BBC News | UK | World Edition

Ben murder accused due in court
Fri, 04 Jul 2008 03:35:55 -0000
Three people are due in court charged with the murder of 16-year-old Ben Kinsella who was stabbed to death in north London.
Sharia law 'could have UK role'
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:55:42 -0000
The most senior judge in England and Wales has said sharia law could play a role in some parts of the legal system.
Fears over database on criminals
Fri, 04 Jul 2008 01:56:34 -0000
A probation chief says he doubts the effectiveness of a computer database holding details on high-risk criminals.
Top spy seriously ill in hospital
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:04:24 -0000
Britain's top spy, Alex Allan, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, is seriously ill in hospital.
'Deadliest' malaria rising in UK
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:09:21 -0000
More cases of the most dangerous type of malaria are being brought back to the UK from trips, official figures show.
Call for better 'global literacy'
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:09:29 -0000
Many children in England are being denied a schooling in global events, an educational charity says.

The Economist: Britain

Sharing the wealth
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:02:45 -0000
Artists do battle to enrich their heirsON THE very day that a study by Francis Bacon, who died in 1992, sold for GBP17.3m ($34.4m) in Christie's biggest contemporary-art sale, a group of British artists fired the opening salvo in what could prove a drawn-out battle. Should their heirs be entitled to royalties on such sales? Led by Damien Hirst, Britain's most commercially successful artist, more than 500 signed a letter to the Telegraph urging the government to give them that right. "Our loved ones often sacrifice a lot to support an artist in the family," the letter went, and it was only fair that they got a share of the profits.For the past two years 4% of the price of a work by a living artist sold through an auction house or by a dealer has been payable to the artist. Sales of less than EURO1,000 (GBP796) are exempt, and the tax is capped for anything worth EURO500,000 or more. Throughout the European Union the tax is payable on sales of works by living artists or those who have died within 70 years; in Britain it is only works by living artists that qualify. The EU allowed Britain this exemption until 2012. Mr Hirst and his colleagues would like to make sure it is not extended. ...
A hard pounding for Mr Brown?
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:02:45 -0000
After Wendy Alexander's ouster, Labour faces a by-election from hellWHEN the 1922 general election swept the Labour Party to dominance in west-central Scotland, a Conservative lamented that it was the worst national disaster since Flodden, a 16th-century battle in which the English crushed the Scots. So recorded the young Gordon Brown in his biography of James Maxton, one of the authors of that Labour victory. Now the prime minister may be facing his own Flodden at a parliamentary by-election in Glasgow East, hitherto one of the safest seats in Labour's Scottish heartlands.At first sight, it looks improbable. David Marshall, the MP whose resignation has precipitated the contest on July 24th, won 60.7% of the vote and a 13,507 majority at the 2005 parliamentary election, leaving the Scottish National Party (SNP) with just 17% of the vote. Yet these are fraught times for Mr Brown. Labour was beaten into fifth place in the Henley by-election on June 26th. And the Scottish Labour Party is in disarray: Wendy Alexander, its leader, resigned on June 28th, brought down by breaching the rules on political donations. ...
Old heads on young shoulders
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:02:45 -0000
What do we want? Fiscal prudence, property rights and lower taxesTHE oft-quoted maxim that a man who is not a socialist at 20 has no heart, whereas one who is still a socialist at 40 has no head, has been variously attributed to George Bernard Shaw, Winston Churchill, Woodrow Wilson and Otto von Bismarck, among others. Whatever its origins, the path that leads from the student view of property as theft to an appreciation of low taxes is well-trodden, often suspiciously soon after employment sets in.Now, it appears, many students are starting adulthood differently. A report published on June 26th by Opinionpanel, a research outfit that specialises in polling students, documents a big shift in political allegiances on campus since 2004 (see chart). In those days the Liberal Democrats were the students' favourite; support for the Tories hovered between a fifth and a quarter, and a third supported Labour. Now fewer than a quarter support Labour, and the Conservatives have soared to 45%. ...
Collateral damage
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:02:45 -0000
The latest blows to the property market will pound the economy tooAFTER the longest and biggest boom in post-war history, it is payback time for Britain's ever more troubled housing market. As shares in homebuilders wilt following the failure of Taylor Wimpey, the country's largest, to raise urgently needed capital (see article), there are wider worries that Britain may revisit the trauma of the early 1990s, when a housing bust led to a deep recession. With activity in the services sector at its lowest since October 2001, the economy looks perilously vulnerable to falling housing wealth and the collapse in mortgage finance, residential investment and property transactions. The mortgage market has already plumbed unprecedented depths. Figures released this week revealed that a mere 42,000 loans had been approved to buy homes in May, well under half the number a year earlier and below even the trough reached in the early 1990s. New approvals are closely watched because they point the way to house-price changes (see chart). The declines that started late last year are continuing apace, according to Nationwide Building Society. House prices fell by 0.9% in June, leaving them 6.3% lower than they were a year earlier. ...
Keyhole operation
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:02:45 -0000
Planned surgery for the NHS turns out to be less radical than billedNO LONG-MARRIED couple could have made more fuss about an approaching diamond anniversary than Britain's government has over the 60th anniversary of the National Health Service on July 5th. The build-up started more than a year ago, when the incoming prime minister, Gordon Brown, decided the electorate could do with a history lesson on this cherished institution (see article). He promised that his Labour Party, which had "created the NHS, that has always invested in the NHS, that has always believed in the NHS", would be the party that renewed it. He commissioned Lord Darzi, a surgeon and health minister, to come up with a new plan in time for the NHS's big day.What with the publication of an interim report last October and multiple leaks since then, Lord Darzi's final report on June 30th felt anticlimactic. A much-heralded new "constitution" turns out to be a flowery restatement of existing rights, such as the entitlement to choose a hospital or receive any treatment approved by the NHS's spending watchdog. Earlier hints that it might detail patients' responsibilities too--to lose weight or give up smoking before surgery, for example--have yielded nothing. And proposals in the interim report to carpet the land with polyclinics--halfway houses between GP surgeries and district hospitals--have, after some critical reviews, been toned down and relegated to a separate report on primary care. ...
Throwing in the keys
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:02:45 -0000
When companies need cash and shareholders say noAT THE back of every mortgage lender's mind is the fear that, in a downturn, those whose homes (and other assets) are worth less than their mortgages will simply drop their keys through the letterbox and walk away from their debts. Should banks now start to worry that the companies which built those homes will do likewise? Taylor Wimpey, Britain's biggest homebuilder, went to its shareholders for GBP500m ($1 billion) to shore up its balance-sheet. It returned on July 2nd without an extra penny to its name. A shudder ran round the stockmarket and Taylor Wimpey's share price, already weak at the knees, gave way.With house prices collapsing and sales of new homes grinding to a halt, the firm, with net debts of about GBP1.7 billion and a market value of some GBP370m, needs extra cash because it risks breaching the conditions on some of its bank loans. Yet in a business where timing is at least as important as location, Taylor Wimpey's capital-raising could hardly have come at a worse moment. For on July 1st, just as it tried to get investors to make final commitments, news emerged that in June house prices had fallen by 6.3% from a year earlier, their biggest drop since the previous housing bust in the early 1990s. ...

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