Mail reporters pretended to have a parcel to deliver in order to get details of a lettings agency linked to the mother's former address, according to a statement obtained by Grant.

The letting agency denied subsequently handing over Hong's mobile number, which the paper obtained.

Westminster register office also denies the Mail's claim that its staff had subsequently handed over details of the baby's birth, supplied privately by the hospital.

Grant says in his witness statement to Leveson that it could have been illegal for the register office to supply such details.

The Westminster registrar has written to him saying: "It is absolutely not our policy to release birth notification details to members of the public and to our knowledge we have not done so. Such disclosure would be likely to involve a potential breach of data protection legislation." The country's chief registrar – the registrar-general, Sarah Rapson – is to write to Westminster council "to urge them to consider undertaking a full investigation". Grant said: "This information would have formed part of Tinglan's confidential medical records."

In another area of dispute with the Mail, Grant discloses that his former lover Jemima Khan has now sworn a witness statement to the Leveson inquiry, saying the Mail on Sunday's version of how it came to print a libellous story about them could not possibly be true.

The Mail says a freelance, Sharon Feinstein, got a story purportedly emanating from Khan herself, that Grant had been having an affair with a "plummy-voiced woman" who called him on the phone. Khan says she was completely unaware of Feinstein until the story was published.

The Mail's editor is being recalled to Leveson on Thursday to be cross-examined by Grant's lawyers. This followed a belligerent performance on Monday in which Dacre admitted personally helping draft the phrase "mendacious smear" about Grant after the actor had suggested Associated Newspapers might have engaged in phone hacking.

Dacre said Grant "knew, or ought to have known, he had no proper basis for smearing our company". He said that "to ignore the truth behind the carefully manipulated images" of celebrities would "betray the readers".

A Daily Mail spokesman said: "We note that Hugh Grant has now accepted that his claims regarding information coming from the hospital were false. We stand by the statements already made to the inquiry." A witness statement detailing the paper's stance was submitted last year by Associated's lawyer, Liz Hartley.

In evidence to Leveson the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, told the inquiry on Wednesday that the Crown Prosecution Service would shortly release a guidance on the prosecution of journalists. He is drawing up an interim policy on the factors to consider when deciding whether to prosecute journalists over illicit newsgathering methods.

The policy on the prosecution of journalists will include a public interest defence for journalism that uncovers a miscarriage of justice. The CPS said that the potential public interest defence of revealing miscarriages of justice would be balanced against considerations including whether the journalist used threats or intimidation, or put criminal proceedings in jeopardy.

"It would be prudent to have a policy that sets out in one place the factors that prosecutors will take into account when considering whether or not to prosecute journalists acting in the course of their work as journalists," Starmer said.

The Guido Fawkes blogger, Paul Staines, in evidenceon Wednesday, said he understood that the editor of the Sunday Mirror, Tina Weaver, had personally authorised hacking and blagging.

Staines said he was told by two journalists that Weaver "personally authorised and told them to hack, blag and do all that kind of stuff".

Staines added: "She knows all the bad things that have gone on under her rule. It's ridiculous."

Trinity Mirror had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication. The political blogger also claimed that the News of the World paid him £20,000 for photographs of a political adviser who shared a hotel room with the foreign secretary, William Hague, during the 2010 election campaign.

Staines suggested that the now-defunct tabloid bought the photos to "take them off the market" as a favour to its former editor, Andy Coulson, who at the time was director of communications at No 10.

The blogger also told the inquiry that his home address had been discovered by a Daily Telegraph reporter, Gordon Rayner, and claimed that could only have been achieved by his details being leaked by a Land Registry employee. The Telegraph said that Staines and Rayner had never met. "We don't propose to be drawn into any dispute with him. However, as any journalist will know, the Land Registry is a public resource, available to all."

He claimed that Rayner had used Steve Whittamore, the private investigator convicted of illegally accessing data in 2005. Staines said that Rayner appeared in the information commissioner's Operation Motorman report into trade of data by newspapers 335 times.

"If this inquiry does not act as a catalyst for criminal prosecution for those journalists who have invaded people's privacy, on an industrial scale, I think you have failed," Staines told Lord Justice Leveson.

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Wednesday 20:00

He won an Orwell prize for his writing. But since being identified against his wishes as NightJack, detective constable Richard Horton hasn't penned another word

Detective constable Richard Horton – the blogger formerly known as NightJack – is an unlucky man. In 2009, after winning an Orwell prize for his anonymous chronicle of life as a Lancashire police officer, his identity was disclosed against his wishes by the Times – a discovery that was revealed this week to have been made through the hacking of his email.

Horton was reprimanded by his local constabulary, and though he is understood still to be a serving officer, yesterday neither his lawyer nor Lancashire police would confirm his current role. He has not penned a word since. "Once I get the taste of hubris out of my mouth, I may get back to writing but I'm not doing anything at the moment," he told the Guardian in 2009. "I'd like to write a novel but the fun and enjoyment went out of it with the Times thing and I lost the flavour for doing the book."

It's a shame, because his prose was pithy, witty and informative. "Lee takes Mike's watch and wallet as trophies," he wrote of one case. "Stamps on Mike's head more for the sake of completeness than anything. I mean, that's just what you do, you stamp the head when they are down. Everyone does that. It's soft not to."

Horton is especially unlucky given that most other police bloggers have evaded the dubious methods of email-hacking journalists. "Inspector Gadget", whom Horton cites as an inspiration, has been going since 2006. Now his site has received nearly 9m hits, he sells merchandise from "Ruralshire" (his pseudonym for the area he works in), and he is one of several police bloggers to have published a book: Perverting the Course of Justice. In fact, Gadget has become so popular that when Tim Godwin, former deputy commissioner of the Met, set up his own police blog, he felt it necessary to qualify it with: "I'm not quite Inspector Gadget."

Gadget is himself predated by PC David Copperfield, who is believed to be the first police blogger. The Observer's Nick Cohen called his spinoff book one of the three "most important political books" of the day – and it was only in the subsequent media melee that Copperfield's true identity was uncovered. Unlike Horton, Copperfield had a taste for the spotlight, did one-too-many barely disguised broadcast interviews, and was unmasked as one PC Stuart Davidson of Staffordshire police. He now works in Canada.

Wednesday 19:55

Unions concerned that savings are being made through cutting services and workers' pay and conditions instead of inefficiency

More than 1,100 jobs from central government departments and agencies were outsourced to the private sector in the last financial year, new research has uncovered.

The findings, uncovered through a series of questions tabled by former Labour cabinet minister Frank Dobson, have prompted union fears that savings are being made not through efficiencies, but through cuts to pay and conditions of staff, as evidence emerges of hundreds more outsourcing schemes being tendered across the country.

Dobson's research begins to collect for the first time totals for jobs shifted from the public sector to private companies, including jobs relating to inspection of nursery services, defence training, and IT support.

A total of 1,171 jobs were transferred, according to responses to written questions, including 493 from Ofsted and 460 from the Ministry of Defence.

Ordnance Survey, which produces the UK's official maps, outsourced 53 roles – including design jobs – while the Environment Agency and Kew Gardens together shed 106 roles.

The Foreign Office said it had outsourced no UK staff, but had outsourced "a number" of locally engaged jobs overseas.

"These transfers occurred as part of a major efficiency programme which sought the most cost-effective method of providing support services at our overseas posts," the FCO said in a statement.

The Ministry of Defence said 230 MoD stores and supplies roles had been outsourced, plus 110 from the Duke of York royal military school and a further 110 IT posts.

Mark Serwotka, general secretary the Public and Commercial Services union, condemned the outsourcing.

"These figures expose the drive by ministers to put profit before the needs of people and our economy. The stark reality is, jobs are being privatised and more work handed to the private sector. Instead of cutting jobs and selling off jobs and services, the government should be investing to help our economy to grow."

The scale of privatisation of local government roles, however, seems likely to dwarf the central government's moves, according to new research.

Analysis by Unison has uncovered tender bids for a further 600 privatisation schemes from local authorities across the country, which could affect thousands of jobs.

Unison found 609 adverts for outsourcing schemes that would affect current public sector workers which caused sufficient concern for them to notify members in the affected regions.

Of these, some 100 were "prior information notices", which are seen as a means of testing the market to see if outsourcing is viable. The remainder were solid contract tendering bids.

The union said it was concerned such schemes were likely to be driven by cost-cutting in the current climate, and this could come at the expense of future employees' pay and conditions, plus services themselves.

A code aimed at protecting new workers from cuts in conditions was scrapped in March 2011, the union said.

"The worrying trend of outsourcing has damaging implications for workers and taxpayers. All too often, the promised savings are not delivered, and workers see their terms and conditions cut as private companies strive to make profits," said Unison's head of local government, Heather Wakefield.

"The ever-tighter margins in the current cash-strapped climate make this even more likely – as does the government's decision to scrap a vital protection to workers' terms and conditions in outsourced companies."

The government's controversial health and social care bill has previously come under fire from Labour and activists for expanding the role of the private sector in healthcare provision.

Dobson said he intended to research the full extent of privatisation of public sector roles across the NHS, central, and local government, as he said the trend would grow as cuts to departmental budgets were implemented.

"This is just a taste of what is going to happen in the current financial year, given the cutbacks," he said. "I'm sure local authorities and the health service will have transferred much more and this year there'll be thousands more jobs moved.

"It undoubtedly undermines pay, conditions and pensions of the staff moved – and these transfers cover up government exaggerations on how many jobs are created in the private sector. How many have just moved?"

Wednesday 19:30

Few had anticipated the leadership dilemmas of a European Germany in a German Europe

In 1953 the novelist Thomas Mann appealed to an audience of students in Hamburg to strive for "not a German Europe but a European Germany". This stirring pledge was endlessly repeated at the time of German unification. Today we have a variation that few foresaw: a European Germany in a German Europe.

Angela Merkel's Berlin republic is a European Germany, in the rich, positive sense that the great novelist had come to use the term. It is free, civilised, democratic, law-bound, and socially and environmentally conscious. It's far from perfect, obviously, but as good as any other big country in Europe – and the best Germany we've ever had.

Yet because of the crisis of the eurozone this European Germany finds itself, unwillingly, at the centre of a German Europe. No one can seriously doubt that Germany is calling the shots in the eurozone. The reason we have a fiscal compact treaty agreed by 25 EU member states is that Berlin wanted it. Desperate, impoverished Greeks are being told to "do your homework" by Germans. More extraordinary still, the German chancellor is now telling French voters who to vote for in their own presidential election, through a series of campaign appearances with Nicolas Sarkozy. Everyone says that Europe is being led by "Merkozy", but the reality is more like Merkelzy.

Germany did not seek this leadership position. Rather, this is a perfect illustration of the law of unintended consequences. German leaders, from Helmut Schmidt to Helmut Kohl, had envisaged advancing the European project through a European monetary union, but it was François Mitterrand's France that insisted on pinning Germany down to it, in the context of German unification.

Historians can argue about how far the commitment in the Maastricht treaty was a direct quid pro quo for French support for German unification, but two things are clear. Both sides of the Rhine agreed that this was an important part of binding a newly united Germany into a more united Europe, in which France would continue to play a – if not the – leading role. And many Germans saw giving up their precious deutschmark as paying an economic price for a larger political good.

Twenty years on from Maastricht, we see that the precise opposite has happened. Economically, the euro turned out to be very good for Germany. Politically, it is precisely the monetary union that has put Germany in the driving seat and relegated France to the front passenger seat.

So far Germany is proving a reluctant, nervous and not very skilful driver. There are many reasons for this. One of these is not wanting to be in the driving seat in the first place. Another is suspecting that everyone else in the car wants you to pay for the petrol, the motorway meal and probably the overnight hotel too. On a panel at the Munich Security Conference last week, I and Robert Zoellick of the World Bank suggested in our different ways that Germany should show a little more economic and political leadership. The German defence minister, Thomas de Maizière, responded that Anglo-Saxon calls for more German leadership "usually meant … not leadership but money". He was wrong – but accurately reflected the way many Germans feel.

Then there is the unhappy sense that they are damned if they do lead and damned if they don't. The terrible history that prompted Mann's postwar appeal plays a role here. If Germany suggests a commissar to oversee Greek budget cuts, he inevitably gets called a Gauleiter. Then there is the fact that the German elite simply is not used to playing such a leadership role in Europe, unlike the French elite, who like nothing better. The French want to, but can't; the Germans can, but don't want to.

Above all, there is the perennial dilemma of Germany's awkward, inbetween size: "too big for Europe, too small for the world", said Henry Kissinger. Even with the most self-confident, adroit elite, and even without the memories of 1914-1945, leadership from that inbetween position would be difficult.

Two things are therefore needed. First, all Germans should go back and read Mann's short talk, both to understand the historical dimension of today's challenge and to recall the intellectual and moral grandeur that was once theirs. For Mann's beautifully crafted, profoundly moving message to those young Germans in 1953 can also be summarised in three short American words: "Yes we can".

Second, they need a lot of help from their friends. They won't manage it on their own. We may laugh at Sarko's antics in the front passenger seat ("Non, non, ma chérie! Tout droit, tout droit!'), but he's got the right idea. For David Cameron to consign Britain to the back seat – if not the dog boot – of the European car at this critical moment is folly beyond words. Earlier this week, Merkel again stressed how much Germany wants to see this fellow north European, free-market liberal country return to the heart of European affairs.

Back in Hamburg in 1953, the British were doing everything they could, in a far from ignoble way, to help ruined Germany back on its feet. It would be so short-sighted, so plain dumb, for Britain to abandon Germany to its own devices just when it finds itself playing such a decisive role in Europe – a role that it did not seek, for which it is ill-prepared and in which it needs all the help that it can get.

Twitter: @fromtga

Wednesday 19:10

Ministers told their circumstances should more closely reflect those experienced by the rest of the country

MPs' pay is to be frozen at £65,738 for 2012/13. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) also recommended a 1.85% increase in MPs' pension contributions. It said it would consult on a 1% pay rise for 2013/14 and 2014/15.

The Ipsa chairman, Sir Ian Kennedy, said: "We must be mindful of the conditions in the rest of the public sector where pay has remained static and where settlements will see most people pay more into their pensions. I believe it is right that we act so that MPs' circumstances more closely reflect those experienced by others."

Ipsa's decision means MPs' pay will be frozen for a second year in succession. Last year, the Commons agreed to forgo a 1% rise after David Cameron said they should turn it down.

Wednesday 19:00

For some watching the trial, Harry Redknapp was an archetypal geezer, for others a charmer. But for John Crace, he was simply the man he fell in love with

There is always tension before a verdict but this one had never really felt much in doubt from the moment Redknapp – it's hard to resist calling him Harry; everyone else does – walked smiling into Southwark crown court in south London to take his seat alongside his co-defendant, billionaire businessman and former chairman of Portsmouth FC, Milan Mandaric, some two and a half weeks earlier. "There's absolutely nothing to worry about, I can promise you," he had said during the first adjournment in an aside to the galleries packed with reporters, Tottenham Hotspur and FA officials, football supporters and the odd teenage girl who had come to get a glimpse of Redknapp's son, Jamie. And it was hard not to believe him.

Other football managers may have had more success, but few have been more loved, and over the past few years he has achieved the status of a national treasure. Football writers love him because he always gives good quote, the fans like him because his teams play attractive, attacking football and, since Fabio Capello announced he would stand down as England manager after Euro 2012, he has been everyone's favourite to replace the Italian. Which in itself requires an element of double-think, because for the past two years Redknapp has had two charges of tax evasion hanging over him.

For any other man, these charges would have been enough to throw serious doubt on his suitability for the England job. But Redknapp isn't any man; he is everyone's exception. He is a man whom other men – myself included – are not ashamed to love. There is something about him that makes you feel you know him even when you don't. And as with other national treasures, people tend to read into Redknapp's character whatever they want to see. So for some he is the archetypal what-you-see-is-what-you-get, always-ready-to-have- a-laugh character out of an Ealing comedy. For others, including the police, he is the East End working-class wide boy: a dodgy geezer.

Both stereotypes are hopelessly simplistic. In person, Redknapp is one of the most charismatic and likable people I have met; even when surrounded by a scrum of reporters and fans, he connects with people person to person. He talks to you as if he knows you and as if his time is your time. But you don't get to be one of the most successful managers in football just by cracking jokes and being charming. Many modern footballers have egos as big as their weekly earnings and require a manager with a will of iron. Faced with a possible prison sentence, others might have crumbled. Redknapp's Tottenham side have been enjoying their best season in decades. He even appeared to take heart surgery in his stride just before Christmas.

Nor does the dodgy geezer caricature stack up. Redknapp was cleared of taking bungs by the Stevens inquiry in June 2007 and released without charge in November of the same year after being arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and false accounting. Even so, despite having twice been cleared of these other charges, the City of London police and the Crown Prosecution Service decided to go for the hat-trick. If found guilty, the dodgy geezer version of Redknapp would have been the one that stuck in the public mind and his career would have been as good as over just as it was nearing its peak.

Windowless, often airless, slightly grubby off-white walls with pale wood panels; the court had the feel of justice at its most municipal. Somehow the drama was missing. This wasn't the Wembley cup final trial most had expected. Ninety minutes in the hands of a lawyer is merely the time required to ask one question.

Courts operate on their own space-time continuum; one that is instinctively understood by every member of the legal profession, yet remains a mystery to the outsider. "The case will last for two weeks," Judge Anthony Leonard told court six at the start of the trial, apparently certain in the knowledge of how long everyone was going to speak for. As barrister John Black QC outlined the case for the prosecution at length, Redknapp tried manfully to pick his way through several ring binders full of evidence. Mandaric preferred to just listen. The guard who sat next to the accused in the dock concentrated on his book of word puzzles. During one of the breaks, Redknapp joked: "This man could put a glass eye to sleep."

The pace picked up towards the end of the week when John Kelsey-Fry QC, Redknapp's barrister, a man almost as stellar as his client, made his first real appearance. Over a meteoric career, Kelsey-Fry has acted for, among others, Roman Polanski, Sharon Osborne and Steven Gerrard and is considered one of the stars of the bar. It wasn't hard to see why. In cross examination he is sharp, succinct, witty and charming; juries love him. Even his wig has class. "It used to belong to Christmas Humphreys," he told me when I found him outside the court, sneaking a quick cigarette one lunchtime. "He was the barrister who prosecuted Ruth Ellis [the last woman to be hanged in this country]. He was also a Buddhist and refused to sit on any capital cases. So he was a curious man: someone who was prepared to prosecute a woman to the gallows but not pass sentence."

It wasn't until the second week that things became marginally clearer. No one was disputing the basic facts; it was the interpretation that was in question. The prosecution was alleging that two payments into a Monaco bank account had been a scam to avoid Redknapp having to pay PAYE on a bonus due for the sale of Peter Crouch: the defence was saying the contractual bonus had been paid through the proper channels and that this payment was a private arrangement between two friends.

Mandaric was first in the witness box: time and again over the course of more than six hours, Black suggested the money was a bonus and time and again Mandaric told him he was mistaken. "I know I'm sounding like a broken record, Mr Black," he said at one point, "but I can only tell you what happened." Redknapp looked on intently, though it became clear his mind wasn't wholly on the case. The second Tuesday of the trial was transfer deadline day. "What's going on?" he asked the football hacks during a break. "Apparently, you've bought Louis Saha," said someone. "Really?" Redknapp replied. "That's news to me."

Football was also clearly on Redknapp's mind first thing the next morning. When he took his place in the dock before the judge and jury arrived, he gave a big grin and made a 3-1 sign with his fingers, a reference to his team's victory over Wigan the night before. You couldn't not admire him. A man with the focus to engineer a comfortable league win and still have a laugh when he was due to give what could turn out to be the most important performance of his life later in the day. Even Mandaric, who had remained polite if reserved throughout the trial, seemed to be infected by the party spirit. When he returned to the dock, his cross-examination complete, he pretended to throttle Redknapp. Redknapp slapped him on the back and grinned.

"Why were you all laughing when my dad was called?" Jamie Redknapp whispered to me. "Because Mr Black had told us all in the adjournment that the defence wouldn't call your dad to give evidence," I whispered back. "Why wouldn't he?" Why indeed, because Redknapp didn't disappoint, putting on a typically Harry-like bravura show, kicking off in fine style with, "He would say that, he's an Arsenal supporter" in response to Mandaric's barrister, Lord Macdonald, describing him as an average footballer.

On why had he called the Monaco bank account Rosie47? "Because Rosie was my dog. She was a lovely dog, and 1947 is the year of my birth. It was like a security code. Like I have to say my mother's name, Violet Brown, to get access to my HSBC account over here." That was another security code that would now need to be changed. Had he thought he was due a 10% bonus for the sale of Crouch? "Well, morally yes, because Mr Mandaric had said Crouchie was a basketball player and I'd be owing him 10% on the money Portsmouth lost. But my new contract said 5%, so that's what I got."

Did he remember signing the form allowing Mandaric to transfer money out of his account to the US? "No. he must have typed it up and I just signed it. To be honest, we were playing Man United later that day and I was more worried about marking David Beckham." Did he ever ask Mandaric how the investment was doing? "Once, after we won at Blackburn. Disaster. He told me it had been a total disaster. Everything had been lost and he'd try again. To be honest, I never thought about the account again until years later." Why had he lied to Rob Beasley? "Why should I tell a News of the World reporter the truth? He didn't tell me the truth." And so it continued.

The only time Redknapp cracked was when he snapped at the police officer who had led the dawn raids on his house and was sitting with the prosecution team. "Mr Manley, will you stop staring at me," he said. "I know you are trying to cause me a problem." Whatever the problem was, it was soon dealt with, as Detective Inspector Dave Manley was nowhere to be seen in court the following day.

The picture that emerged wasn't just of a happy-go-lucky, disorganised business arrangement between friends; it was of another world, the world of football, where large sums of money are the norm for the very successful. Mandaric is worth £2bn, Redknapp earns more than £5m a year and £100,000 is a relatively inconsequential amount that can be easily forgotten. In the year Mandaric had invested and lost the money for Redknapp he had lost £17m in other deals. In another deal gone wrong, Redknapp had taken an £8m bath on a property development.

And that was the essence of the defence's closing speeches. Why on earth would either man bother to try to go to such lengths to save about £30,000 in tax each? Mandaric had paid £100m in taxes over the last 10 years, Redknapp had paid more than £8m, and if Redknapp was so greedy, why had he given the £130,000 compensation he was due on leaving Portsmouth in 2004 to a football youth development scheme? They were good questions to ask in response to the prosecution's closing remarks that the News of the World tape was "perhaps the most important and compelling evidence in this case".

As the verdict was announced, Jamie Redknapp's eyes reddened as he struggled to contain his emotions. But Harry gave little away. A hug with Mandaric, a shake of the hand with the guard in the box, a mouthed "thank you" to his defence team and the jury, and he was away. On the steps outside the court, he said that waiting for the verdict had been horrendous and that the whole ordeal had been a nightmare, but you wouldn't necessarily have guessed it by looking at him. Yet over the course of the trial, part of the Redknapp enigma had been cracked open. To some people he may still be a bit of a geezer. But no one can say he's a dodgy geezer. If anything, in most people's eyes, he has become even more of a national treasure.

Wednesday 18:53

Alan Pollock became famous after footage of him ejecting alleged fare dodger was viewed 2m times on YouTube

A train passenger who became an internet sensation after he was filmed ejecting an alleged fare dodger from a train will not be prosecuted.

Mobile phone footage of Alan Pollock, 35, from Stirling, intervening in a protracted row between a train conductor and Sam Main, 19, a student from Falkirk, on the Edinburgh to Perth train, was posted on YouTube and has been viewed more than 2m times.

Main had been accused of not having the right ticket for the journey and was refusing to leave the train, which was being held at Linlithgow station. Pollock ejected Main from the train and was cheered by some of his fellow passengers, one of whom dubbed him the "Big Man". The incident was captured on mobile phone video and later uploaded to the internet.

Pollock, a financial manager, was charged with assault following the incident, and Main was reported to prosecutors under section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing Act Scotland, which covers threatening and abusive behaviour.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Crown Office, the Scottish prosecution service, said there would be no criminal proceedings against either man.

A Crown Office spokesperson said: "The procurator fiscal at Livingston received reports concerning two males aged 35 and 19 in connection with an incident in Linlithgow on Friday 9 December 2011. After full and careful consideration of the reports by crown counsel, it was decided that it is not in the public interest to prosecute either male, and the cases are now closed."

Wednesday 18:49

Lady Royall says Tory peers will clog up legislative programme if government makes Lords reform a priority

David Cameron's chances of getting his next legislative programme through the Lords later this year are "zero to slim" if he presses ahead with a bill introducing an elected second chamber, Lady Royall, the Labour leader of the Lords, has said.

An advocate of Lords reform, backed by a referendum, she claims Conservative peers, and some dissidents on her own benches, will choose to scrutinise bills not just line-by-line but word-by-word, prompting late night votes and clogging up the legislative programme if the government makes Lords reform a centrepiece of its second parliamentary session. "I am not issuing a warning, it is an observation," she said.

Her remarks come as Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, presses for Lords reform to be included in the programme, and some of his supporters have hinted they will not vote through the boundary review if the legislation is shelved.

Royall said in an interview with the Guardian that the general public will simply not understand the coalition's priorities if constitutional reform is given such prominence.

"If and when such a bill arrives in the Lords, little or nothing else will get done, quite frankly. Of course constitutional reform is important, and I believe it should be accompanied by a referendum, but we are in the biggest economic crisis since the 1920s' depression. We have got everyone, from top to bottom in society, concerned about their kids' jobs, who will look after their aged parents, bread and butter issues that people are terrified about.

"The thought that this government could put House of Lords reform at the centre of its programme for the next parliamentary session, I find quite astonishing. If it does, it will say a lot to the people of the country about this government's priorities."

She attacked the way in which the government was trying to neuter debate on current controversial bills such as the welfare bill by claiming financial privilege, a means by which the Commons can order the Lords not to pursue an amendment because it has financial implications beyond Lords' powers.

She said she hoped peers would try to get round Lords amendments being labelled financially privileged by tabling different amendments with broadly similar effects. The Commons last week overturned seven amendments to the welfare bill and required the Speaker to denote them as financially privileged. The welfare bill returns to the Lords next week.

"We don't intend to take this lying down," Royall said.

"The government isn't just trying to legislate. It's trying to oppose the opposition. If they were to go down this path more often, we can do nothing. There is no serious policy that does not have a price tag attached."

Responding to reports that Cameron was planning to appoint a new tranche of coalition peers, she said: "Since the advent of the coalition we have had two lists with 37 Labour and 67 for the coalition which means that balance that we tried to maintain has been completely skewed so there is now a political majority for the coalition in the Lords.

"Precisely because the Conservatives did not get a majority at the general election enables them to get more legislation through the Lords. It's weird but true. They are in a stronger position to get legislation through the Lords than if they had won the general election.

"Humungous chunks of this ghastly legislation has gone through the Lords because the Lib Dems are supporting it. Traditionally they have been good on issues like welfare legal aid and health and would have voted with us all the time." She also urged Cameron to disown reports that he is planning to nominate another 60 coalition peers. The coalition came into power with a commitment — pending a directly elected Lords — to reflect the election result in the Lords.

"If they did that, I would be so angry and frustrated. This looks like packing the House – because it is packing the House. Having loaded the dice, the coalition is now intent on creating a completely stacked deck.

"They would be able to get this place to rubber stamp any crap badly drafted piece of legislation passed to us from the Commons. The constitutional role of this place is to do scrutiny and revision. It is not supposed to be a rubber stamp."

Wednesday 18:26

Conservative MPs reject Lib Dems' choice for university admissions chief Prof Les Ebdon, a critic of higher tuition fees

The Lib Dems have suffered a defeat at the hands of their Conservative coalition partners after a committee of MPs overruled Vince Cable's choice of new university access tsar.

Cable, who as business secretary has responsibility for universities, had endorsed Prof Les Ebdon for the role of director of the Office for Fair Access, the higher education access watchdog. The watchdog's current director, Sir Martin Harris, is stepping down in April.

MPs on the cross-party Commons business, innovation and skills (BIS) select committee said they were "not convinced" by Ebdon's descriptions of the "root causes of the obstacles to accessing universities".

They recommended that the government restart the recruitment process. The government could overrule the MPs, but it is more likely to look for a new candidate. There were thought to have been few applicants for the role.

Behind the scenes, Tory MPs were said to be outraged that Ebdon, an advocate of new universities and a critic of higher fees, was the coalition's preferred choice. He had warned that, given the role, he would consider imposing large fines on elite institutions that did not take their fair share of disadvantaged students.

David Ward, the only Lib Dem on the committee, accused his Tory colleagues of circulating "suggestions that Ebdon was not the candidate to be supported" before his pre-appointment hearing in front the committee last week.

Ward told the Guardian he had written to the committee's chair, Adrian Bailey, calling for an inquiry into whether there had been inappropriate behaviour. Bailey said the matter would be brought up at a committee meeting in a fortnight.

Ward said: "My understanding is that members of select committees listen to what people giving evidence to us say in an open-minded and objective way. There were some suggestions before the hearing that [Ebdon] was not the candidate to be supported. If we are not objective, the whole system falls apart."

Bailey said he was disappointed that MPs on his committee had "divided on party lines". "The strength of a select committee is that it judges on the merits of the candidate. This time, it had far more to do with internal politics of the coalition," he said.

A spokeswoman for Cable said he "remained of the view" that Ebdon was the right candidate for the role. "He will urgently consider the select committee's recommendation and respond shortly," she said. The appointment is now said to involve David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

Ebdon said on Wednesday he was "still very interested" in the role.

Private schools and the country's 20 leading research universities are thought to have lobbied against Ebdon's appointment. Critics have accused Ebdon, who is vice-chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire, of defending "Mickey Mouse" degrees.

In an article for the Guardian in September 2008, Ebdon wrote: "Subjects such as media and cultural studies, fashion design and consumer software computing are far from professionally irrelevant or academically unchallenging. The development of a huge range of interdisciplinary graduate courses has been crucial to the success of the continually evolving creative economy in which Britain is now a world leader."

Michael Gove, the education secretary, was said to be against Ebdon getting the role, while David Willetts, the universities minister, was in favour. Cable and other Lib Dems are thought to believe that Ebdon would improve social mobility and fairness in university admissions.

In their report on the pre-appointment hearing, the MPs said that although Ebdon "demonstrated an all-round understanding of widening participation, we were not convinced by his descriptions of the root causes of the obstacles to accessing universities.

"Therefore, we have to question his evidence in respect of two of the criteria for selection, namely 'promote the strengths of the arguments in face of opposition' and 'communicate persuasively and publicly, with excellent presentational skills'."

The MPs said they were "unable to endorse the appointment of Professor Ebdon … and we recommend that the department conduct a new recruitment exercise."

They said the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) should ensure there was "sufficient flexibility in the job description and package to attract the widest range of quality applicants to the job".

In the hearing last week, Ebdon advocated what he called a "nuclear option": forbidding institutions from charging maximum fees of £9,000 a year if they did not do enough to widen access.

Only those MPs on the select committee who attended the hearing were allowed to vote. Two Labour and one Lib Dem failed to attend. Four Conservative MPs rejected Ebdon, while two Labour MPs endorsed him. Another Conservative, Brian Binley, was not present at a final meeting and the chair of the committee, Adrian Bailey, a Labour MP, did not use his casting vote.

Paul Blomfield, a Labour MP on the committee who did not vote, said Ebdon had been the victim of a "political ambush". "Les Ebdon has an excellent track record and was enthusiastically endorsed by ministers," he said. "Conservative members of the select committee tried to overturn those recommendations without substantive reason in what appeared to be an orchestrated move."

Liam Burns, president of the National Union of Students, said the blocking of Ebdon's appointment "risked severely undermining attempts to ensure fair access to universities".

Under the government's changes to tuition fees, any university wanting to charge more than £6,000 a year must draw up an "access agreement" saying how it intends not to put off poorer students.

The Office for Fair Access can fine universities £500,000 for falling short of targets, or refuse to sanction an access agreement, in effect banning them from charging more than £6,000.

Data shows the poorest 40% of students are seven times less likely to be admitted to the 20 most prestigious universities than the richest 10%.

Cable, in a letter to Bailey, wrote that he and Willetts considered the watchdog director to be an "extremely important post, central to the government's objectives for fair access in higher education".

"I am delighted to be able to inform you that we have chosen Professor Les Ebdon as our preferred candidate." Ebdon has 44 years of experience in higher education."

The Office for Fair Access aims to encourage greater numbers of students to apply to higher education from low-income families and other under-represented groups, such as some ethnic minorities. It also tries to encourage universities to give applicants clear information about courses and financial support.

Wednesday 18:12

Jon Richardson named funniest man, Andi Osho funniest woman and Vic and Bob funniest double act at comedy awards

Tim Vine picked up the prize for the year's funniest joke, at the Loaded Laftas comedy awards.

He saw off competition from the likes of Jimmy Carr and the magician Paul Daniels with his gag: "Conjunctivitis.com – that's a site for sore eyes."

Jon Richardson, best known for his appearances on 8 Out of 10 Cats, was named the funniest man and Andi Osho the funniest woman. Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer were named the funniest double act for the fourth year running.

Jack Whitehall's university comedy Fresh Meat was named the funniest TV show, and Carr collected the prize for the funniest DVD.

Wednesday 18:07

Consumers can eat with a clear conscience as the seafood has been added to the MSC's list of sustainable fish

Farmed oysters – perfect for a Valentine's meal – are back on the menu after being added to the updated list of sustainable fish published by a leading marine charity.

But fans of deep-fried whitebait will be disappointed that the delicacy have been added to its corresponding list of "fish to avoid" because of the pressure on stocks and threats to other species in the food chain such as marine birds.

The Marine Conservation Society publishes seafood advice in a variety of different formats to help consumers, industry, chefs and retailers make the right decisions when buying fish and seafood. Its Pocket Good Fish Guide – a credit card-sized guide to purchasing fish – includes a traffic light-style green list of fish to eat, a red list of those to avoid and an amber list of fish to eat only occasionally.

Another new entrant to the fish to eat list is the anchovy, from the Bay of Biscay, which was previously rated as a fish to eat only occasionally. Tinned in oil or fresh, they are a staple of pizza toppings and caesar salad, and increasingly used in a wide variety of other recipes, from dips to sauces. Others now given the OK are net or otter-trawled Dover sole (also called common sole) from the North Sea; pole and line caught skipjack tuna from the Indian Ocean and Maldives; and bigeye tuna that has been troll-caught (a method using baited hooks or lures) from the Indian Ocean.

Whitebait, the culinary name for juvenile fish, are a new addition to the MCS's fish to avoid list. MCS fisheries officer, Bernadette Clarke, explained: "We are urging people not to choose whitebait because they are small, immature fish, usually sprat, herring and sand eel, which are harvested in large quantities, putting pressure on stocks and reducing food supplies for other species in the food chain such as marine birds."

Clarke said members of the public can keep up to date with changes in recommendations by referring to the Pocket Good Fish Guide, the guide on iPhone App, or the more detailed Good Fish Guide and Fishonline websites to ensure they have the most up-to-date advice.

She said: "The state of stocks in the north-east Atlantic, for example, is in a constant state of change. The latest data has shown quite a change in certain cod fisheries. We are now rating cod from the Celtic Sea as a 3, a fantastic increase from last year's rating of 5 which meant it was one to avoid. It's rating has improved because its Ices [International Council for the Exploration of the Sea] stock analysis shows biomass is now above sustainable levels, and it is classified as having full reproductive capacity and harvested sustainably. Cod, however, is generally listed by the Oslo and Paris Conventions (Ospar) as a threatened and declining species in the Greater North Sea and the Celtic Sea, so continued care in sourcing only from sustainable stocks is advised."

Wednesday 17:49

As Sky News clamps down on staff Twitter updates, corporation tells reporters to file copy before tweeting it

BBC journalists have been told not to break news stories on Twitter before they tell their newsroom colleagues.

The new rules, which apply to all of the corporation's correspondents, reporters and producers, were announced on Wednesday a day after it was revealed Sky News had told its journalists not to repost information from any Twitter users who are not an employee of the broadcaster.

The new BBC guidelines are intended to ensure that stories are fed into the BBC's newsgathering machine as quickly as possible and without the delay of a 140-character update on Twitter.

Chris Hamilton, the BBC's social media editor, said: "We prize the increasing value of Twitter, and other social networks, to us (and our audiences) as a platform for our content, a newsgathering tool and a new way of engaging with people.

"Being quick off the mark with breaking news is essential to that mission. But we've been clear that our first priority remains ensuring that important information reaches BBC colleagues, and thus all our audiences, as quickly as possible – and certainly not after it reaches Twitter."

Hamilton, writing on the BBC's editors website, said the corporation was "constantly reviewing" its guidance for journalists.

"As part of that, we have just distributed some refreshed breaking news guidance to our correspondents, reporters and producers," said Hamilton.

"It says that, when they have some breaking news, an exclusive or any kind of urgent update on a story, they must get written copy into our newsroom system as quickly as possible, so that it can be seen and shared by everyone – both the news desks which deploy our staff and resources (like TV trucks) as well as television, radio and online production teams."

He added: "We're fortunate to have a technology that allows our journalists to transmit text simultaneously to our newsroom systems and to their own Twitter accounts."

The BBC's technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones said the BBC had been "very nervous" about Twitter at first but had come to the conclusion that social networks can be "brilliant tools for broadcasters as long as they remember that the same rules apply as in any other form of broadcasting".

"But, like Sky News, we are still pondering a couple of key questions," said Cellan-Jones on his blog.

"Is it right, for instance, to break news on Twitter before it reaches any broadcast outlets? In a long-running court case, a series of tweets from the reporter who is following proceedings can be an invaluable way of keeping both the newsdesk and the world informed.

"But when it comes to the verdict, surely the reporter should rush to the live microphone or camera first - even if that means being beaten by a rival tweeter? (Breaking news – I've just had guidance from my bosses that yes, breaking news should be passed to the BBC first rather than Twitter.)

"We are all feeling our way forward through the fog of this new media landscape. The social media revolution is changing power structures in newsrooms, allowing young journalists who understand this new world - and a few older ones - to build reputations independent of their own organisations.

"Some would like to turn the clock back to a simpler time, when all power resided in the newsdesk, only star reporters got a byline, and sharing information with outsiders before the presses rolled or the bulletin began was a sacking offence.

"But it is almost certainly too late for that."

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Wednesday 17:24

Banker admits he cannot win 'societal argument' on bonuses – 'none of us are starving' – but insists he is a 'commercial animal' and wants to be paid as such

Stephen Hester, chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, has revealed that he had considered resigning during the furore over his near-£1m bonus, but decided it would be too "indulgent" to do so.

Speaking in the cavernous white office once occupied by his predecessor Fred Goodwin, who was stripped of his knighthood last week, Hester admitted that he could not win what he described as "the societal argument" about the size of his pay. His salary is £1.2m a year but annual bonuses and longer-term plans can push it up to more than five times that amount.

He made it clear that while he did not set his own pay, he was a "commercial animal" and wanted to be paid as such. Asked why he needed a bonus at all, he said: "One doesn't need it. No one in this room, none of you – even if you're not on the same salary as me – no one is starving and by those standards one can't win this discussion."

Fresh from an interview on Radio 4's Today programme in which he described his job as defusing "the biggest time bomb in history", Hester admitted being concerned about the long-term impact of the political furore surrounding his bonus, but refused to respond to any of the politicians who have singled out the RBS boss and his pay packet for criticism.

He did, however, concede that the bank and the government needed to "regroup" and reconsider the fact that RBS was run as a commercial enterprise, despite being 83% owned by the taxpayer after its £45bn bailout.

The political row over his bonus, he said, posed a question about whether RBS's recovery and the aim of getting back the taxpayer's £45bn would be "impeded by us having some uncomfortable halfway house … expecting us to pay differently to everyone else and achieve differently than everyone else."

In stark contrast to the immaculately tidy desk of his predecessor, Hester's workstation was strewn with papers. The office walls were adorned with pictures of his 350-acre estate in Oxfordshire, which is tended by eight gardeners.

The bank's financial results for 2011 will be published in a fortnight and will set out the size of the bonus pool for its investment bankers – who are dwindling in number owing to a restructuring announced last month. Hester refused to be drawn on the scale of the payout likely to go to the head of the investment bank, John Hourican, saying it would be "invidious" to discuss the matter. But he seemed to indicate that bonuses must be paid. "We should be at the restrained end of the market in which we compete, but we should recognise that our people are doing a damned good job," he said.

The 51-year-old was skiing in Switzerland on the Sunday night when he decided to waive his bonus. He made his decision hours after Labour had called a debate on the award to Hester of 3.6m shares – and on Wednesday he told the Today programme that he had considered resigning: "I'm certainly not a robot and there have been some deeply depressing moments. In the end I came to the conclusion it would be indulgent for me to resign, and what I ought to do was draw on the reserves of strength I have."

The divorced father of two teenagers admitted to having had "everything … emotionally, physically, intellectually" tied up in RBS for the last three years and he did not want to "toss it away" in a moment of pressure. "If there's a quality that got me to where I am in business, it's wanting to win for my company. The moments when I have hesitations are when there are obstacles that are going to be difficult to get over," he said.

Usually a man who shuns interviews, Hester stressed that he did not want to be a politician or be "in the papers all the time". Shortly after he was appointed in October 2008, the bank reported the biggest loss in UK corporate history of £24bn and Hester admitted on Tuesday that the bank had incurred £38bn of costs trying to clean up the mess. However, it has also generated £33bn of profit before bad debt charges.

Hester said he had been lured to RBS from British Land – a role in which he had been "perfectly happy" and had deliberately taken on to prove he could be more than a banker after a career at Credit Suisse and Abbey National.

He took the RBS job on the basis it would be run in a commercial way – "some would say in a hard-nosed way". "I attempt to be commercial in the results I get, and I want to be commercial in the way I'm treated. I'm happy for that to be at the restrained end [of the pay scale], albeit in a societal debate I can't win," Hester said.

"If I only worked for money I wouldn't do this job – but that isn't to say I don't care about money," he added.

Hester appeared to admit that he has had approaches about other roles since the bonus row. "People have been very kind in all sorts of different ways, but my preference is to succeed at RBS."

Wednesday 16:43

• Steve Coogan among 15 people settling phone-hacking claims
• Heather Mills to give evidence to Leveson on Thursday
• Paul Staines to expose privacy junctions in public interest
• Sunday Mirror editor Tina Weaver 'backed phone hacking'
• DPP 'drafting' interim policy on prosecution of journalists

4.43pm: Surphlis has now finished giving evidence.

4.41pm: Surphlis says her experience in Northern Ireland has been echoed by other groups throughout the UK.

4.38pm: Paul Dacre's second witness statement and Hugh Grant's third witness statement have now been published on the Leveson inquiry website.

4.26pm: Alastair Brett, the Times legal manager who was placed in the centre of the Times email hacking row yesterday by editor James Harding, wants to give evidence to the Leveson inquiry, the Evening Standard reports:

… today a friend of Mr Brett said he was not acting without authorisation, saying: "Alistair has a completely clean conscience.

"When Patrick told Alastair he had hacked into Horton's email account he was furious. The language was blue - he had never been so cross with a journalist. But he still does not believe he should have dropped Patrick in it."

Mr Brett is also understood to be frustrated at the impression he was acting without authorisation, insisting the newspaper was "dragged to court" by Mr Horton to defend itself because he was applying for an injunction.

The source said: "Alastair hopes Leveson will call him to explain." Mr Harding has admitted that the paper's failure to disclose the email hacking to Mr Justice Eady in 2009 was "terrible".

A News International source said: "The first time that anyone in the senior management of the paper became aware of the contents of this litigation or of the concern about the accessing of the email account is after Mr Justice Eady had heard this case.

4.22pm: Surphlis says the PCC's code relating to dealing with deaths is not "user-friendly". She makes several recommendations for a new code relating to how the press deals with bereavement.

4.20pm: Surphlis says families also faced harassment from photographers.

4.14pm: The participants in the study found the media were "intrusive and insensitive in their approach", Jay says.

Surphlis says journalists pretended to be family members to get interviews and went to family members' places of work to try to get detail for stories.

4.10pm: Surphlis says she set up SAMM NI primarily as a support group, but after she read "salacious gossip" about the death of her father and sister she contacted other families in the same situation.

This resulted in a report investigating two areas: the relationship between journalists and the victims' families; and the effects of the coverage on the victims' families.

4.08pm: Pam Surphlis of Support after Murder and Manslaughter in Northern Ireland (SAMM NI) is now giving evidence by video link.

3.51pm: Belcher has now completed her evidence. The inquiry is taking a short break.

3.48pm: Belcher says many Daily Mail stories are attributed to "a staff reporter" but they are sourced from a news agency. She says the paper says it is the fault of the agency if there is a complaint, and this causes "huge problems".

3.46pm: Belcher argues that there is no public interest defence for reporting that a transgender person is to undergo a medical operation.

3.40pm: Belcher suggests that the Sun has not improved its reporting of transgender issues, as claimed by Mohan at the inquiry yesterday.

She refers to a recent storyincluding a reference to "Trannosaurus" and another recent headline in the Scottish Sun, "Tranny granny raids three banks".

3.31pm: Belcher says the PCC wanted to deliver help, but did nothing. "It was almost like Pontius Pilate – they washed their hands," she says.

Transpeople often feel "extremely vulnerable" at the point of transitioning, Belcher says. The idea of complaining to the PCC or taking legal action against newspapers is "extremely off-putting".

"It's safer to let the hornets' nest lie left undisturbed," Belcher says, about a fear of retribution from newspapers if transgender people complain about the stories.

3.29pm: Belcher claims that the Mail publishes six times more transgender stories than any other newspaper in the country.

3.27pm: Jay brings up another Mail Online article titled "Sex change man named Delia becomes Britain's Olympic ambassador for transsexuals".

Belcher claims that the Daily Mail "ambushed" the subject and used a photograph without permission.

3.21pm: Belcher is asked about a Mail Online article published on 19 September 2011 titled "We don't need another identity crisis".

She says the headline indicates that the Daily Mail "does not believe that trans people should exist".

Belcher says the underlying message from the article is: "It's these pesky transpeople who are just causing problems and why don't they go away and leave us to live our lives in peace."

3.19pm: Jay raises articles that were put to Sun editor Dominic Mohan yesterday, including the headline "Tran or woman".

She says the Sun's use of the term "tran" objectifies transgender people.

According to Belcher, the Sun made a reference in the article to the TV programme There's Something About Miriam. But doing that "the Sun is basically saying, 'trans people illicit horror. Trans people are basically frauds'," she says.

3.14pm: Belcher is asked about a story in the Sun from 24 October 2009, headed "Dad-of-two driver changes gear in sex swap".

She claims that a former partner of the subject sold the story to a weekly magazine, including the photographs. "It appears that the Sun got it from there," she adds.

The subject of the story was not contacted before it was published by the Sun, Belcher claims. The story was written to appear as if the subject "colluded" with it.

Belcher says "it caused her immense distress. It also caused her children immense distress because they thought she had sold her story in some way and she had nothing to do with the story. It is pure expose. It has nothing to do with the public interest."

3.12pm: The press "routinely misgenders" people and uses intrusive "before and after" photographs that are "incredibly offensive", Belcher says.

"It's routine. It happens today in the press, despite the editors' protestations that everything is sorted out."

3.10pm: Belcher says in her witness statement that the tabloid press has sustained a "climate of prejudice" against transgender people.

Families have had to relocate or have received death threats after appearing as the subject of a transgender story in the press.

Most transgender people "don't bother" complaining to the PCC any more because of a string of instances where it has failed to adequately deal with their worries, Belcher says.

"It appears that nothing ever changes as a result of those complaints … The transgender community has walked away from the PCC."

3.04pm: The PCC editors' code of practice committee changed its guidance on reporting of gender issues in May 2005, Belcher says.

It read:

Press code change on gender discrimination

A change to the editors' code of practice to cover discriminatory press reporting of transgender people is announced today.

Individuals who are undergoing or have undergone treatment for gender reassignment will be included in the categories offered protection from prejudicial or pejorative references.

The Press Complaints Commission, which adjudicates on complaints under the code, has always regarded trans individuals as covered by the general provisions of the Discrimination clause. However, the editors' committee – which writes and revises the code - has accepted that following the introduction of the Gender Recognition Act last year, it was appropriate that more specific cover should be given.

It has decided that the word gender will replace sex in sub-clause 12i, thus widening its scope to include transgender individuals. It will now read:

12i) The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual's race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability.

The committee decided against a change to the accompanying sub-clause 12ii, which covers publication of discriminatory details that aren't relevant to a story, because trans individuals would be covered under the existing rules.

Code committee chairman Les Hinton, chairman of News International, said: "The committee felt it right, in the light of the recent legislative changes on transgender issues, to specifically mention avoiding prejudicial or pejorative references on the ground of a person's gender.

"However, publishing details of an individual's gender reassignment that were not genuinely relevant, would already be covered by the current sub-clause, since gender dysphoria is a recognised illness – and physical illness is already specifically mentioned."

This applies both to people in a state of gender transition and also to people who have successfully completed gender reassignment, since they would have previously suffered from gender dysphoria.

3.02pm: Belcher describes "trans" as a group of people who identify with the gender opposite to that recorded at their birth. It may not mean living full time "in role" or medical intervention, she says.

Intersex is where the physical biology of a person has aspects of both genders, Belcher says.

2.59pm: Trans Media Watch is a charity that is concerned with the representation of trans and intersex people in the press.

2.57pm: Helen Belcher from Trans Media Watch has taken the stand.

2.55pm: Starmer has now completed his evidence.

Lord Justice Leveson says he is likely to return.

2.54pm: Starmer says he is "pretty sure" he has jurisdiction over offences under section 55 of the Data Protection Act.

2.52pm: Starmer asks about the CPS's approach to the possible prosecution of journalists.

He says: "It seems to me it would be prudent to have a policy that sets out in one place the factors that prosecutors will take into account when considering whether to prosecute journalists acting in the course of their newsgathering."

He proposes an interim policy to reflect on the existing principles but put it in one place. Then the DPP will will consult for 12 weeks and adjust the policy if necessary. The interim policy will be ready within a matter of weeks.

2.48pm: Ben Fenton, the Financial Times media correspondent, pretty well sums up the ongoing exchange between Starmer, Robert Jay QC, and Lord Jusice Leveson:

[These are 3 very high-powered lawyers parsing complex law. If I get lost, I will tweet as follows: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!]

— Ben Fenton (@benfenton) February 8, 2012

2.45pm: Starmer says that if there is a statutory defence the CPS has to be sure it can defeat it. If it is not written down in law then it is more discretionary, he tells the inquiry.

2.43pm: Starmer says there are three types of statutory defences for journalists. The first is that there was an "express public interest" in the act; the second is statutes where there is an implied defence of public interest in terms of the right to free speech; the third concerns the Official Secrets Act.

Jay asks if section 55 of the Data Protection Act falls under the category one defence. Starmer confirms that it does.

The Computer Misuse Act and common law offences, such as misconduct in public office, fall under the second category.

2.39pm: Starmer says that there "only a handful of cases" where his office has considered bringing charges against journalists.

2.35pm: The director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, has taken the stand.

2.35pm: Staines has now completed his evidence.

2.34pm: Staines says there an understanding between him and newspaper diary columnists "not to do each other over".

2.34pm: Staines says he obtained Alastair Campbell's witness statement pre-publication from a journalist, who claimed to have obtained it from another journalist.

2.32pm: Staines is asked about phone hacking. Barr asks whether his evidence about the Sunday Mirror's Tina Weaver backing phone hacking goes further than what he has published on the Guido Fawkes blog.

"If on the blog I have said that journalists have told me that they were told by Miss Weaver to spin a phone then that's what it is," Staines says.

He says the only evidence he has about Piers Morgan and phone hacking is what the former Daily Mirror editor wrote in his book.

2.30pm: Staines says the Leveson inquiry will have failed if it does not act as a catalyst for the prosecution of journalists named in Operation Motorman.

Leveson says that is something that should have happened nine years ago.

Staines says: "We have manifest prima facie evidence of crimes. And that shouldn't be ignored."

2.24pm: Staines accuses the Daily Telegraph journalist Gordon Rayner of using Steve Whittamore to uncover private details of potential targets. He says Rayner appears in the Operation Motorman files on 335 occasions.

Staines claims Rayner told him that he had tracked down Staines's home address by conducting a name search on the land registry. You cannot do this – you can only search by address, unless you know someone in the land registry office, Staines says.

2.22pm: Guido Fawkes broke a story about William Hague sharing a room on a trip with his political adviser. Staines says he had pictures of the adviser in a gay bar that he sold to the News of the World for £20,000 but the paper never published them.

"They chose to buy up those photos and take them off the market," he says.

"It's clear to me the News of the World was in regular contact with Downing Street and perhaps to curry favour they chose to buy up those pictures and took them off the market." Staines links this to former NoW editor Andy Coulson, who left to work for No 10.

Barr suggests the paper did not run the story because Hague issued a statement denying the "malicious allegations".

Staines replies: "They bought them after the public statement."

2.14pm: Staines says that under the Westminster "lobby terms", journalists are discouraged from "rocking the boat" and become "complicit" in politicians' lies.

Parliament will not give journalists access to the main players unless they are part of the lobby system, he adds.

Staines refuses to be part of the lobby system. He says lobby briefings should be televised and journalists should not accept anonymous briefings. "They are often used to besmirch others," he adds.

He talks about the "trade in favours" whereby journalists are "fed titbits" by politicians and their aides in return for favourable coverage.

The lobby system functions "like an obedience school for journalists", he says. He claims it is particularly bad for TV journalists.

2.13pm: Staines says there should not be extra regulation for the press, and suggests that the existing laws on the interception of communication are sufficient.

2.11pm: Staines claims that if comments on blogs were pre-moderated, that might make the publisher legally liable for their content.

He adds that the liability of social networks should be "very very limited" and they should have an overwhelming defence in removing content once it has been brought to their attention.

2.09pm: Staines tells the inquiry that two journalists have told him that Tina Weaver, editor of the Sunday Mirror, has ordered journalists "to hack, blag, all those things".

"And she sits on the editors' code committee … she knows what's been going on," he adds.

2.08pm: Staines says he does not want to be part of the new system of self-regulation.

"Lord Hunt was very silky in his wooing of me to join some kind of kitemark system and I don't think that's a road I want to go down," he adds.

"I would end up in a system where I would have to self censor. I don't want to have a product that is politically correct. I don't think there are many publishers around now – not even Private Eye – that are politically incorrect in the way that we are."

2.04pm: Staines says the Guido Fawkes blog ignores most complaints, but will consider those of substance, particularly if it relates to a "possibly incorrect or defamatory" story.

"If people make a big fuss about something trivial, we probably take it down to make them go away," he adds.

2.03pm: The inquiry has resumed and Paul Staines, AKA blogger Guido Fawkes, is continuing with his evidence.

1.47pm: Here is an Audioboo of Steve Coogan discussing his phone-hacking settlement on Radio 4's World at One:

1.12pm: Here is a lunctime summary of today's developments so far:

• Steve Coogan and Simon Hughes MP were among 15 people to settle phone-hacking claims against News International.

• Heather Mills will give evidence to the Leveson inquiry on Thursday.

• Paul Staines, author of the Guido Fawkes blog, said he will expose privacy injunctions if he deems them in the public interest.

1.04pm: The inquiry has now broken for lunch. Staines will return at 2pm.

1.02pm: Staines says the Daily Telegraph was right to use subterfuge on its Vince Cable "sting", and the PCC was wrong to rule against it.

He claims that the story exposed Cable as saying something different in private than in public, adding that it is important to expose hypocrisy in public officials.

Asked about phone and email hacking, he says both those are against the law and "we don't need to reform the regulation system" to deal with them.

12.59pm: Staines is asked about privacy.

"I don't think people in public life, people paid for by the taxpayer, should expect the same degree of privacy as a private citizen can expect," he says.

People in public life will lie to those around them because they have more to lose, he suggests.

He says there is almost always a public interest angle when it comes to politicians, and criticises celebrities such as Hugh Grant who he says claim they are not public figures.

12.55pm: Staines says that his aim is to "report the truth as you see it" and that other journalists should do this too.

He says that the Guido Fawkes blog strives for accuracy, but works at great speed. "Due to the nature of how fast we move, so what we print isn't always spot on," he says.

He adds that the blog can, however, make changes immediately.

12.54pm: Staines says that "almost always" his sources have an agenda, including from politicians about members of their own party.

He says that "quite a lot" of what politicians tell him is untrue, but he has learnt to counter that. "Quite often it's misdirection rather than outright lying," he adds.

He adds that he always attempts to verify anonymous tips if he can.

12.52pm: Barr raises an injunction brought by the former RBS chief executive Fred Goodwin.

The Guido Fawkes blog "set out a riddle" to identify Goodwin after the banker obtained an injunction that banned his name being linked to allegations of an extra-marital affair, Barr says.

12.49pm: Barr asks about WikiLeaks and a Guido Fawkes post in 2008.

The post was a show of support to WikiLeaks in relation to a leaked memo about the bank Northern Rock.

The Financial Times also received the memo but was "hit with injunctions," says Staines. The blogger then uploaded the memo to WikiLeaks and other websites in different jurisdictions around the world.

Staines says he was attempting to thwart the court order because it involved £50m of public money.

"What I think you're missing is that I'm a citizen of a free republic [Ireland] and, since 1922, I don't have to pay attention to what a British judge orders me to do."

12.45pm: Staines is asked about the Ryan Giggs privacy injunction.

He says that he suggested on Twitter a five-a-side, including Ryan Giggs, and two managers to oversee the team "but nothing came of it".

12.45pm: Staines has been the subject of "many threatened" legal actions, Barr says, although none have gone to court.

He says that "as of about the Ryan Giggs time" he has not received a single injunction.

Staines says he was injuncted in three different jurisdictions by Zac Goldsmith and Jemima Khan at a court in Dublin. He claims the pair got a "judicial bollocking" from the judge after they were unable to produce evidence to keep the injunction in place.

12.44pm: Staines says that he switched from Google's servers after the internet giant "became more willing to give in to legal threats".

Now the Guido Fawkes website is hosted by a small independent firm in the US.

12.44pm: Staines says he will publish single-source stories if they are of "no consequence", but would be reluctant if it was a "story of great import".

12.43pm: Staines says his inspirations are the website Popbitch and Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of the Sun. He describes MacKenzie has the website's "lodestar".

12.42pm: "We have great fun teasing some of our media rivals," says Staines of the blog's recent coverage of press stories.

He says there is a "reluctance to damage your career prospects" from journalists who do not want their names on a story that criticises their rivals. These journalists leak stories to Staines, he says.

12.39pm: Staines says that the amount of money from advertising and payments for stories is "roughly equal".

The Guido Fawkes website has 50,000-100,000 users a day, he adds. At its peak, it can attract 100,000 users an hour.

Staines says he has some 60,000 followers on Twitter.

12.37pm: David Barr, counsel to the inquiry, reads out Staines's "diverse career history," including a stint as a bond dealer, a professional gambler and an organiser of "mass attendance dance events, or raves".

12.32pm: Paul Staines, author of the Guido Fawkes political blog, has taken the stand.

12.29pm: Buzasi has now completed her evidence.

12.28pm: Buzasi says the Huffington Post UK does not pre-moderate its comments, in line with most of the UK press, while in the US it does so.

12.24pm: Buzasi says that mandatory membership of the new regulator "has its issues".

"The body that the press is answerable to … shouldn't be bound by that. It shouldn't be legally binding," she adds.

Buzasi says that mandatory membership of the new regulator "has its issues".

"The body that the press is answerable to … shouldn't be bound by that. It shouldn't be legally binding," she adds.

12.23pm: Buzasi says she would welcome the chance to meet the new PCC chairman, Lord Hunt. She says it is important that digital news operations are consulted about proposals for reforming media regulation.

"Digital websites are the future of the media industry in this country and I think it's important that we get consulted on that."

12.18pm: Lisa O'Carroll is still at the high court for the phone hacking settlement case, which is hearing from lawyers for the singer Charlotte Church.

O'Carroll has just tweeted:

#hacking charlotte church's father says he had to sell pub because of constant harassment by news group reporters. NGN arguing no proof

— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) February 8, 2012

and:

#hacking vos: Churches are not saying this caused me to go bust, what they are saying is it disrupted the busness and forces us sell the pub

— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) February 8, 2012

12.16pm: Buzasi says the site gets under 10 corrections a day, including typographical errors; she says the site has not had any significant complaints about its blogs.

Asked by Barr whether this is because the site doesn't do cutting-edge investigative journalism, Buzasi says the site's political team does do investigations, but not of a "controversial" nature.

12.15pm: Huffington Post UK has terms and conditions for its bloggers – but no editorial control, Buzasi says.

The website does permit anonymous blogposts, but will "strongly encourage" them to use real identities.

The majority of the website's user comments are not pre-moderated, she says, but a filter tool will flag up potentially offensive content.

12.12pm: The Huffington Post publishes curated content, says Buzasi – for example, when the phone-hacking scandal escalated last July, the site's front page splash linked directly to the Guardian, which broke the story.

12.11pm: Buzasi says she does not envisage that her 20 UK journalists will use subterfuge to obtain stories. They have also never engaged in phone hacking or blagging in the pursuit of news, she adds.

12.10pm: Buzasi says that Huffington Post UK would publish a one-source story but questions would be asked about its provenance.

She would expect to know the source if appropriate, she adds.

Huffington Post UK journalists are instructed to give the right to reply to the subject of stories.

12.06pm: Buzasi says that Huffington Post UK is covered by the British jurisdiction and that it is a member of the PCC.

Huffington Post UK editorial guidelines are framed around the PCC code, Buzasi tells the inquiry.

12.03pm: Buzasi says that the Huffington Post UK website had 4 million unique users in December.

David Barr, counsel to the inquiry, describes the website as a "Sunday newspaper every day" in that it has many sections.

12.00pm: Carla Buzasi, the editor-in-chief of Huffington Post UK, has taken the stand.

11.58am: The Leveson inquiry has now resumed. Jonathan Caplan, counsel for Associated Newspapers, asks for core participants to disclose any material that Paul Dacre should read before his return to the inquiry tomorrow. The supplementary witness statements of Hugh Grant and Paul Dacre can now be published.

11.58am: Heather Mills, the former wife of Sir Paul McCartney, is to make an unexpected appearance at the Leveson inquiry tomorrow, according to Evening Standard reporter Tom Harper.

Harper has just tweeted:

Heather Mills, ex-wife of Paul McCartney, to make unexpected appearance at #Leveson tomorrow. Expected to be questioned over Piers Morgan

— Tom Harper (@TomJHarper) February 8, 2012

and:

During his evidence last year,Morgan implied Mills was source of Mirror story re private voicemails. #Leveson warned Piers he could call her

— Tom Harper (@TomJHarper) February 8, 2012

11.53am: Moore and Moy have completed their evidence and the Leveson inquiry is taking a short break.

11.51am: Lisa O'Carroll and Dan Sabbagh's story on the phone-hacking settlements is now live:

Simon Hughes and Steve Coogan were among a group of 15 phone-hacking claims involving 19 people to be settled in the high court this morning, as the Murdoch-owned publisher of the News of the World paid out more money to resolve cases ahead of trials that in some cases had been due to begin next week.

News Group Newspapers reached agreement with the Liberal Democrat MP, the Alan Partridge star and others including singer Pete Doherty, jockey Kieran Fallon, and football agent Sky Andrew. Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's one time spin doctor, and former England footballer Paul Gascoigne also settled today – as did Sheila Henry, the mother of 7/7 victim Christian Small.

Both Hughes and Coogan were present in the high court, and Hugh Tomlinson QC, representing the phone-hacking victims, said a total of 10 statements of apology will be read out in open court this morning.

Coogan received £40,000 in his settlement, and Hughes £45,000.

Paul Gascoigne was awarded £60,000 plus special damages of £8,000. The court heard that hacking had a "serious detrimental effect on his wellbeing", and that he was told he was paranoid for thinking he had been targeted. His friend Jimmy "Five Bellies" Gardner also received undisclosed damages.

Sky Andrew, who acts as agent for players such as Sol Campbell, received £75,000. George Galloway, who settled today, received £25,000 and the court was told that he was targeted from the time of the second Gulf War.

You can read the full story here.

11.49am: The high court hears that the footballers Peter Crouch and Kieron Dyer, and the singer James Blunt, are among the new hacking cases launched against News International.

Keir Simmons, the ITV News correspondent, has just tweeted:

Breaking: court hears James Blunt, Keiran Dyer, Peter Crouch among those launching new civil cases against News International.

— Keir Simmons (@KeirSimmonsITV) February 8, 2012

11.46am: A joint statement on behalf of four claimants – including the mother of a 7/7 victim, a journalist and his family and a dancer – has been read before the high court.

Those claimants have all accepted "substantial" undisclosed damages from News International.

11.42am: Back at the Leveson inquiry, Willy Moy of Full Fact and Martin Moore of the Media Standards Trust are coming to the end of their evidence.

Moy says that points of general inaccuracy, as well as individual cases, can do damage to groups of people.

Moore says that he wants radical changes to emerge from the Leveson inquiry. He says he wants it to "better protect the public and journalism in the public interest". He urges Lord Justice Leveson not to go down the path of the Calcutt report and other royal commissions. Leveson replies that he is all too wary of this danger.

Moore says he and Media Standards Trust board member Roger Graef met PCC chairman Lord Hunt in November; Moy says he has met the PCC's Stephen Abell but not Hunt.

Leveson asks the pair to continue their dialogue with Hunt over reforms.

11.39am: At the Leveson inquiry, both Moore and Moy back stronger penalties for those guilty of wrongdoing.

11.38am: Former MP George Galloway has received £25,000 in damages from News International over phone hacking, the high court hears.

11.35am: Paul Gascoigne's friend Jimmy "Five Bellies" Gartner has settled his phone-hacking claim against News International for "substantial" damages, the high court hears.

The court is being read a statement by Phillip Hughes, the best friend and agent of George Best.

Hughes has received "substantial" damages from News International.

11.32am: Moy says it is "wrong" that the PCC code of practice is a strong document. From the point of view of the complainant it is "actually very tricky" and "obscure", he claims.

Journalists and editors have lined up at the inquiry to praise the basic tenets of the PCC's code of practice.

Moy complains that there is no standard of proof in the code, describing it as an "extraordinary lapse".

11.31am: The Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes, who has just settled his hacking claim against News International, has released the following statement:

I have today settled my claim against News International in relation to the hacking of my phone.

I have settled because I am completely satisfied that the evidence which currently exists in relation to my case has been disclosed to or is being made available to my lawyers.

I want to make clear that in my settlement there is no confidentiality clause.

News International will be obliged to continue to disclose any relevant documents to me, and will be open to further action if further information is uncovered.

The evidence in my case clearly demonstrates that the practice of hacking was widespread and went much further up the chain than Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire. It was criminal behaviour on an industrial scale.

Sadly, the deficiencies of the original police enquiries, which failed to investigate the clear evidence of much of the criminal behaviour at one of the most important businesses in our country, are also all too apparent.

We must now make sure that nothing like this can ever happen again.

Anyone involved in criminal activity at the News of the World must be brought to justice, and all those who allowed a large company to behave in this way must be held to account.

There must also be answers to the serious questions about how the police managed to fail so badly in their original investigation.

I will now pursue this matter through my participation in the Leveson Enquiry, an enquiry which I fully support.

11.30am: Paul Gascoigne has received £68,000 in damages from News International to settle his hacking claim.

11.28am: Moy says there is a tendency for the debate about regulation to descend into a "binary" battle between supporters of statutory and non-statutory approaches. He adds that it is simplistic to say anything involving statute is terrible. A more fulsome debate would be about how exactly to achieve the aims of the inquiry, he says.

11.20am: Moore says the Media Standards Trust has formed a review group on regulation, and plans to submit its report to Leveson in May.

However, its initial view is that it would prefer a voluntary system in the first instance, possibly with statutory or non-statutory incentives to comply. He adds that there are three "levers" that could get people to comply: legal, fiscal (foe example VAT incentives), and access to information (as suggested by Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre earlier this week).

11.17am: Paul Gascoigne has been awarded £68,000 in damages plus costs and the football agent Sky Andrew has accepted £75,000 plus costs from News International in phone-hacking settlements, the high court hears.

11.15am: Back at the Leveson inquiry, Moore says the internet offers the opportunity for "enormously more transparency and accountability", but very few organisations have taken it up.

11.13am: Keir Simmons, the ITV News correspondent, has just tweeted:

Simon Hughes MP says 'highly sensitive' Liberal Democrat party information was accessed through his voicemails.

— Keir Simmons (@KeirSimmonsITV) February 8, 2012

11.13am: At the high court, Simon Hughes MP has settled his phone hacking case against News International for £45,000 plus costs.

11.12am: Lord Justice Leveson says it has been suggested that the pressure on journalists to deliver "more and more" can affect the "standard they would always wish to aspire to but sometimes can't attain".

Moy says it is a "matter of basic civic responsibility" to ensure that material being produced is accurate.

11.10am: Back at the high court phone-hacking hearing, Steve Coogan has received £40,000 in damages plus costs from News International.

The Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes is currently reading a statement.

11.06am: In one case, the Daily Mail was unilaterally planning to run a correction in its newspaper two days before the PCC was due to release a formal adjudication, Moy tells the inquiry.

He says he found this out from a member of the PCC complaints team. This was planned shortly after the Daily Mail introduced its new page 2 complaints and clarifications column.

"This absolutely sums up the weakness of the PCC in that sort of situation," he says. "There is a sense that newspapers can play games with the PCC and the PCC can't do much about it."

11.03am: Moore suggests that the PCC airbrushes the picture on complaints because the number of upheld adjudications is very low – but he claims the number of resolved breaches are very high.

10.56am: Back at the Leveson inquiry, Martin Moore from the Media Standards Trust says the PCC does not accept criticism and its funding is "too opaque". "In terms of following the money … we don't know where the power lies," he says.

Newspaper editors have told the inquiry that they are proud not to have had many adjudications upheld against them, Moore says. However, he says that many of the resolved disputes involve an apparent breach of the code but no record is made of them.

For example, he says the PCC said it resolved 63 cases concerning the Daily Mail last year, of which 47 resulted in clarifications, corrections or apologies. However, there were no adjudications shown as being upheld against the paper.

10.51am: Alastair Campbell, the former No 10 communications director, has just released this statement on his phone-hacking settlement at the high court this morning:

This is a satisfactory outcome, for which I thank solicitor Gerald Shamash and QC Jeremy Reed, and I am particularly pleased that News Group have also undertaken to continue searches of other "documents in its possession", so that I can ascertain the extent of any further wrongdoing, both for the time I worked in Downing Street and since, and they have agreed I "may be entitled to further damages in certain circumstances".

This is not, and never has been, about the money, with which I shall be making donations to various organisations including the Labour party, Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, Mind, Rethink Mental Illness, Comprehensive Future, Local Schools Network and Clarets Trust, so that at least some small good for the causes I believe in can come out of the criminality and cultural depravity of others.

For me, this has been about people with a voice and a platform using them to change the media culture which, as I argued at the Leveson inquiry, has become putrid in parts. We have seen plenty of that exposed at the inquiry. It took John Prescott and others to expose police wrongdoing in their handling of phone-hacking. It has taken lots of other public figures to expose the full extent – so far – of wrongdoing by the News of the World. And it took the revelations about Milly Dowler to create the tipping point that forced the government finally to set up an inquiry into press standards, something which, as I have said before, Labour should have done.

Where this all leads is anyone's guess. But the debate has to be kept alive and at the front of the public mind once Leveson concludes. There are already signs that the Tory ministers in particular are not keen on going along with major reform of the regulatory system if that is what the Inquiry recommends. They prefer the remarkable level of media support they currently enjoy to acting in the national interst to improve the level of debate, and the standards of the media.

It is incumbent upon all who for whatever reason are in this debate about press standards, and the relationship between press, politics and public, to keep fighting for the full truth about the nature of the modern media to be exposed, and for something better to be put in its place in terms of ownership, standards and regulation.

10.44am: Simmons has tweeted that five new cases against the publisher have been filed:

Court hears 5 new cases of civil action against News International for #hacking have been filed.

— Keir Simmons (@KeirSimmonsITV) February 8, 2012

10.42am: All phone hacking civil cases against News International – except the singer Charlotte Church – have now been settled, according to the ITV News correspondent Keir Simmons.

All current cases of civil action against News International for #hacking settled except one - Charlotte Church - court hears.

— Keir Simmons (@KeirSimmonsITV) February 8, 2012

Lisa O'Carroll tweets:

#hacking 9 of 10 cases court hears. Charlotte church wants to go ahead. She has asked for adjournment

— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) February 8, 2012

10.39am: Moy says the Financial Times is an exception among newspapers on responding over corrections, and is "pretty constructive".

He adds that the Guardian appears to have a strong set of principles in the area of complaints, says that the newspaper's readers' editor is "not a panacea" – there can be long delays or complaints can "drop off the radar".

10.39am: Lisa O'Carroll has just tweeted from the high court:

#hacking MP simon Hughes also in court. We are expecting Coogan to read out his own statement. Standing room only again in court

— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) February 8, 2012

Natalie Peck, the Hacked Off campaigner, adds:

The hearing has begun. #hacking

— Natalie Peck (@nataliepeck) February 8, 2012

10.36am: Follow @lisaocarroll and @dansabbagh for breaking news on the phone-hacking settlements at the the high court.

10.30am: Lisa O'Carroll has another update from the high court hearing on phone-hacking settlements with News International:

#leveson believe at least eight have settled

— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) February 8, 2012

10.29am: Moore says it is important to talk about the "enormous" amount of "excellent" journalism in the UK, particularly in the local media.

The Media Standards Trust runs the Orwell prize to highlight excellent journalism at a time when the media at large is under fire.

Moy says the "majority" of journalism is good and worthwhile. "But we haven't talked enough about the problems," he says, referring to accuracy. "It's a huge problem that the public has recognised."

He says the issue of accuracy has been largely ignored by the press. "The good journalism is devalued by journalism that is woefully inaccurate," he says.

10.21am: Moore says that the inquiry has heard clear examples of "gross intrusion across many aspects of different people's lives".

There has been a decline in trust in newspapers across the board in the past decade, Moore claims.

10.19am: Moy has provided examples of what he describes as "wilful inaccuracy" in stories by newspapers.

Jay puts forward one front-page story from the Daily Express claiming that house prices were "set to surge". However, the experts whose figures were used actually said they were to drop.

Moy says Full Fact's job is "to play the ball not the man" and raise awareness of the issues, not make judgments about journalists.

10.13am: Lisa O'Carroll, our correspondent at the high court, has just tweeted:

#hacking. Am hearing that all but two or three of 10 lead cases have settled. Sky Andrew and Sally king plus steve Coogan among them

— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) February 8, 2012

10.08am: The hearing has begun and Martin Moore of the Media Standards Trust and Will Moy from Full Fact are the first witnesses of the day.

9.52am: Good morning and welcome the Leveson inquiry live blog.

The inquiry will today hear from the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, and Paul Staines, whose blogs about politics under the guise of Guido Fawkes.

Carla Buzasi, editor-in-chief of Huffington Post UK, will give evidence, as will Helen Belcher from the pressure group Transmedia Watch; Martin Moore from the Media Standards Trust; and Will Moy from Full Fact. Pam Surphlis, from the Support after Murder and Manslaughter in Northern Ireland (SAMM NI) group, will also appear.

Follow the inquiry live from 10am.

The blog will also include updates from our media correspondent, Lisa O'Carroll, who is at the high court where the actor Steve Coogan is poised to settle his long-running hacking claim against the publisher of the News of the World.

Please note that comments have been switched off for legal reasons.

Wednesday 16:34

The mayor's press release hails "a step change" in the way the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) tackles gang crime in London and a "new crack down" on the problem. Dozens of suspected gang members have been arrested in raids across the capital and a small heap of statistics has been supplied, including an estimate that 250 gangs are "criminally active" of which 62 are considered "responsible for two thirds of gang-related offences."

Let's pause here for breath. It's good that the Met is renewing its efforts to deal with this issue, which is spreading, intensifying and becoming ever more ingrained in London life. The situation is intolerable. It's also good that new-ish commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe has stressed that solving the problem requires more than throwing uniforms at it. "It is vital we work with the public, local authorities, charities and other agencies to prevent young people from joining gangs in the first place," he says. Every youth worker, mentor and gang mediator I've spoken to lately would strongly agree with that.

Yet we will have to wait and see how well the Met's new approach works in the longer term. Misdirected or mishandled police action can make matters worse by generating hostility towards officers in the very people whose trust and co-operation they most need, notably law-abiding young people who live in areas where gangs intimidate individuals and communities into silence or compliance.

Extending the widely-praised work of the anti-gun crime unit Trident, the commissioner has set up a "central Trident gang command." But some fear that counter-productive police action is more likely to come from specialised units without good local links. The commissioner says there will also be "local task forces across London," and that the new command will "work more closely with boroughs."

But how in practice will the new command work with such as plumbed-in neighbourhood police officers, local youth workers and so on to help ensure that its operations are as effective as possible? It isn't clear how the new initiative relates to the Met's Operation Connect, which embarked on a carrot-and-stick approach to gangs last year.

Will stick and carrot work in harmony or at cross-purposes? Green Party mayoral candidate Jenny Jones, concerned that stick will prevail at carrot's expense, is seeking more details, including about how partnership work will be funded in the 19 boroughs the new initiative is aimed at.

There's also the very stress on gangs and so-called gang culture to reflect on. While highly territorial and often violent rivalries between groups of youths in London are certainly becoming more widespread and worse, are those groups really as organised, fixed and sophisticated in their criminality as the term "gang" tends to suggest? It's not hard to find people working in this field who have misgivings about the deployment of the term "gang crime" to describe incidents that I'm told often arise from ongoing neighbourhood feuds whose origins even those feuding sometimes struggle to identify.

Claudia Webbe, joint chair of the independent Trident Advisory Group, says she is "reassured that the MPS will avoid the oversimplification of the term 'gang', and will work with partners to protect some of the most vulnerable sections of London's communities," but the fact that she raises the issue betrays concern. Lib Dem mayoral candidate Brian Paddick says there's a danger that the new Trident unit could give gangs "a status they don't deserve," adding that "the growing problem of violent crime in London is much bigger than just gangs."

There remains a nagging sense that all concerned are still venturing into the unknown. As a 2009 report from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies put it, "Remarkably few interventions on youth knife and gun crime, nationally and internationally, have been subjected to rigorous research and/or independent assessment." Fingers crossed that the Met's "step change" is for the better.

Wednesday 16:23

The European Southern Observatory has released the most detailed infrared image of the Carina Nebula ever created

Lying 7,500 light years from Earth, the Carina Nebula buzzes with activity. Countless stars are being born among the glowing clouds of dust and gas and, over several million years, this nebula – which was named after the keel of the mythical ship Argo – has created some of the most massive stars known to astronomers.

Click on the image to enlarge it.

At the lower left of the image is the highly unstable star Eta Carinae, which astronomers believe will one day explode into a supernova, at which point it will briefly shine more brightly than the rest of our galaxy. The brighter star near the centre of the image is Trumpler 14. Dotted across the picture are many small dark patches: these are huge clouds of dust that shroud new stars that are only just beginning to shine.

The newly released image was constructed from a mosaic of hundreds of individual pictures from the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT). It is the most comprehensive image of the Carina Nebula ever produced using infrared wavelengths of light.

The VLT sits at an altitude of 2,500m, on top of Mount Paranal in the northern Atacama desert in Chile. The dry, dusty desert is almost devoid of life and a perfect place to watch the skies: at night, the bone dry air means the VLT can track and measure stars, black holes and planets with exquisite precision using its four individual observatories. At the heart of each observatory is an 8m-wide mirror made from a single piece of polished glass, the exact shape of which changes 100 times per second to counteract, in real time, the distorting effects of the Earth's atmosphere on the starlight it is trying to detect.

The VLT infrared survey of the Carina Nebula, led by Thomas Preibisch of University Observatory Munich, has revealed many previously unseen features that will occupy scientists for years to come. The yellow stars on the left of the image, for example, cannot be seen in visible light, as is the case with hundreds of thousands of fainter stars scattered across the nebula. The full results are described in a research paper published on Wednesday in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Wednesday 16:22

• My PMQs verdict
• Lunchtime summary

8.50am: Stephen Hester, the RBS chief executive, has given his first interview since the row about his £1m bonus erupted this morning. He told the Today programme that he deserved his bonus, but that he did not take it because of the public anger, which he had "underestimated". He understood the public's concern, he said, but that this was an issue that went well beyond RBS.

I have great sympathy and, I hope, understanding with people in focusing on income differentials and the issues of high earning, although that's far from restricted to me. But I think it is important to come back to and we've lost sight in this debate, of what we're trying to accomplish at RBS and why that's important and why that's valuable.

Hester also said that it would have been "indulgent" for him to resign and that he would be happy to pay more tax. "I believe in a progressive tax system, I have no problem paying more tax," he said.

Will any of this come up at PMQs? Maybe, although, with the health bill being debated again in the Lords, Ed Miliband may well go on that instead. Here's the agenda for the day.

10.30am: The Leveson inquiry resumes. Keir Starmer, the director of public prosections, and Paul Staines, who blogs as Guido Fawkes, are among the witnesses. Paul Dacre, the Daily Mail editor, may also appear.

12pm: David Cameron and Ed Milband clash at PMQs.

2.30pm: Tony Blair takes part in a Twitter Q&A on faith issues.

3pm: William Hague, the foreign secretary, gives a speech at Chatham House about Somalia.

Around 3.30pm: Peers start debating the health bill. We'll be covering this separately on our NHS reforms live blog.

At some point today Ed Davey, the new energy secretary, will give his first speech since his appointment last Friday.

As usual, I'll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I'll post a lunchtime summary after PMQs and another at around 4pm.

If you want to follow me on Twitter, I'm on @AndrewSparrow.

And if you're a hardcore fan, you can follow @gdnpoliticslive. It's an automated feed that tweets the start of every new post that I put on the blog.

9.11am: Here's some more from the Stephen Hester (left) interview. There were comments that will particularly appeal to the Tories (on the importance of growth) and to Labour (on tax). I've taken the quotes from PoliticsHome.

• Hester said the banking industry was guilty of "hubris".

I think when any industry has such unbridled expansion as banking did over 20 years, yeah, hubris sets in. By the way I think hubris set in to a number of countries in terms of that period of unbridled expansion and it's rather painful when you have to correct it.

• He suggested that promoting growth should take precedence over promoting equality.

One of the central questions for society is not how do we divide the pie, but whether we have a pie at all, how do we get economic growth and how are we successful, and I think it's really vital that we not lose sight of that point.

• He said he would be willing to pay more tax.

My personal view is I believe strongly in issues to do with equality of opportunity. I believe in a progressive tax system. I have no problem paying more tax. But I don't think, if you like, cutting off success or cutting down success is the way to go about fairness in society.

9.48am: Someone at Number 10 seems to have been briefing against Andrew Lansley again. Yesterday Rachel Sylvester in the Times quoted an unnamed Downing Street source as saying that Lansley should be "taken out and shot" because he had made such a mess of the health bill.

Today the Times (paywall) has got another story that reflects badly on the health secretary. Sam Coates does not reveal his source, but the information seems to have come from Number 10.

Coates says that Julian Glover, the former Guardian writer (much loved, I know, by readers of this blog) who is now David Cameron's speechwriter, was asked to write a speech for Lansley expressing his commitment to the NHS.

There was an embarrassment of riches to work with. The text that came out of Downing Street delicately picked its way through 60 years of links between the Lansley family and the health service.

"[My father] was a professional, dedicated to serving the public in the best healthcare system in the world. And he passed that dedication on to me," it suggested.

"As I grew up, the NHS wasn't some remote organisation. It was what we knew, what we cared about and what we wanted to make work. And that is every bit as true today. As a son, as a father and as a patient, I know what it is to have the NHS at your side."

Unkind souls may suggest that its skilful lilt does not reflect Mr Lansley's more usual prose style. But the incongruity was the least of the problems.

But then the speech was sent to Lansley - and it all went wrong.

On receipt, Mr Lansley started personalising the speech further as only he knows how: he began inserting paragraphs about the new NHS "outcomes framework". Now the speech read: "Outcomes depend on integration across services. Opportunity of NHS/public health/and local authorities together. Like they do in Sheffield. This will be the first opportunity in new system to demonstrate how we can bring together services. GP/community/acute/LAs/safeguarding/children's trusts. Not structural integration but integration around families and children. Marmot (universal proportionalism) — early intervention."

The speech, delivered at Alder Hey Hospital last month, embodies both the Mr Lansley that No 10 wants to see and the Mr Lansley that more regularly turns up in public, to the dismay of almost all his colleagues.

With Lansley under pressure, Labour have been renewing their calls for the health bill to to dropped. According to PoliticsHome, this is what Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, told the Today programme this morning.

All around the consensus is building that it's better for the NHS to work back through the existing structures than to carry forward with this dangerous, wholesale reorganisation. The government has abjectly failed to build a political and professional consensus behind the bill. I will work with the government to introduce GP-led commissioning, I've no objection to that all, but as people from all quarters are now saying, this bill will damage the NHS at this particular time. It's the wrong thing for the NHS, the wrong reforms at the wrong time and they should drop the bill.

But, according to the BBC's Norman Smith, Burnham will be disappointed. This is what Smith posted on Twitter.

PM expected to express his support for Andrew Lansley and the NHS reforms at PMQs.

10.00am: For the record, here are the YouGov GB polling figures from last night.

Labour: 42% (up 2 points since Monday night)
Conservatives: 37% (down 4)
Lib Dems: 9% (up 1)

Labour lead: 5 points

Government approval: -23

10.09am: Ken Livingstone has released what his team described as a "hard-hitting" video on YouTube about crime. You can watch it here. It highlights his pledge to create a victims commissioner for London.

10.18am: More on the health bill debate. Sky's Sophy Ridge has also been talking to government insiders about Andrew Lansley. As she reports on her blog, they're not happy.

One member of the inner circle told me Mr Lansley's handling of the Health Bill has been a "car crash".

Another source close to David Cameron openly speculated about who would be a good replacement, adding: "If I were Labour, I would be going for us on the health reforms."

And in the Times (paywall) Alan Milburn, the former Labour health secretary, has been writing about the bill. In her column yesterday (paywall), Rachel Sylvester said that some in government were attracted by the idea of giving Milburn a seat in the Lords and making him health secretary. Miliburn does not address this idea in his piece, but he does say the NHS needs radical reform.

The NHS will try to make the best of a bad job. It will need to. Low economic growth and indebted government means finding new ways of getting more for our money. This is the new holy grail in health policy: better outcomes for lower costs ...

A radical reconfiguration is necessary. The NHS could save £700 million a year, for example, if those areas with the highest emergency hospital admission rates reduced them to average levels.

The highest readmission rates are associated with smoking and alcohol- related problems that require the development of community services. That will mean explicitly switching spending to give less to hospitals — indeed, we will need fewer hospitals — and more to new forms of care in communities. Future governments will need to think of themselves less as big spenders and more as switch spenders, who transfer money from less efficient services to ones that produce better outcomes for lower costs.

But he says the government's bill is not the answer.

The health and social care bill is a patchwork quilt of complexity, compromise and confusion. It is incapable of giving the NHS the clarity and direction it needs. It is a roadblock to meaningful reform.

10.27am: Our NHS reforms live blog is up and running. It will be covering the health debate in the Lords this afternoon.

10.42am: Ed Davey (left), the new energy secretary, has announced in his first speech in his new job that he's setting up a new energy efficiency unit. It's got the snappy title energy efficiency deployment office (EEDO). Here's an extract from the speech.

I'm hugely enthusiastic about energy efficiency. It's the cheapest way of cutting carbon – and cutting bills for consumers. It has to be right at the heart of what we do.

EEDO will be a centre of expertise, challenging our work and making energy efficiency real and relevant to people's everyday lives. Two out of three consumers think their home is wasting energy, but only one in three is going to do anything about it. That has to change. We need to get out there and show people what energy efficiency can really do for them.

There are more details in the Department for Energy news release.

11.02am: You can read all today's Guardian politics stories here. And all the politics stories filed yesterday, including some in today's paper, are here.

As for the rest of the papers, I've already mentioned a couple of Times articles about health. (See 9.48am and 10.18am.) Here are some other stories and articles that are particularly interesting.

• Benedict Brogan in the Daily Telegraph says Nick Clegg is hoping people won't notice how radical are his plans for Lords reform.

If Gordon Brown redistributed wealth by stealth, then the Deputy Prime Minister wants to do the same with power. It is his intention to divert it from the House of Commons to what we now call the House of Lords, but which may in future be called the Senate or the Assembly of the United Kingdom – or perhaps even still the House of Lords ...

The Prime Minister's role in this developing dispute is intriguing. I am told that initially he tried to persuade Mr Clegg that embarking on Lords reform would look odd when the Coalition is supposed to be working all hours on getting the economy out of the mire. Various senior figures, including the former Cabinet Secretary Lord O'Donnell, also tried to talk him round, to no avail. Mr Cameron has given up and now is doing his best to be helpful. "A deal is a deal," one of his aides sighs. "It's in the agreement." Those of a more suspicious bent see in the way he is holding the door open for his deputy a crafty move designed to ensure the Lib Dem leader steps through – and straight into the open manhole. "He's playing it brilliantly," one minister says. "He's encouraging Clegg now, but when it all goes wrong, he will offer him a ladder out."

• Christopher Hope and Tom Whitehead in the Daily Telegraph says Kenneth Clarke has said that the decision to release Abu Qatada has nothing to do with the European court of human rights.

The Justice Secretary told The Daily Telegraph it was a British judge who ordered his release, and that the decision did not have "anything to do with the European Court".

Mr Clarke's comments were apparently at odds with Theresa May, the Home Secretary, who later told MPs that "the Government disagrees vehemently with Strasbourg's ruling" ...

Speaking at the Oldie magazine awards in central London, he told The Daily Telegraph: "I don't think it has anything to do with the European Court, it is a question of how long you can detain someone who is not accused of committing a crime and no body intends to charge him with anything."

• Oliver Wright in the Independent says David Cameron's "Nudge" unit seems to be bearing fruit.

In the recent trials, letters were sent to 140,000 self-assessment taxpayers.

One letter was a standard HMRC letter urging people to put their tax returns in on time. The other contained the statement that "nine out of 10 people in Britain pay their tax on time", and mentioned the fact that most people in the recipient's local area, or postcode, had already paid their tax. They found there was a 15 per cent increase in people paying their tax on time with the new localised letters. HMRC estimates that this effect, if rolled out across the country, would increase tax take by £160m over the six-week period of the trial.

• James Chapman in the Daily Mail says some Tories are calling for Sarah Teather, the Lib Dem education minister, to be sacked after she missed a series of key votes on the welfare bill.

11.29am: Liz Kendall, the shadow care minister, is taking part in a live webchat with Gransnet at 2pm. You can find more details here.

11.36am: Theresa May, the home secretary, has announced a consultation on toughening the law on firearms. It will look at whether a new offence should be creating of possessing an illegal firearm with intent to supply and whether the sentence for illegally importing guns should be increased. May put out this statement.

We need to target not just those who use illegal firearms but those who import or supply them. These middle men are as responsible as those who pull the trigger for the terrible harm gun crime causes. We must ensure our laws properly punish and deter all criminals and protect our communities.

11.44am: Here's some reaction to the news that Argentina is making a complaint to the United Nations about British "militarisation" around the Falkland Islands.

From Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary

It is for the UK and UK only to decide which Forces to send overseas, when and where.

Routine deployments should not be misrepresented to serve diplomatic ends. It is wrong to distort Britain's actions or motives, just as it is wrong to stoke tension.

We will support the government as long as they support the Falkland people's right to self determination and the defence and security of the Islands.

From the Conservative MP Rory Stewart

We need to make sure that Britain is as relevant as possible to countries like Chile and Brazil. And we do that in different ways. We just announced we're going to have 10,000 Brazilian students in British universities. We have to make it clear to them that Britain is a major world power, who still have a seat on the United Nations security council. Their interests are in dealing with Britain as well as Argentina.

11.50am: Ten minutes until PMQs. Ed Miliband asked two questions about health last week. Today, with the Andrew Lansley "should be taken out and shot" quote in his notes, I expect Miliband will make the health bill his main focus.

12.00pm: Andrew Lansley is in the chamber for PMQs.

12.01pm: David Cameron starts with a tribute to the Queen, who celebrated her 60th anniversary on the throne this week. Her 60 years of public service are "an inspiration to us all". There will be a debate on 7 March when MPs will be able to pay their own tributes, he says.

12.02pm: Andy Slaughter, a Labour MP, asks Cameron to confirm that frontline police numbers have been cut in 40 out of 43 forces.

Cameron does not accept this. He says the proportion of officers on the frontline is up.

12.03pm: David Amess, a Conservative, asks about the overthrow of the president of the Maldives.

Cameron says President Mohamed Nasheed resigned. The new government should respect democratic rights, he says, and uphold the constitution.

12.04pm: Ed Miliband pays his own tribute to the Queen. She is "an inspiration to us all", he says.

Turning to the NHS, he quotes from what Cameron said at the end of the health bill pause. Cameron said he was "taking people with us". Why has he failed?

Cameron says 95% of the country is covered by GPs implementing the health reforms. Just today 50 foundation trusts have written to the papers supporting the reforms and objecting to Labour's plans. Anne Campbell, the former Labour MP for Cambridge, has signed the letter, he says, because she heads a trust.

Miliband says it is nice to see Lansley in the chamber. Lansley is "some distance away" from Cameron. Cameron wants the "voice of doctors to be heard" in the NHS. Why won't he listen to them?

Cameron says it is always good to get a lecture on "happy families" from Miliband. He cares passionately about the NHS, not least because of what it has done for his family. The NHS needs reform; he quotes from the Labour manifesto making this point. The government will put more money into the NHS. But Andy Burnham said spending more money on the NHS would be "irresponsible".

12.08pm: Milband says the Tory Reform Group have come out against the bill. It comes to something when even the Tories don't trust the Tories on the NHS. And he quotes from what Clare Gerada, chair of the Royal College of GPs, has said criticising the bill.

Cameron says that, without reform, waiting lists would go up. That is what has happened in Wales.

Miliband says Cameron thought the NHS was his way of modernising the Conservative party. But Cameron's promises are coming back to haunt him. Cameron thinks he knows better than doctors. Can Cameron say that he is keeping his promise of no top-down reorganisation in the NHS?

Cameron says he is cutting bureaucracy in the NHS. He won't listen to Labour because they wasted money in the NHS. Under the PFI, it costs £300 to change a lightbulb. The NHS is improving.

12.12pm: Miliband says waiting lists were the shortest ever under Labour. Cameron cannot defend the promise he made. The number of people waiting more than 18 weeks has gone up. Why won't Cameron give up?

Cameron asks, if the record was so good, why did Labour lose the election. Miliband set a test for reform: whether waiting lists would come down. But the number of inpatients and outpatients waiting have come down, and waiting times have come down for those waiting for six months and for a year.

Miliband says the number of people waiting more than 18 weeks has risen by 43%. Cameron knows in his heart that the bill is not a success. That is why people are saying Lansley should be taken out and shot.

Cameron says Lansley's career prospects are better than Miliband's. Miliband is making an issue of this to help his own leadership.

12.16pm: PMQs snap verdict: Cameron was on the backfoot throughout, with Miliband on impressive form, but Cameron came out with the best news line - a solid endorsement of Andrew Lansley which sounded like a guarantee that he would not be demoted this summer.

12.18pm: Labour's Geraint Davies says Abu Qatada will be able to roam the streets of London because Cameron abolished control orders at the behest of the Lib Dems.

Cameron says this situation is "completely unacceptable". The government will do everything it can to resolve the situation. Instead of "sniping", the whole House ought to unite to sort the matter out.

12.20pm: Julian Lewis, a Conservative, asks about plans to close beds in a local hospital.

Cameron says there needs to be a test before beds are closed.

12.21pm: Labour's Andrew Miller asks when the government will ensure public bodies buy British. Police forces are buying Hyundai cars, he says.

Cameron says the government wants to rationalise police procurement.

12.22pm: Cameron announces that the government will be buying a new C-17 transport plane for the military.

12.23pm: Cameron says there may be opportunities in the next session of parliament for new legislation on stalking.

12.24pm: David Rutley, a Conservative, asks about apprenticeships.

Cameron says apprenticeships are one of the best investments the government can make. (He wrote more about this for Huffington Post yesterday.)

12.25pm: Labour's Steve McCabe asks why the government has not appealed against the Abu Qatada ruling.

Cameron says the government is doing all it can to get Qatada out of the country.

12.26pm: Cameron says he raised the issue of the Typhoon bid with the Indian prime minister "repeatedly". When he took businessmen to India to pitch for business, Labour attacked him, he says.

12.27pm: Cameron says the NHS reforms will put power in the hands of local doctors.

12.28pm: Labour's Barbara Keeley asks Cameron to support women who have been given faulty PIP implants.

Cameron says every woman will get a free consultation. The private clinics should come under maximum pressure to undo the harm they've caused, he says.

12.29pm: Caroline Dinenage, a Conservative, asks Cameron to guaranteed that shipbuilding will continue at Portsmouth.

Cameron says that, as far as he is aware, BAE Systems have not taken any decisions about cutting shipbuilding in the city.

12.30pm: Peter Bone, a Conservative, asks why Sarah Teather did not support the government in the votes on the welfare bill in the Commons. (See 11.36am.) Why is she still a minister?

Cameron says that Teather supports government policy, as all government ministers do.

(At least we did not have to hear what Mrs Bone thinks about it. That joke has got a bit stale.)

12.33pm: Sir Menzies Campbell, the former Lib Dem leader, asks how confident we can be that Russian involvement in Syria will lead to an end to the violence.

Cameron says he has very little confidence that this will happen. The Russians will have to "look to their consciences", he says.

12.35pm: Labour's Alun Michael says he met an American health expert this week who said the NHS should be improved, not changed. Does Cameron agree?

Cameron says he agrees that Labour's approach to the NHS in Wales (where Michael is an MP) is wrong. Health spending in Wales has been cut by 6.5%, he says.

12.36pm: PMQs verdict: Andrew Lansley is not going to get sacked or demoted in the reshuffle expected later this year. That's the key thing we learnt from PMQs. It's hard to interprete Cameron's comment about Lansley having better career prospects than Ed Miliband in any other way.

As for the Cameron/Miliband battle, it was a win for Miliband. In the past he has sometimes run out of steam when he has tried to pursue a subject through six questions, but that did not happen today. Miliband used the Tory Reform Group announcement well (I can't find a press notice from the Tory Reform Group, but here's a post on their blog attacking the health bill), principally because the "even Tories don't trust the Tories on the NHS" line was particularly neat. It wasn't a knockout, because Cameron had plenty of ammunition of his own to use (Wales, waiting time figures, although these are contested, and Anne Campbell), but you could tell he was rattled because he finds it so hard to disguise his discomfort.

That said, it was not a great advert for the chamber as a cockpit of intelligent debate. Sometimes you can listen to Cameron and Miliband and identify the key strands of an argument about policy. But if you knew nothing about the health bill, and tried to work out on the basis of today's exchanges what it was all about, you would fail. Cameron and Miliband threw rival statistics and endorsements at each other, but they said very little that explains what it is all about.

1.15pm: Here's a lunchtime summary.

• David Cameron has signalled that he is not going to sack or demote Andrew Lansley because of his handling of the health bill. At PMQs Ed Miliband attacked Cameron for breaking his pre-election promise not to impose top-down re-organisation on the NHS.

This is a matter of trust in the prime minister. Can he honestly look people in the health service in the eye and say he's kept his promise of no more top-down reorganisation? He knows in his heart of hearts that this is a complete disaster. Why won't you just give up and stop wasting billions and drop your bill?

Cameron defended the bill, saying that 50 foundation trusts had recently written to the papers defending the reform plans in a letter signed by Anne Campbell, a former Labour MP who now heads a foundation trust. Cameron also strongly defended Lansley, telling Miliband:

The career prospects for my right honourable friend [Lansley] are a lot better than his.

PMQs coincided with the UK Faculty of Public Health announcing that it wanted the health bill to be dropped. "Based on our members' expert views, it has become increasingly clear that the bill will lead to a disorganised NHS with increased health inequalities, more bureaucracy and wasted public funds," Professor Lindsey Davies, President of FPH, said.

• Downing Street has announced that James Brokenshire, a Home Office minister, will fly to Jordan next week to try to obtain assurances that could lead to Abu Qatada being deported. At PMQs Cameron said the government was doing everything it could to get Qatada out of the country.

We are doing everything we can to get this man out of the country. The absolutely key thing to do is an agreement with Jordan about the way that he will be treated. This guy should have been deported years ago. Nevertheless, if we can get that agreement with Jordan, he can be on his way.

But the Labour MP Geraint Davies told Cameron that the governme