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| Lib Dems face humiliation in elections Posted: 05 May 2011 12:20 PM PDT  Rolling coverage as results come in from elections to the Scottish parliament, the Welsh and Northern Irish assemblies and 279 English councils Here's a 6am summary. • The Liberal Democrats have paid a heavy electoral price for their decision to form a coalition with the Conservatives last year. Party sources have described the results as "fairly disastrous" and "a bloodbath". The party has already lost almost 200 seats, and well over half the English council seats have still to be counted. The BBC is saying that, on the basis of its current estimated national share of the vote (see 4.40am), the Lib Dems would have just 21 seats in the Commons if there were a general election now and people voted as they did yesterday. The same figures suggest Labour would have 340 Commons seats - a narrow majority - and the Conservatives 264. • Labour has done well in Wales and reasonably well in England. But, on the figures that have come in so far, they haven't matched anything like the success that Tony Blair achieved in the mid 1990s. Arguably, the Tories have done even better. Their vote seems to be holding out and at the last count - on the Press Association wire five minutes ago - they were recording a net gain of 11 seats, rather than a loss. And today Cameron can look forward to a thumping win in the AV referendum. (The two events are probably connected, and Cameron going on the stump to defend first past the post has probably helped shore up the Tory vote.) That's it from me. My colleague Hélène Mulholland will be launching a fresh blog soon. And I'll be back after lunch to take over before the AV results start to come in. Thanks for the comments. Plaid Cymru's deputy leader Helen Mary Jones lost her seat in Llanelli. This is how she explained what happened.
John Curtice, the elections expert, tells the BBC that Labour "may just" win a majority in Wales. This has been a night that confirms that theory that the junior partner in a coaliton always takes the electoral hit. The Lib Dems are getting mangled in England, Scotland and Wales, while the Tory vote seems to be holding up surprisingly well. (See 4.40am and 5am.) And in Wales, where Labour have been in coalition with Plaid Cymru, Labour are gaining seats, while Plaid Cymru have lost seats. It's easy to see why the Lib Dems are suffering. Many of their supporters at the general election were inherently leftwing, and going into coalition with the Conservatives meant that the party inevitably alienated this group. But why are Plaid being penalised? Anyone know? BBC Scotland are predicting that the SNP will get 65 seats in the Scottish parliament. In a parliament with 129 seats, that's a majority. Alex Salmond is being interviewed by David Dimbleby now. He says he thinks his party could get the biggest mandate of any party that has stood for election to the Scottish parliament. But he plays down the prospect of getting an outright majority. The system was designed to make it extremely hard for any single party to get a majority, he says. He's having a go at the "two Eds" again. (See 4.48am.) He's particularly scathing about Ed Balls, "the director of disaster of the UK economy", he says. Miliband and Balls were so helpful to the SNP that he was tempted to send them their bus fare, he says. Dimbleby suggests that Salmond could do with some economic advice himself; he is promising all sorts of spending, without explaining how it will be funded. Salmond says that Scotland manages its finances more efficiently than the Westminster. And the UK is being kept afloat by £13bn from Scottish oil and gas. Asked about the timing of the referendum that he wants to hold on Scottish independence, Salmond says it will be in the second half of this five-year parliament. In the past the Scottish parliament had four-year terms, but this one will sit for five years so the next election does not clash with the Westminster election planned for 2015. The Green party have sent me an email saying they have held four seats and gained one on Norwich city council. Norwich Greens now have 15 city councillors and 7 Norfolk county councillors, making a total group of 22, the largest in the country, the party says. Here are the latest state of the party figures. English councils Conservatives Labour Lib Dems Ten councils have no overall control. Scotland These are the figures after 30 seats have declared. SNP: 17 seats (12 gains) Wales These are the results are 27 seats have declared. Labour: 19 seats (2 gains) Alex Salmond has just been speaking to Sky. Here are a couple of the points he made. • Salmond said he wanted to change the Scotland bill, which is currently going through parliament, to insert "economic teeth" into it. Salmond was in a remarkably jolly mood. After being told that the SNP had gained Linlithgow, Salmond told Sky's Adam Boulton that Linlithgow was his home town and that that made him a "black bitch". Boulton said that that is not the sort of language people use in London, but Salmond said it was a term for people born in the town within the sound of St Michael's Church bells. In the town "it's a term of great respect", he said. The BBC has now produced firmer figures for the projected national share of the vote. (See 9.40pm and 2.29am.) These are based on a study of representative wards and they show what would happen if Britain as a whole voted in line with the way people have voted in the local elections today. Labour: 37% John Curtice, the Strathclyde university psephologist, has just told the BBC that these are the worst results for the Lib Dems since the party was formed in the late 1980s. Labour was doing well, he said, but it was "hardly a performance that suggests a major breakthrough". This is from PolitcsHome's Political Pulse Twitter feed.
Here's a 4am summary. • Nick Clegg is already coming under pressure to adopt a more confrontational stance towards the Tories as results show that the Liberal Democrats have taken an electoral battering in all parts of Britain. In some councils in northern England their numbers are being slashed. In Scotland and Wales the Lib Dem vote has also collapsed. There does not seem to be any demand for a new leader, but Lib Dem backbenchers are calling for a change of approach. Mike Hancock said Lib Dem ministers needed to "stiffen up" and that Clegg should "twist [David Cameron's] arm a bit harder". Tim Farron said: "We are going to have to make sure we recognise that there are some lessons to be learnt." Evan Harris, the former Lib Dem MP, said: "We do not need to be so collegiate as we have been over the last year." • Alex Salmond his reaffirmed his determination to hold a referendum on Scottish independence. The SNP have had an astonishingly good night, winning seats in Glasgow that have been Labour for years. With 25 seats declared, their share of the vote is up almost 14 percentage points. They seem to have a good chance of achieving a clean sweep in Edinburgh. • Iain Gray, Labour's leader in Scotland, has held his seat by just 151 votes. He blamed Labour's poor performance on the fall in the Lib Dem vote. "What would seem to be the case is this election is becoming, I guess, what we always thought it was, a two-party election, perhaps to a degree even greater than we had expected, and that's largely been created by this astonishing and complete collapse of the Liberal Democrat vote," he said. • Labour is making substantial gains in England. They have already gained almost 200 extra council seats. According to calculations by Sky, if these results were replicated in a general election Ed Miliband would win a majority of 341. The Tories would have 256 seats and the Lib Dems just 18. • Labour is having a good result in Wales. Carwen Jones's party has won all nine seats that have declared, notching up two gains. But Labour has played down the prospects of winning an outright majority in the assembly. The Lib Dems have lost Montgomeryshire, which has been won by the Tories. (Chris Bryant's prediction was right - see 1.37am.) On the BBC David Dimbleby pointed out that Lembit Opik lost the Westminster seat for the Lib Dems last year. Opik was meant to be on the BBC's election programme, but he called in to say that his car had had a puncture. He said - rightly - that this was a symbol of what was happening to his party. Martin Wainwright has sent me the final results from Sheffield.
My colleague Severin Carrell has sent me this from Scotland.
The Lib Dems have reportedly held nine seats in Eastleigh (where Chris Huhne is MP) and won two more. Iain Gray, Labour's leader in Scotland, has held his East Lothian seat with a majority of just 151. Richard Kemp, the leader of the Lib Dem group on the Local Government Association, has just told the BBC that of the 12 Lib Dems defending seats on Liverpool council, he was one of only two who managed to avoid defeat. He insisted that people had mistakenly written off the Lib Dems before (as they did when the Greens beat the Lib Dems in European elections) and that it would be wrong to say that the party was finished on the basis of tonight. Lord Rennard, the former Lib Dem chief executive, has just told the BBC that the Lib Dems are doing reasonably well on the south coast of England. He said that they would hold Portsmouth and that this would be an "outstandingly good result" for the party. I'm not quite sure about that. I've got the Financial Times's guide to the English local elections on my desk. It says that losing Portsmouth, the safest Lib Dem unitary authority, would mark "a terrible night for Nick Clegg". Skimming through the comments, I see that letsskiptotheleft has been looking in detail at the results in Islwyn. Labour held the seat, but what was interesting was that the Lib Dems came fifth. Their candidate received just 653 votes (3% of the total). He was beaten by the BNP candidate, who had 1,115 votes. On Twitter #libdemmeltdown seems to be trending. No further explanation needed ... The Conservatives have taken control of Worcester and Stockport. Both councils were previously hung. Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP's deputy first minister, has won Glasgow Southside. Technically this counts as a win, because it had a notional Labour majority on the basis of the new boundaries. There was a 10% swing from Labour to the SNP. Here are the state of the party figures for English councils for 3am. The results are in from 25 councils. Conservatives Labour Lib Dems Four councils have no overall control There may be a recount at Iain Gray's seat in Scotland, the BBC reports. Tim Farron, the Lib Dem president, has told the BBC that this is these are the first Liberal mid-term defeats for 80 years. "This will be a very unpleasant night for many Liberal Democrats up and down the country," he said. The Lib Dems have lost control of Stockport. And Labour have taken control of Sheffield. The Lib Dems have admitted that they are going to lose all their seats on Manchester council. Their leaders on Liverpool and Sheffield will also lose their seats, a party source told the Press Association. "We have been wiped out in the fights with Labour in the North," the source added. "They have given us an absolute kicking." But the source claimed that the party's vote was holding up better in southern areas where it was competing against the Tories. My colleague Severin Carrell says the SNP success in Scotland will make life difficult for the Greens. That's because, if Labour lose constituency seats, they will gain seats from the regional lists (which are allocated on a PR system). This will make it harder for the Greens to win extra seats through the regional lists. My colleague Martin Wainwright has sent me this from Sheffield.
The BBC has for the first time released its estimated national share of the vote figures. These are based on the results from 85 wards chosen because they are representative. (See 9.40pm) These are only provisional figures, and the BBC will revise them as more results come in. These are the share of the vote figures compared to 2007. Conservatives: down 1 point And here are the share of the vote figures compared to estimated national share of the vote for 2010 (which is based on how people voted in the local elections in May last year, not how they voted in the general election). Conservatives: up 1 point Evan Harris, the former Lib Dem MP, has just told the BBC that Nick Clegg has "got to deliver a strategy change". As well as stressing what coalition policies come from the Lib Dems, he should be stressing which policies are essentially Tory policies, Harris said. Harris said there was no desire for a change of leader. Clegg was "well respected" in the party, he said. The first result from Wales has been declared. Labour's Alun Davies won. Technically it's a Labour gain, because an independent won the seat in 2007, but historically it's Labour territory and so Davies's victory isn't a great surprise. Michael Moore, the Lib Dem Scottish secretary, has just told the BBC that it has been a "very disappointing" evening for his party. Here's a 2am summary. • Iain Gray, Labour's leader in Scotland, has said that he will not resign. With commentators already speculating about his future, because he is generally thought to have fought a lacklustre campaign, he was asked just now on the BBC if he would quit. "No. I'm the elected leader of the Labour party [in Scotland]," he said. "We need to look at what the election result is and work out how we are going to carry on from here." Labour are blaming their poor result in Scotland on the collapse in the Tory and the Lib Dem vote, according to the BBC. This is from the PoliticsHome Political Pulse Twitter feed.
Here are some more English council results. • Labour have held Halton. • The Tories have held Tamworth. You'll find the full results on our results page. In Scotland the commentators are already starting to read the last rites over Iain Gray's leadership of the Scottish Labour party. Chris Bryant, the Labour MP for Rhondda, is busy on Twitter tonight. This is what he's reporting from Wales. • Ukip think they have won a seat in the assembly on a regional list. • Plaid Cymru are thought to have held Ceredigion. • The Tories are thought to have won Montgomeryshire, taking it from the Lib Dems. The SNP have gained Hamilton from Labour. The swing from Labour to the SNP was 11%. Here's George Galloway (who is standing for the Scottish Parliament) on the Lib Dems. "They're down there with the Monster Raving looney party," he told the BBC. We've still only had two English council results in, and two Scottish results, but already there are a plenty of reports suggesting it's going to be a bad night for the Liberal Democrats. Here's what we're hearing. • The Lib Dems are expected to lose control of key councils, such as Sheffield and Hull. According to the BBC, the Lib Dem vote in Hull is "in meltdown". They seem to have lost 10 of the 12 seats they were defending to Labour. • Even in areas where they are not in control, they are also expecting serious losses. There has been one claim that they could lose as many as 12 out of the 13 seats they are defending in Liverpool. In Manchester there are reports that they have lost 12 seats. • The Lib Dems are performing badly in Scotland too. With two results in, their share of the vote is down almost 11 percentage points. The SNP's Linda Fabiani has won East Kilbride. It's the SNP's first gain of the night. My colleague Severin Carrell has posted this on Twitter. Has Andy Kerr lost East Kilbride? Linda Fabiani being hugged by supporters. #SNP landslide & #labour rout? #sp11 The Lib Dems have lost control of Hull, the BBC is reporting. In Newcastle a Lib Dem council candidate has been found dead after spending the day campaigning, the Press Association reports. Neil Hamilton, who was standing in Westerhope, Newcastle, is thought to have been aged in his 60s. It is thought his death will invalidate the result in the ward and trigger a fresh election. State of the parties in the English council elections at 1am. Two councils have declared now. Conservatives: 15 seats (down 3) Eric Pickles and Lady Warsi are both arguing that Scotland is the key battleground for Labour. I've never known English Tories take such an interest in Edinburgh politics! The first Scottish result has come in. Labour have held Rutherglen, but their majority has gone down from a notional 5,947 in 2007 (taking into account the boundary changes) to 1,779. That represents a 7.4% swing to the SNP. The Lib Dem MP Mike Hancock has just the BBC that he wants Lib Dem ministers to "stiffen up" after these elections.
Those keen students of Scottish Labour politics at Tory HQ are continuing to send me info. They say that it is "looking bad" for Labour in Clydesdale. Taking into account the boundary changes, Labour have a notion majority of 1,079 - or 3.7% - in the seat. Sadiq Khan has just told Sky that gaining more than 600 seats would be an excellent result for Labour. The second result of the night is in. The Tories have held Broxbourne. Eric Pickles is on Sky looking as downbeat as possible, saying that the Tories are bound to lose many, many seats. Labour's Sadiq Khan isn't convinced by Pickles' display of gloom. He says that Labour have only won more than 600 seats in a set of local elections three times in the last 30 years. State of the parties at 12.30pm. With only one council result in, Sunderland, this doesn't mean much. But here goes anyway. Conservatives: 3 seats (down 4) Political Scrapbook has posted this response to the BBC suggestion that the Lib Dems could lose 12 seats in Sheffield.
A BBC correspondent is saying that the Lib Dem could lose 12 of the 13 seats they are defending in Liverpool. The party could have lost Stockport too, he says. My colleague Steven Morris has sent me this from Cardiff.
Tory HQ are very interesting in Scotland tonight. They've sent me an email saying the SNP should have a "solid victory" in Glasgow Southside. As a result of the boundary changes, it's notionally a Labour seat. But it's being defended by Nicola Sturgeon, the high-profile SNP deputy first minister, and she was widely expected to win. The Tories have also sent me a note saying that Scotland is a big test for Ed Miliband. At one stage Labour were well ahead in the polls in Scotland, and now it looks as if they will be beaten by the SNP. You can see why the Tories want to highlight this. Labour, of course, would point out no one would ever describe Scotland as a big test for David Cameron because the Conservative electoral presence in the country has for years been very weak. Simon Hughes, the deputy Lib Dem leader, has told the BBC that the AV campaign will "reduce trust" in the Tories amongst Lib Dems, both at activist level and in government. Here's a midnight summary. • Counting has started in the elections in England, Scotland and Wales and already there are suggestions that it could be a dire night for the Lib Dems. Party sources told the BBC that they could lose up to 12 seats in Sheffield. Asked about this claims, Simon Hughes, the deputy Lib Dem leader, said: "Any anti-Nick view will be exemplified most in Sheffield. Nick has become the issue in Sheffield in spite of the fact that we have run the city extremely well." (This is odd because normally politicians expect to get more support in the place they represent, not less.) • Paddy Ashdown has launched a scathing attack on David Cameron, accusing him of sanctioning a no to AV campaign that depended on "downright lies". (See 10.38pm.) • Vince Cable has said that the yes camp are to blame for the failure of their failure in the AV campaign. (See 10.46pm.) • A national poll has put Labour just two points ahead of the Conservatives. That's the lowest Labour lead since January, and may be evidence that David Cameron's high-profile and populist stance against AV may have helped his party. (See 10.18pm.) And Nick Robinson has just told the BBC that he's heard the Lib Dems could lose 12 of their 15 seats being contested in Sheffield. Labour only need to win four seats there to take control. Losing 12 seats in the city Clegg represents as an MP would be disastrous. Last month Simon Hughes told me that he thought the Lib Dems could hang to Sheffield. Here's a good snippet of info from the PoliticsHome Political Pulse Twitter feed.
Question Time has finished. Paddy Ashdown wrapped it up with a tribute to the "unbelievable grace under fire" displayed during the campaign by Nick Clegg. The first result is in. Labour has held Sunderland council. There's no sign of Chris Huhne's supposed resignation yet. On Sky Vince Cable has just said he always thought it was "highly unlikely" that Huhne would resign as energy secretary and that the various stories floating the idea (sourced to Tory ministers) were wrong. That's bad news for Labour's Paul Richards, who predicted this morning that Huhne would resign at 10pm tonight. Richards was working as a special adviser for Hazel Blears when she staged a surprise cabinet resignation at the time of local elections, so he has some experience of these matters. But this time he seems to have called it wrong. Iain Martin, the Daily Mail columnist, has posted on Twitter some speculation about the results in Scotland. He's a former editor of the Scotsman, and normally well worth reading.
My colleague Henry McDonald has sent me this from Belfast.
Andy Burnham, Labour's general election coordinator, is on Question Time putting the boot into the Lib Dems.
The first result from Newcastle doesn't look good for the Lib Dems, Andy Sawford reports. Labour came first, the Tories second and the Greens third. Andy Slaughter, the Labour MP, says Reading is "looking good" for Labour. Labour are already the largest party on the council, but it's run by a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition. Vince Cable has just been asked about the latest YouGov polling figures (see 10.18pm) on Sky. "That would be a big drop," he said. "It would be very difficult." Andrew Hawkins from ComRes tells me he also thinks the AV campaign has helped the Tories. (See 10.18pm.) A ComRes poll yesterday gave Labour its lowest lead since last year. Genuine local government experts are a relatively rare breed, but Andy Sawford qualifies. He's chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit and he's in action tonight on Twitter. He says that the Lib Dems are expecting to lose Milton Keynes, where they currently rule as a minority administration. On Sky Vince Cable, the business secretary, has just been asked about Paddy Ashdown's comments. (See 10.38pm.) This is what he had to say:
• Cable concedes that the yes camp may be to blame for not having "made the case positively as we should have done" in the AV campaign. Paddy Ashdown is on Question Time tonight. He has already erupted tonight in an interview with the Guardian, which has just gone up on our website. Here are some extracts from his comments about David Cameron and the conduct of the No to AV campaign.
• Paddy Ashdown condemns David Cameron for allowing the no camp to use "downright lies" in the AV referendum. Sky has just started its election programme. Their reporters are suggesting that the Greens will win a seat in Wales, and that Labour will become the largest party in Birmingham (where the council is now run by the Tories and the Lib Dems). Political Home's Political Pulse blog has been collecting turnout data. You can read them on the polhomepulse Twitter feed. In London, where there are no local elections and people have just been voting in the AV referendum, there are several places where is seems to be in the 30s. There aren't any exit polls tonight. But YouGov have just published their regular daily tracking poll, and it shows Labour just two points ahead of the Conservatives. Labour: 39% Labour lead: 2 points Government approval: -18 As this chart (pdf) shows, the Labour lead has not been this small since the end of January. Is it possible that taking a high-profile stance against AV has actually helped David Cameron in the state of the parties polls? On his PoliticsHome blog, Paul Waugh has put up an interesting post about the different campaign tactics used by the yes camp and the no camp in the AV referendum. Here's an extract:
CP Scott, the famous Guardian editor, once wrote: "The newspaper is of necessity something of a monopoly, and its first duty is to shun the temptations of monopoly." In the spirit of shunning the temptations of monopoly, here are some of the other election night blogs that are on the go tonight.
If you know of any more, do mention them in the comments. Mike Smithson at PoliticalBetting is running a poll on which AV poll will turn out to be most accurate. He lists four polls, ranging from YouGov putting the no camp on 60% to ICM putting it on 68%. My colleague Severin Carrell has sent me a note about the boundary changes in Scotland.
Local election coverage often tends to focus on the figures for the equivalent national share of the vote. More than 31 million voters will have the chance to vote in English local elections today, but using these raw figures could give a misleading picture of the amount of support that the parties have because the places where the elections are taking place are not necessarily representative of Great Britain as a whole. To get round this, the BBC produces an equivalent national share of the vote figure by looking at the results from a representative sample of wards.To put the figures we get tonight into perspective, here are some other national share of the vote figures. To put the figures we get tonight into perspective, here are some other national share of the vote figures. From the 2007 local elections, when the seats up for election today were last contested. This is the estimated national equivalent share of the vote figure. I've taken it from the chart on page 6 of this House of Commons research paper (pdf). From the 2010 general election. (These are the real GB voting figures for Westminster.) Conservatives: 37% From the latest YouGov poll of voting intentions in a general election. Conservatives: 36% One of the key Labour targets in the north of England is Sheffield. My colleague Martin Wainwright will be at the count. He's just sent me this.
What are the key councils to watch? The best guide I've read is the one produced by Andy Sawford at the Local Government Information Unit. He's written mini profiles of 50 councils where the results will be particularly interesting. So, how do we work who's having a good night? All parties manage expectations before elections and this year, in relation to the English local elections, we've seen some really blatant examples of this. This is what the three main parties have been saying. Conservatives "We'll be pleased if we don't lose 1,000 seats," is the offical line from Tory HQ. Maybe I'm too cynical, but I interpreted that as evidence that they are fairly sure they won't lose 1,000 seats. They are defending more seats than Labour and the Lib Dems combined. But, if the national opinion polls are anything to go by, the story of the night will be the collapse in the Lib Dem vote, and around 75% of the Lib Dem seats up for election are being contested in areas where the Tories are their main rivals. David Cameron could conceivably do quite well from Nick Clegg's unpopularity (which is another reason why tonight could have an interesting impact on coalition relations). Labour Labour say that, on the basis of the way people have been voting in local council byelections, their share of the vote is 38%, the Conservatives' 35% and the Lib Dems' 18%. In these elections - real elections - Labour are ahead, but not by as much as they have been in most recent national opinion polls. They say that on this basis they would expect to gain between 400 and 600 seats. Their problem is that Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher of Plymouth University's Elections Centre, who are the acknowledged experts on local elections, have also been looking at voting in council byelections and, according to this story in the Sunday Times (paywall), they think the trend suggests Labour could win as many as 1,300 seats. Rallings and Thrasher think the Tories could lose nearly 1,000 seats, and the Lib Dems about 400 seats. I've asked Labour to explain why the Rallings and Thrasher extrapolated figures are so different from the Labour party's, but the officials I spoke to were unable to provide an explanation. Lib Dems "We are going to lose hundreds of seats," a Lib Dem source told me tonight. That does fit with the Rallings and Thrasher analysis. But the Lib Dems are worried that the media will focus on the number of councils under Lib Dem control, and not on seats. There are a number of councils in the north of England where Labour could win control on the basis of just a handful of seats changing hands, I was told. The Lib Dems will claim that such losses don't represent a drastic collapse in support. Before we get going, here are some facts about the seats that are up for election today. English local elections Some 279 English councils are holding elections. In English local government some councils put all seats up for election ("all-out elections") every four years and some councils hold more frequent elections with just a third of the seats up for grabs each time. Today's poll is a particularly large one - more than 31 million people in England can participate in council elections - because both types of contest are taking place. To be precise, elections are taking place in 49 unitary authorities, 36 metropolitan districts and 194 non-metropolitan districts. Some 9,396 seats are being contested. That's 52% of all English council seats. On a party basis, they divide up like this: Conservatives: 5,029 (55% of all Conservative council seats in England) Labour: 1,620 (39%) Lib Dem: 1,867 (52%) Scotland All 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament are being contested. Some 73 constituency MSPs will be elected by first past the post. Another 56 MSPs will be elected by proportional representation from regional lists. The boundaries have changed since the last elections in 2007. These are the "notional" results for 2007, based on what academics believe the results would have been if that election had been fought on the new boundaries. SNP: 46 seats Wales All 60 seats in the Welsh Assembly are being contested. Some 40 constituency AMs will be be elected by first past the post, and another 20 will be elected from lists using PR. In 2007 the results were: Labour: 26 seats Northern Ireland All 108 seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly are being contested. Members are elected in 18 six-member constituencies by the single transferable vote PR system. In 2007 the results were: Democratic Unionist Party: 36 According to the Independent, it's Super Thursday. There have been parliamentary or assembly elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and local elections in England and Northern Ireland. There are local elections in England every year, but this is the biggest set of elections in the four-year local government election cycle and more than 30 million people in England have had the chance to take part. On top of that, we've all had the chance to take part in the referendum on the alternative vote. Outside of a general election, an election night doesn't come much bigger than this. Elections are always exciting because of what they tell you about the state of the parties nationally, and as the results come in over the next 24 hours I'll be posting furiously about what they have to tell us about Ed Miliband's attempts to revive the Labour party, about what being in government has done to the standing of David Cameron's Conservative party and about quite how disastrous it all is for the Liberal Democrats and Nick Clegg. But this time there's even more than usual at stake. The result of the AV referendum seems likely to kill all prospects of electoral reform for a generation (which could have quite profound consequences for the Lib Dems, as yet probably not fully understood). The character of Westminster coalition seems to have changed fundamentally as a result of the campaign and the way it has been conducted. Wales and Northern Ireland are electing assemblies enjoying more self-confidence and power than they've had before. And if, as expected, Alex Salmond wins a second term as Scotland's first minister, then we'll have to conclude that his long-term plan to achieve independence by stealth seems to be going reasonably well. The future of the Union hasn't been much of an issue in the Scottish election campaign, but conceivably tonight's results could have considerably bearing on it. Here's a timetable of what's coming up. Thursday night 10pm: The polls close. Counting starts in most of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly seats, and in many of the 279 English councils where elections are taking place. 10.30pm: Sky News starts its election programme, Decision Time 2011, with Adam Boulton presenting. 11.35pm: The BBC's election programme, Vote 2011, starts on BBC 1, with David Dimbleby presenting. Around 12pm: The first Welsh results and English council results are expected. Sunderland is often the first English council to declare. Friday Around 2am: The first Scottish results are expected. A large number of English council results are expected between 2am and 3am. Around 3am: Results should be coming in thick and fast. Sheffield, a key Labour target, is one of the councils expected to declare around about now. 7.30am: Counting starts in the Leicester South byelection. 8am: Counting starts in the Northern Ireland assembly elections. Around 9am: Counting starts in Northern Ireland and in the Leicester South byelection Around 11am: Results start to come in from the small number of Scottish and Welsh constituencies that did not count overnight and from the 160-odd English councils counting on Friday. Around 2pm: Results start to come in from Northern Ireland. Around 2.30pm: The Electoral Commission is expected to announce the turnout in the AV referendum. 4pm: Counting of the votes in the AV referendum starts. The full results are not due in until around 9pm or later, but one side - the no camp, unless the polls are totally wrong - may well get more than 50% of the vote before then. By Friday night almost all the counting will be over. But the final results of the Northern Ireland assembly elections are not expected until Saturday afternoon, and the counting in the Northern Ireland local elections does not start until Monday. I'll be blogging until around 6am tomorrow. My colleague Hélène Mulholland will then take over as we launch a new blog, and I'll be back on Friday afternoon in time for the AV results. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| 7/7 inquests: Families remember their loved ones Posted: 05 May 2011 10:00 PM PDT  As the coroner delivers her verdicts on the victims of 7/7 Esther Addley talks to some of the families they left behind At around 9.45am one sunny morning in July 2005, John Hyman took a call from his daughter Miriam. There had been some sort of problem at King's Cross, she said, and she had been evacuated from the tube. She was fine, though, and he wasn't to worry. Her father suggested she find a coffee shop and wait until things calmed down. In the hours and days that followed the terrorist attacks on London, the Hyman family clung to that phone call like a lifebuoy, desperately telling themselves the call had come after 9.49am, the moment when 18-year-old Hasib Hussain blew himself up on the upper deck of a number 30 bus to Hackney. Four days later, after touring the capital's hospitals, putting up posters and making appeals via the media, they were at last told by a police family liaison officer that Miriam had been identified by her dental records. She had been sitting directly in front of Hussain at the moment of explosion, and was blown from the bus and on to the pavement, where she died very shortly afterwards. Almost six years later, Esther Hyman, Miriam's older and only sister, has found a way of talking about the family's loss without being overwhelmed by it, but there is a heavy sorrow as she sits in the garden of her parents' home in north London, where she and Miriam played as children and smoked as teenagers. Miriam was 32 when she died, a freelance picture researcher who, thanks to a brief contract at News International, was claimed as "Sun girl Miriam" by the newspaper, a title which, her family delightedly note, would have amused and appalled her in equal measure. She was known at work, says Esther, as "the smiley one". "A gentleman came up to me at her funeral and said: 'I met Miriam only once but I loved her.' And that's what she had the capacity to do, to really make a direct connection with people." Like her mother, Miriam was a talented artist, and had been planning to start a greeting cards business when she was killed. Mavis Hyman had come from Calcutta in the 1950s, and both her daughters delighted in their mixed-race heritage, says Esther. They loved music, and the weekend before the bombings they had gone together to an Elvis Costello concert on Hampstead Heath, and danced all the way home. "I will always treasure that and be grateful for that." Philip Russell was also evacuated at King's Cross and also boarded the No 30 bus, in an attempt to get to his banking job. His parents had seen him the previous weekend, when his sister Caroline's baby daughter had been baptised in their village in Kent. Philip's birthday was round the corner, on 11 July, and the family had given him a DVD player. "The last time I saw him was walking across the footbridge at the station, carrying his birthday presents," recalls his father, Grahame. It was on the Monday following the bombings, the day he was due to turn 29, that his parents learned that he, too, had been murdered by Hussain. Though they were a very close family, Grahame and Veronica Russell have been a little surprised by some of the things they have learned about their son since his death. Philip was a very quiet and reserved young man, says Grahame. "He was no problem at all. One thing about Philip, he was never a problem." He had a large and close circle of friends, they knew, but they hadn't appreciated the extent to which Philip was the quiet centre of his social circle, or how fondly he would talk, at work, about his parents and sister, and his two adored nieces. His employer, JP Morgan, set up a book of condolences; "he's got articles in this book, people have written from New York, Chicago, Hong Kong. And they have all put something in that makes you proud to know that he was your son." Those same bleak few hours and days after the attacks – the slow realisation that something was awry, the frantic hunt for information, the agonising wait for their fears to be confirmed – were being repeated many times around the country, and much further afield. Andrea Watson lives just over the Welsh border, not far from Chester, and so when the first reports emerged of explosions in London – "London is quite far away for a lot of people here" – it didn't really occur to her colleagues to be sensitive about the fact that her father and sister both worked in the capital, and that neither were answering their phones. 'So me and my mum kept on trying, we emailed everyone we knew, and slowly friends started clocking in to say 'Yes, I'm fine.'" Her dad got in touch eventually; he'd been stuck in a building where he couldn't get a phone signal. But still nothing from her big sister Fiona Stevenson, a criminal solicitor. "I wasn't even worried about her, because I thought, Fiona will be at court. Fiona is just jammy like that. She blags her way out of things like that. She's just jammy." Shortly afterwards she had a cup of tea with a friend, "and I remember … just shaking, and I didn't really know why". The following morning, she and her husband drove south to her parents' home in Essex. "And I remember having this very strange memory, that at the time I was packing I thought, so calmly, well I'd better put in some black trousers, in case there's a funeral." It was more than a week before they were told that Fiona had been killed on the underground at Aldgate. Though she had always been committed to a career in law, perhaps specialising in human rights, Fiona, who was 29, hadn't found it easy to find work, says her sister; as a result she worked incredibly hard, spending weekends and evenings doing paperwork or at police stations with clients. "But at the same time, she would always have the energy to then go on to a party or to a ball, and then go on after that or to a leaving do. She always managed to squeeze everything in." She was headstrong, full of energy, very kind. A family memory has toddler Fiona warming cotton balls on the radiator for her baby sister's nappy change. "That was the kind of relationship that we had." Both sisters phoned their parents most days, and on the night of 6 July Fiona spoke to her mother, Emer, about her new flat in the Barbican, and her plan to come home at the weekend, "a normal family occasion, as they would normally have". She had recently returned from a three-month sabbatical in Belize, says Andrea, where she had been working with the government on developing the law around child protection, a trip that came as a revelation. "I think Fiona suddenly realised what she wanted to do with her life. When she came back, she was not only tanned and lovely, but she also had a mind clarity, in a way." The next chapter of her life was about to begin. Fiona Stevenson, Philip Russell and Miriam Hyman had never met, but for their mourning families, as the inquest process draws to a conclusion, there is one important factor in common, namely that all are believed to have died very quickly after the bombing, without regaining consciousness. The Russells were reassured relatively soon after 7/7 that Philip had died immediately. For the other two families, however, the inquest has offered important and precious answers. "We have been told that Fiona wouldn't have felt any pain," says Andrea Watson. "I suppose, listening to some of the other survivors talking, it would have been like a light going off. That is something we really wanted to hear, because some of the other people weren't as lucky as that." The Hyman family made an even more striking discovery. They had been contacted, two years after the bombings, by Clive Featherstone, who had been working in Tavistock Square when the bomb went off, and who had held Miriam's hand in her final moments. "At first we didn't get back in touch with him … [But] since then we've become very close with him." It was only during the inquest process that they discovered the existence of another man, a passerby called Richard Collins, who had gone to Miriam's side after Featherstone had been told to move along by a policeman. Initially they thought he must have been mistaken and confused Miriam with another victim, but no. "Richard told us afterwards: 'I would have felt a bit silly if it had turned out not to be Miriam, as I actually had her initials tattooed on my chest.' It's his only tattoo but it turned out that he had been so moved that he had this indelible mark put on himself. We find that exceptional." The loss doesn't get any easier, says Grahame Russell. "[Philip] appears when you talk about things, Something will come up and you'll say, do you remember when we did this … Sometimes you're remembering a young lad, sometimes you're remembering him as a boy, or a guy." But you learn to accept, he says. "It doesn't work all the time, because certain things will suddenly come back and bite you. But you accept it. The thing is, it changes … If anyone has lost a child, they know that it changes their life for ever." For all three families, it has helped, a little, to invest in establishing a legacy for their loved ones. JP Morgan helped set up a travel bursary at Kingston University, Philip Russell's old college, for students who propose a project that will in some regard help others; his parents sit on the panel that awards the prize each year. Andrea Watson and her parents, unsure at first how best to use the financial donations given after Fiona's death, talked to the charity with which she had travelled to Belize and learned about the number of young children who die from drowning each year. It seemed fitting, given her love of diving, to set up a memorial scheme to teach children to swim. This year 200 poor children will graduate from the scheme, which will also offer lifeguard training to 100 young people to help them find work in the tourist industry. Friends hope through fundraising to develop it further. Miriam Hyman's family used donations, and the compensation they were awarded, to fund an eye hospital in India at which 20,000 people have been treated since 2008. They are also working on an ambitious education project, in collaboration with Copthall school, where Miriam and Esther studied, that they hope will teach citizenship and non-violence, "hopefully to minimise the chances of UK citizens ever feeling the need to take arms against their fellow citizens in this way again". Many other bereaved families, during the inquests, have spoken of their own legacy projects working with individuals spread throughout the world, like little points of light in the darkness. What does the end of the inquest process mean for them? The past six years, says Andrea Watson, have been about waiting. "We waited to find out if she was dead, we then waited to find out information. We then had to wait for different criminal cases to happen in the courts; we waited for a memorial. We spent a lot of time waiting for things. I don't know what happens after this, but from our viewpoint, we're not then waiting for anything else. "I still have to explain to my daughter why she doesn't have an aunt, and I don't know how I am going to go about doing that. So I don't think the feelings will ever stop, or the grief. It's more that the waiting is over." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Al-Qaida threat to US rail revealed Posted: 05 May 2011 04:05 PM PDT  Information found at scene shows 'aspiration' to attack American trains, says Department for Homeland Security The first intelligence from the treasure trove of computers and hard drives found during the raid on Osama bin Laden's Pakistani hideaway has prompted a warning that al-Qaida wanted to attack the US rail network. The Department of Homeland Security sent a warning on Thursday to American law enforcement officials that material dating back to February 2010 had detailed an al-Qaida aspiration to derail trains in the US by damaging the rails at a valley or bridge so they would crash, the Associated Press and NBC news reported. Other material suggested a desire to attack mass transit hubs; a fact long known by terror experts. The idea was apparently at the "aspirational" stage and had not developed into anything concrete. The information appears to be the first widely circulated intelligence pulled from the 1 May raid on Bin Laden's secret compound. After killing Bin Laden, Navy Seals took computers, DVDs and documents from his house. Intelligence experts are combing through the material searching for any signs of current or future al-Qaida activity. Security officials in the Obama administration have repeatedly warned of the ongoing threat posed by al-Qaida in the wake of the death of its leader as well as the prospect that it could be plotting revenge attacks for his demise. One of the reasons behind the decision not to publish a photo of Bin Laden's body was the idea that it could provoke retaliation from Islamist militant sympathisers. But officials have also stressed that they have no knowledge of any specific imminent plot or threat. "We have no information of any imminent terrorist threat to the US rail sector, but wanted to make our partners aware of the alleged plotting. It is unclear if any further planning has been conducted since February of last year," said Matthew Chandler, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| UK 'avoiding' Bradley Manning case Posted: 05 May 2011 10:49 AM PDT  Labour MP Ann Clwyd also says Foreign Office is stonewalling Manning's mother in not responding to letter The foreign secretary William Hague is "playing an avoidance game" over the case of Bradley Manning, the US soldier accused of downloading and leaking classified cables to WikiLeaks, according to Ann Clwyd, a Labour MP. The former human rights envoy to Iraq has also accused the Foreign Office of "continued stonewalling" of Manning's mother, Susan. The charges against Manning include "aiding the enemy" – a capital crime. Manning's mother wrote to the foreign secretary three weeks ago, asking British consular officials to visit her son in military prison to check on his physical and mental health, which she said was deteriorating. At the time she wrote her letter, Manning, 23, had been in custody since last May in conditions that provoked widespread criticism of the US military and government. He was being held in solitary confinement and on suicide watch, which required him to be stripped to just a smock at night and checked on repeatedly. Following sustained protests from human rights campaigners and others over his conditions, Manning has recently been transferred from Quantico, Virginia to a "more open" military facility in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. But Clwyd has criticised the FCO for not responding to Susan's letter. A response should, she said, have been received in a week. "They seem to be playing some kind of avoidance game," she said. Last Tuesday, Alistair Burt, parliamentary under secretary of state at the FCO, was forced by Clwyd to admit in the House of Commons that it has not had any discussions with the UN special rapporteur on torture, Juan Méndez, on the case of Bradley Manning. Burt also refused to answer questions from Clwyd about Susan Manning's request for consular assistance. "Susan Manning also asked for any help that could be given, in Washington and elsewhere, to the family if they so request it," Clywd said. "At the very least, Mrs Manning, who is very concerned by the situation of her son, should have had the courtesy of a reply." Burt said the FCO is "limited in both what we can say and what we can do in this case" because Manning has apparently said he does not consider himself a UK citizen. That response, said Clwyd, is "disingenuous". She pointed out that the FCO has already confirmed that although Manning does not hold a UK passport he is British by descent because his mother is Welsh. "Their refusal to respond to Susan Manning or support Bradley Manning can't be [because of] a genuine confusion over his nationality, the responsibility the British government have for him or the conditions in which he is being held," she said. "There is no room for genuine confusion over these issues," she added, pointing to comments by Méndez, who has been investigating whether Manning's treatment to date amounted to "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment" or torture. "This avoidance game they are playing can only be completely deliberate," she said. In her letter, Susan Manning wrote that she visited her son in Quantico marine base in February, travelling with her sister, Manning's aunt and his uncle, but only she was allowed to see Manning. "I was very distressed by seeing Bradley. Being in prison is having a damaging effect on him physically and mentally," she wrote. "I am worried that his condition is getting worse. I would like someone to visit him who can check on his conditions. If Bradley's being a British national means that someone from the British embassy can visit him, then I would like to ask if you can make that happen. I do not believe that Bradley is in a position to be able to request this himself, so I am asking as his mother on his behalf." Susan Manning, who divorced Bradley's American father, Brian, when her son was a teenager, also asked Hague for consular support on her own behalf. "If I try [to] visit Bradley again, can someone from the British embassy help me and other members of Bradley's family to deal with the US marine authorities and help with any other arrangements we have to make?" On 4 April, the FCO minister Henry Bellingham said the British embassy in Washington had expressed MPs' concerns about the soldier's treatment to the Obama administration. The FCO confirmed the foreign secretary's office had received the letter, and said: "We will carefully consider Mrs Manning's letter and will reply to her shortly." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| End to foot and mouth culls possible Posted: 05 May 2011 11:12 AM PDT  Research suggests pre-emptive mass culling of cattle may not be necessary The mass culling of cattle and funeral pyres that blighted the countryside during the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic may not be needed if the disease comes back, according to scientists who have shown that it is detectable in cattle up to 24 hours before they become infectious. This could provide a window to quarantine infected animals and stop the spread of the disease to neighbouring farms. The researchers also found that cattle infected with the foot and mouth virus remained infectious for an average of only 1.7 days, much less than previously thought. At least 6 million animals were culled during the 2001 outbreak, most of them sheep. The Royal Society estimated losses of about £3.1bn to agriculture and the food chain, and about £2.5bn was spent by the government in compensation for slaughtered animals and payments for disposal and cleaning up. There were only 2,030 confirmed infections, but millions more animals were culled – killed pre-emptively because they lived near infected farms. Had government advisers understood more about the disease, it might have been possible to control it without mass culling. "The reason those animals were culled was because they may already have been infected by the time we knew they were at risk," said Mark Woolhouse of the Centre for Immunity, Infection and Evolution at the University of Edinburgh. "What this suggests is a window where we can detect animals before that has happened so there's no need, in that case, for the pre-emptive culling." Mark Woolhouse of the Centre for Immunity, Infection and Evolution at the University of Edinburgh, said: Woolhouse added: The new research is published in the journal , shows there here is this short window, a day or two, where we can tell a cow is infected with foot and mouth disease but it'sthe disease can be detected but the animal not yet infectious to other cows - even under ideal conditions it doesn't transmit the virus. . "If we could detect and remove animals in that window of opportunity, then they won't have the chance to infect to infect other animals." The new research is published in the journal Science. For the study, a team led by Bryan Charleston of the Institute for Animal Health in Pirbright infected cows with foot and mouth disease in the laboratory and then watched how the virus spread to uninfected cows. The time from infection to the onset of clinical signs was approximately four days. The animals became infectious at around the same time and stayed that way for, on average, 1.7 days. Until now, scientists had thought that cattle became infectious up to four days before they showed clinical signs, and then remained infectious for up to four to eight days afterwards. But Charleston also found there was a point where virus detection was possible before the animals became infectious. "After an animal becomes infected, you can start to detect virus in blood and in nasal samples approximately two to three days later, that's before they show clinical signs and before they are able to transmit the virus," he said. The government's chief vet, Nigel Gibbens, said: "While these types of tests aren't currently practical for use on the ground during an outbreak, we are continuing to fund their development and are working with the Institute of Animal Health so the best possible tests and equipment is available. Quick reporting of suspect cases of the disease by farmers and veterinarians and selective culling of animals, with vaccination where that can make an effective contribution to control, remain the best way of stopping this disease." The 24-hour window allows farmers and scientists to isolate and cull the infected herd before they can spread the infection to neighbouring herds. "It's not the animals that are infected that are saved, it's the ones they might have put at risk, all the animals in the next-door farms," said Woolhouse. Joe Brownlie, emeritus professor of veterinary pathology at the Royal Veterinary College, said the pre-emptive culling policy in 2001 was "quite draconian" and the new research would prevent the death of large numbers of animals in future. "Many of us have had difficult times justifying and living with what happened. This is exciting and very important science." A spokesperson for the National Farmers Union described the study as an "important development". "The outbreaks of foot and mouth disease in 2001 and 2007 show just how devastating this disease is for farm businesses and the wider rural economy. "It's clear that the researchers are some way from developing a reliable on-farm test and the protocols that may be needed in its application. Nevertheless, this is a valuable development that could help control FMDV spread during future outbreaks." Translating the research into a practical technology for the field will take some time. "This we can do in the laboratory, we can detect infections before the animals are infectious – it is going to be a significant challenge to do that in the field during an epidemic," said Woolhouse. "As a result of the work we're reporting today, we know that such an approach could be much more effective than we've realised before, so this is definitely an avenue we should be pursuing." Apart from the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic, a smaller outbreak of the disease in 2007 was localised to a farm near Guildford, when 60 animals tested positive. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Sorcery claim in Iran power struggle Posted: 05 May 2011 11:23 AM PDT  Iranian power struggle between president and supreme leader sees arrests and claims of undue influence of chief of staff Close allies of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been accused of using supernatural powers to further his policies amid an increasingly bitter power struggle between him and the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Several people said to be close to the president and his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, have been arrested in recent days and charged with being "magicians" and invoking djinns (spirits). Ayandeh, an Iranian news website, described one of the arrested men, Abbas Ghaffari, as "a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds". The arrests come amid a growing rift between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei which has prompted several MPs to call for the president to be impeached. On Sunday, Ahmadinejad returned to his office after an 11-day walkout in an apparent protest over Khamenei's reinstatement of the intelligence minister, who the president had initiallyasked to resign. Ahmadinejad's unprecedented disobedience prompted harsh criticism from conservatives who warned that he might face the fate of Abdulhassan Banisadr, Iran's first post-revolution president who was impeached and exiled for allegedly attempting to undermine clerical power. Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, a hardline cleric close to Khamenei, warned that disobeying the supreme leader – who has the ultimate power in Iran – is equivalent to "apostasy from God". Ahmadinejad has so far declined to officially back Khamenei's ruling over Heydar Moslehi, the minister at the centre of the row. In the first cabinet meeting since the president returned, Moslehi was absent. Khamenei's supporters believe that the top-level confrontation stems from the increasing influence of Mashaei, an opponent of greater involvement of clerics in politics, who is being groomed by Ahmadinejad as a possible successor. But the feud has taken a metaphysical turn following the release of an Iranian documentary alleging the imminent return of the Hidden Imam Mahdi – the revered saviour of Shia Islam, whose reappearance is anticipated by believers in a manner comparable to that with which Christian fundamentalists anticipate the second coming of Jesus. Conservative clerics, who say that the Mahdi's return cannot be predicted, have accused a "deviant current" within the president's inner circle, including Mashaei, of being responsible for the film. Ahmadinejad's obsession with the hidden imam is well known. He often refers to him in his speeches and in 2009 said that he had documentary evidence that the US was trying to prevent Mahdi's return. Since Ahmadinejad's return this week, at least 25 people, who are believed to be close to Mashaei, have been arrested. Among them is Abbas Amirifar, head of the government's cultural committee and some journalists of Mashaei's recently launched newspaper, Haft-e-Sobh. On Saturday, Mojtaba Zolnour, Khamenei's deputy representative in the powerful Revolutionary Guard, said: "Today Mashaei is the actual president. Mr Ahmadinejad has held on to a decaying rope by relying on Mashaei." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Arrests follow Marrakech bombing Posted: 05 May 2011 03:18 PM PDT  Al-Qaida 'loyal' main suspect in the bombing of cafe popular with foreign tourists, police say Three people have been arrested in connection with the bombing of a busy tourist cafe in Marrakech, Morrocan officials said. The three suspects in the bombing of the Argana cafe in the popular Jamaa el-Fnaa square last week were all Moroccans, the country's official news agency reported. Police said the main suspect in the blast, the country's deadliest for eight years, was "loyal" to al-Qaida. Jamaa el-Fnaa , next to the city's historic market area, draws crowds of tourists with its snake charmers, fire-eaters and tooth pullers. Most of those killed when a remote-controlled nail bomb was detonated at lunchtime on 28 April were foreign nationals – including one Briton, French, Dutch and Canadian tourists – and at least 23 others were injured by the explosion. The British victim was Peter Moss, a 59-year-old travel writer, broadcaster and comedian who lived in West Hampstead, London.A video released before the attack by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility. Counter-terrorism experts believe the group was one of several likely candidates. Moroccan authorities said the bomb had been packed with nails and set off remotely and not by a suicide bomber. Counter-terrorism experts from several countries, including Spain, have been sifting through the wreckage of the cafe. They said the man disguised himself as a foreign visitor to plant the explosives, devices that could be detonated remotely, authorities said. He had learned to make the devices on the internet, the statement said. It added that investigators found some explosive materials and tools that were discarded after the explosion. "He made many attempts to go to such hot spots as Chechnya and Iraq before deciding to make this attack on Moroccan soil," the statement from Moroccan officials said. It did not provide any details about the other two suspects or about where the arrests had taken place The attack is the deadliest in Morocco since 12 suicide bombers killed 33 people in co-ordinated strikes in Casablanca in 2003. The latest attack was a blow to Morocco's most important tourist city. Tourism is Morocco's biggest source of foreign currency and the second biggest employer after agriculture. The attack adds to the challenges facing Morocco's ruler, King Mohammed VI, as he tries to prevent the uprisings in the Arab world from reaching his normally stable kingdom. The monarch has promised to reform the constitution to placate pro-democracy protesters. He recently pardoned political prisoners, including some alleged militant Islamists. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Muslim suspect recalls brutal arrest Posted: 05 May 2011 12:15 PM PDT  Four Met officers deny assault during and after dawn raid on British Muslim's south London home A British Muslim has told a court how specialist police officers had beat him so badly in a dawn raid at his home that he had thought he was going to die. Southwark crown court heard from Babar Ahmad, 37, how he was the subject of a prolonged and vicious attack, starting in the bedroom of his home and continuing in a police van and at a London police station. Ahmad was under surveillance, and the officers had been told he had been trained as a terrorist and fought in Bosnia, the court has been told. Giving evidence on the second day of the trial of four officers who deny charges of assaulting Ahmad, he said that, after he had been repeatedly kicked and punched, one officer put him in a headlock in the back of the police van. The jury heard from him that one officer straddled him and said: "You will remember this day for the rest of your life, you fucking bastard. Do you understand me?" Ahmad said: "He squeezed and kept on squeezing. I remember the pressure to the side of my neck. He squeezed and squeezed and squeezed, and held it in that position. "I thought he would hold it for a few seconds, and, if I hold my breath, I could bear it and he would let go. But he didn't let go. I was panicking because I couldn't do anything or move. It's like drowning. There is nothing you can do. He kept squeezing to the point where I thought 'This guy is going to kill me. He wants to kill me. I am going to die in this van'." Medical examinations carried out four days later showed blood in Ahmad's urine and that there had been bleeding in the middle of both of his ears. Shortly after the arrest in December 2003, he was released without charge. The court has heard that in the 1990s Ahmad had travelled to Bosnia to fight with the Muslim forces, and was under surveillance prior to his 2003 arrest. In 2004, he was re-arrested, following a request from the United States, over claims that he helped raise money to fund terrorism. He has been in custody in the UK ever since. Earlier the jury heard Ahmad describe how he had been in bed with his wife at 5am when officers from the Met's territorial support group smashed their way into his south London home. Moments later the officers, dressed in full protective clothing, entered his bedroom, where they carried out what he called a "sustained and very violent assault". "It was complete confusion and shock. I had just woken up and lots of things were going through my mind: 'Why have they come up here? Have they mixed me up with someone else? Is there a robber hiding in my house or have they come to arrest me?' All these things were going through my mind." The prosecutor, Jonathan Laidlaw QC, asked if he had fought or struggled. Ahmad, 37, replied: "I was completely compliant, because I had made my mind up when they came towards me I was going to co-operate and reassure them they had nothing to fear from me whatsoever "At no point did I struggle or make it difficult for them. At no point did I say anything to them, other than: 'Can you stop hitting me' I didn't make it hard for them or provoke them whatsoever." At one stage, he told the jury, he was pushed into a praying position and asked "where is your God now ... pray to him." The security service, MI5, had Ahmad under surveillance and had bugged the room. A recording of the raid was played to the seven men and five women of the jury but the contents were largely inaudible.. The court had heard that the attack continued in a police van and at Charing Cross police station. Police constables Mark Jones, Roderick James-Bowen and Nigel Cowley and Detective Constable John Donohue deny assaulting Ahmad. The arrest took place less than a year after another terror suspect, Kamel Bourgass, stabbed an anti-terror squad officer to death during a raid on a house in Manchester. The hearing continues. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Warming blamed for food price rises Posted: 05 May 2011 11:00 AM PDT  Scientists warn that farming practices must be adapted to a warmer world and rises in global population Global warming has already harmed the world's food production and has driven up food prices by as much as 20% over recent decades, new research has revealed. The drop in the productivity of crop plants around the world was not caused by changes in rainfall but was because higher temperatures can cause dehydration, prevent pollination and lead to slowed photosynthesis. Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, Washington DC, said the findings indicate a turning point: "Agriculture as it exists today evolved over 11,000 years of reasonably stable climate, but that climate system is no more." Adaptation is difficult because our knowledge of the future is not strong enough to drive new investments, he said, "so we just keep going, hoping for the best." The scientists say their work shows how crucial it is to find ways to adapt farming to a warmer world, to ensure that rises in global population are matched by rising food production. "It is vital," said Wolfram Schlenker, at Columbia University in New York and one of the research team. "If we continue to have the same seed varieties and temperatures continue to rise, then food prices will rise further. [Addressing] that is the big question." The new research joins a small number of studies in which the fingerprint of climate change has been separated from natural variations in weather and other factors, demonstrating that the effects of warming have already been felt in the world. Scientists have shown that the chance of the severe heatwave that killed thousands in Europe in 2003 was made twice as likely by global warming, while other work showed that the floods that caused £3.5bn of damage in England in 2000 were made two to three times more likely. Food prices have reached new record highs this year, and have been implicated as a trigger for unrest in the Middle East and Africa. A rising appetite for meat is a critical factor, said Wolfram. "We actually have enough calories to feed the world quite comfortably, the problem is meat is really inefficient," as many kilogrammes of grain are needed to produce one kilogramme of meat, he said. "As countries get richer and have a preference for meat, which is more expensive, they price people in poorer countries out of the market." "The research provides evidence of big shifts in wheat and maize production," commented Prof Tim Wheeler at the Walker Institute for Climate System Research, Reading University, UK, who added it had involved "heroic" statistical analysis. But he said that, while long-term climate change impacts were another pressure on food prices, short-term price spikes were linked to extreme weather events, such as the Russian heatwaves and wildfires in 2010. The study, published in the journal Science, examined how rising temperatures affected the annual crop yields of all major producer nations between 1980 and 2008. Computer models were used to show how much grain would have been harvested in the absence of warming. Overall, yields have been rising over the last decades and the models took this into account. The scientists found that global wheat production was 33m tonnes (5.5%) lower than it would have been without warming and maize production was 23m tonnes (3.8%) lower. Specific countries fared worse than the average, with Russia losing 15% of its potential wheat crop, and Brazil, Mexico and Italy suffering above average losses. Some countries experienced lower production of rice and soybeans, although these drops were offset by gains in other countries. The losses drove up food prices by as much as 18.9%, the team calculated, although the rise could be as low as 6.4% if the increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere strongly boosts plant growth and yields - a factor that is not well understood by scientists. Global food prices have risen by about 200% in recent years, says Schlenker. Other causes of the rise are the increased demand for meat and the diversion of food into biofuels. Nonetheless, the researchers conclude that the negative impact on crops overall is "likely to be incurring large economic and health costs". The US, which has the world's largest share of overall production, stood out in the analysis because it appears to have lost no production to climate change as yet. Schlenker said this was because the rise in temperature there was very small compared to other parts of the world. This was perhaps due simply to luck with the weather, or the cooling influence of aerosol particles, such as soot, that blocks warming. "US farmers are having a good time in the sense that their yields have not been impacted much and prices have been pretty high, so for them it has been pretty profitable," he said. "But most climate models predict that eventually the US will warm." Adapting farming to climate change could involved moving to cooler areas as existing areas warm, said Schlenker, but often soils are poorer in the new locations. He highlighted the potential of biotechnology - genetic engineering - to develop new crop varieties that are more resistant to heat, but said the potential remains unproven. "What happens over the next 20 years depends on how optimistic you are about finding those extra ways of adapting." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Yeates's neighbour admits killing Posted: 05 May 2011 06:28 AM PDT  Dutch engineer Vincent Tabak pleads guilty to manslaughter but denies murder A Dutch engineer has admitted killing the landscape architect Joanna Yeates, whose body was found by a roadside verge near the village of Failand, Somerset, on Christmas morning last year. Vincent Tabak, who lived next door to Yeates, pleaded guilty to manslaughter but denied murder during a 15-minute appearance at the Old Bailey in central London . Tabak, 33, goes on trial for murder in October in Bristol. Yeates's parents, David and Teresa, from Ampfield, Hampshire, were in court to see Tabak admit the manslaughter of their 25-year-old daughter. The couple appeared shaken and close to tears as they were led from the court by police officers. Joanna Yeates lived in the Clifton area of Bristol with her boyfriend, Greg Reardon. She went missing on 17 December after drinks with friends at a pub near the city centre. Her body was found eight days later at the side of a road near Failand, about three miles from her home. Tabak was arrested and appeared in court in Bristol on 24 January. He was charged with murdering Yeates between 16 and 26 December last year. For his fourth court appearance, bespectacled Tabak wore a dark suit, shirt and tie. He appeared by video link from Long Lartin prison in Worcestershire. He confirmed his identity and replied "morning" when the judge, Mr Justice Field, greeted him. When asked if he was content to proceed without an interpreter, he said: "I'm OK." He pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder, this time between 16 and 19 December. When the manslaughter charge between the same dates was put to him, he paused briefly before saying guilty in a firm voice. Among the police officers in court was Detective Chief Inspector Phil Jones, who led the murder hunt. Nigel Lickley QC, prosecuting, asked for the trial to be moved to Winchester crown court because of the publicity in Bristol that had surrounded the case. The judge said he felt the trial could take place in Bristol and it is set to begin on 4 October and last four weeks. While a timetable for legal procedures was set out, Tabak took notes and sipped from a glass of water. A pre-trial review is due to be held in Bristol in July. Tabak was remanded in custody. Afterwards, Geoffrey Morson, a retired legal professional and the father of Tabak's girlfriend, Tanja Morson, described Yeates' death as tragic. Speaking from his home in Cambridge, Morsonsaid he had no knowledge of whether his daughter and Tabak were still in a relationship. He said: "This is a tragic case for everyone, especially the Yeates family and for us and the Tabak family and anyone who knew those involved. It is in the hands of the British judicial system now. I do not know if my daughter Tanja is still with Vincent. She did go and visit Vincent in prison but that was some weeks ago."Outside court, Detective Chief Inspector Jones said: "The not guilty plea to Joanna Yeates' murder, entered by Vincent Tabak today at the Old Bailey, means that there will be a full trial in due course. Tabak has entered a plea to manslaughter, however this has not been accepted by the crown. Until this trial takes place it would be inappropriate and potentially prejudicial for us to comment further." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Heather Mills considers suing NoW Posted: 05 May 2011 09:18 AM PDT  Sir Paul McCartney's former wife could join string of celebrities taking legal action, including Sienna Miller and Jude Law Heather Mills is considering suing the News of the World for breach of privacy over alleged phone hacking, joining the dozens of public figures who have either started legal proceedings against the paper or are considering doing so. The former model, best known for her four-year marriage to Sir Paul McCartney, has met with the Metropolitan police, who have shown her evidence seized from private investigator Glenn Mulcaire which could form the basis of a claim. Detectives are in the process of contacting hundreds of potential phone-hacking victims, most of whom are listed in Mulcaire's notebooks, which cover his activities in 2005 and 2006. He was working exclusively for the News of the World at the time. It is understood that Mills's name and mobile phone number are listed in Mulcaire's notes along with those of her friends and associates. Mills and her younger sister Fiona are both considering filing writs in the high court against News Group, the News International subsidiary that publishes the News of the World. Mills's solicitor, Mark Thomson of Atkins Thomson, declined to comment. In recent weeks, the Guardian has revealed that several high profile figures have threatened to sue the paper, part of Rupert Murdoch's UK newspaper group News International, following meetings with Scotland Yard. They include footballer Wayne Rooney and his agent Paul Stretford. It was reported on Thursday that Chelsea and England defender Ashley Cole has also issued proceedings, as have actor Jude Law and a solicitor who has represented him. Law had already attached his name to a high court action brought by his former partner Sienna Miller, but has now issued separate proceedings, according to the Independent. The paper quoted Graham Shear, a solictor at Berwin Leighton, Paisner: "The police came to see me and alerted me that I was the subject of, or appeared to be the subject of, phone hacking relating to a client or clients during 2004 and 2005. We are currently awaiting additional disclosure from the police and from News Group and cross-referencing with other victims of phone hacking." Mills has been the subject of intense tabloid interest since she began a relationship with McCartney in 1999 after meeting him at the Daily Mirror's Pride of Britain Awards. Six years ago, at the time Mulcaire was allegedly taking notes of her mobile phone number, her marriage to McCartney was breaking up. The News of the World revealed in May 2006 that Mills had moved out of McCartney's home. That followed months of speculation about the state of the couple's relationship. Mills subsequently moved in with her sister. The couple divorced in February 2008 following a high court hearing at which Mills represented herself. News International has tried to bring an end to the hacking saga by offering to settle a number of the claimants who are pursuing civil cases. So far, none have chosen to do so. The high court has heard evidence from solicitors acting for Andy Gray and football agent Sky Andrew, two of at least 20 people who have started legal proceedings against News Group and Mulcaire, about the way the investigator allegedly targeted their clients. He had a habit of listing people of interest, along with other information including their mobile phone voicemail number and passwords, in his notes, often alongside the first name of the News of the World journalist who commissioned him. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication". • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Franco's graves give up their dead Posted: 05 May 2011 12:01 PM PDT  Spain's government publishes first country-wide map of locations of more than 2,000 mass graves from the civil war The bones of 62-year-old Severina Gómez and 23 others whose remains had lain together for 75 years, surrounded by bullet cases and with hands tied behind backs, have finally been removed from their mass grave in countryside near the central Spanish village of Loma de Montija. Anxious family members watched last week as forensic archaeologists and volunteers scraped through layers of mud to uncover evidence of a crime committed in the heat of a civil war that still haunts parts of Spain – and that served as a curtain raiser to the bloodshed of the second world war. After a decade of bitter debate over how to heal the wounds left by conflict and dictatorship without stoking ancient hatreds, Spain's government on Thursday published on the internet the first countrywide map showing the location of more than 2,000 mass graves from the civil war. The map is part of a series of measures, including a searchable database of victims and graves, designed to satisfy the demands of people such as Gómez's grandson, Agustín Fernández, who led a local campaign to dig up the Loma de Montija grave. "We used to go and lay flowers there on All Saints' Day, but the police would try to stop us and others would take them away. Even now the village is split," said Fernández, 64, who is waiting for DNA tests to identify his grandmother. Severina Gómez was one of some 120,000 leftwing sympathisers killed away from the frontline by the nationalist forces of the rightwing dictator General Francisco Franco after he rebelled against Spain's elected government in 1936. "My father died with the pain of never having recovered his mother's corpse," Fernández said. In 2007 the socialist government introduced what became known as the "historical memory" law, which recognised victims of the Franco regime. Other measures by the government have included removing 570 Francoist monuments and symbols from public places, awarding 13,400 pensions to people orphaned or sent into exile as children and giving Spanish nationality to 188,000 descendants of exiles. Presenting the results of almost four years of work, the interior minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, said: "No human being should be buried in a ditch." Not everyone, however, agrees that the government of prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has achieved its aim of closing wounds. "It is an aberration," complained Maria Eugenia Yague, daughter of one of Franco's most infamous civil war generals, in a recent letter to the defence ministry after her father's bust was removed from a sports centre in nearby Burgos. "This is no way to govern." Others think the government should do much more. "It is great that the government publishes a map," said Emilio Silva, president of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory. "But I don't understand why it refuses to look for and dig up the victims itself, leaving it to volunteer groups like us. "The crimes are as bad as they can get: kidnapping, torture, murder and the concealment of corpses," he said, adding that his group received just ¤46,000 (£41,000) a year to carry out the work. So far, about 250 of the more than 2,000 mass graves have been excavated, with 5,400 bodies found. He also criticised an announcement by Rubalcaba that it would be too difficult to recover and identify the tens of thousands of corpses that Franco ordered to be moved to the Valley of the Fallen basilica near Madrid, where he himself would be buried two decades after the civil war. Silva is the man who sparked the historical memory movement by digging up his own grandfather and a dozen other victims from a mass grave in the northern town of Priaranza del Bierzo in October 2000. A grassroots campaign to dig up graves eventually broke down decades of government silence and popular fear of raking over the coals of the civil war, which often pitted neighbour against neighbour and left lasting wounds in towns and villages across the country. With archives finally open for proper study, volunteers and local historians across Spain have slowly revealed the full scope of Francoist repression for the first time. Last month the British historian and Franco biographer Paul Preston published, in Spanish, a definitive study of the repression on both sides of the civil war called The Spanish Holocaust, which is to be published in English later this year. He distinguishes between the impulsive violence of uncontrolled thugs and leftwing extremists among those defending the republic and the systematic, deliberate nationalist repression which one Francoist general called an attempt to eliminate "all those who do not think like us". "A programme of terror and annihilation constituted the central plank of their plan," says Prof Preston. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| LA Noire: The interactive detective Posted: 05 May 2011 12:00 PM PDT  The makers of Grand Theft Auto are set to revolutionise gaming by exploring the noir crime genre. Here the aim is to interrogate criminals – not kill them Two police detectives burst into a filthy apartment. A woman is cowering on the floor amid upturned furniture as a group of hired thugs search every drawer and cupboard. A fist fight ensues, the heavies are dispatched and the officers are left to question the traumatised victim. How do they start questioning her? How will they know if she's telling the truth? Well, that's your problem. You are the cop and this is a whole new type of video game. LA Noire is the latest offering from Rockstar Games, the notorious publisher of Grand Theft Auto and last year's brilliant western shooter, Red Dead Redemption. The action takes place in the seamy, crime-sodden LA of the late 40s; the familiar hunting ground of Raymond Chandler, James Ellroy and Dashiell Hammett – all huge influences on the game's director, Brendan McNamara. The player takes on the role of rookie detective Cole Phelps as he investigates a series of kidnaps and murders, studying crime scenes, talking to witnesses and interrogating suspects. Gamers are able to choose the tone of each Q&A session, playing nice and going in gently, or challenging every word the subject utters. Vitally, progress is made by watching characters as they stutter and squirm, judging whether they're lying or terrified; it's not killing people, it's reading them. The realism of these virtual humans is incredible. In one scene the gamer has to question an actor who has been drugged, shoved in the back of a car and wheeled down an embankment in a thwarted murder attempt. Her eyes dart about, she shifts uncomfortably, her brows furrow in agitation – she's hiding something. These aren't the gross caricatures of facial expressions we're used to in video games; they are subtle and natural. Later, the gamer talks to a weasely prop house owner who has been caught running a seedy casting coach. He snarls his way through the session, but after a few threats he wilts, his expression droops. At times, it is almost photographic. What LA Noire represents is a new era for interactive entertainment. Over the past 30 years, games have been based around challenging the player's hand-eye co-ordination – the ability to react quickly with a controller. But in LA Noire, the main skill is emotional perception, being able to judge body language and facial "tells" – the little nervous tics that betray liars. These are the same skills we use in real life and that allow us to engage with characters in TV and movie dramas. Suddenly then, games are a universal medium. They have hinted at this before. Last year's gruelling psychological drama Heavy Rain required players to engage with troubled characters and carry out simple detective work, while the Mass Effect series of science-fiction adventures has provided a rich, emotional narrative. But the naturalism, the human drama of these games, has always been held back by slightly lifeless character models. Central to the human realism in LA Noire is the motion-scan technology, a new method of capturing facial expressions, researched and developed by the game's creators, the Sydney-based studio Team Bondi. Standard motion-capture means that the actor's face is covered in small, reflective balls, which are tracked by a camera. "The problem with that is that having little balls on someone's face doesn't really capture the muscles or the skin movement," says McNamara. "It just captures skeletons and there aren't that many joints in the human face." But with motion-scan, each actor is surrounded by 32 cameras, which record every intricate movement at the rate of 1,000 frames-per-second, creating a three-dimensional animation of the actor's face as they deliver lines. All of this is captured in a special studio, complete with stark, white lighting: "When we first described this weird process to the actors, they thought they were going to be reprogrammed, like Alex in A Clockwork Orange," jokes McNamara. The casting has also been vital. Team Bondi avoided going for film superstars, because their mannerisms and emotional cues will be too familiar to gamers. Instead, they've opted for lesser-known actors. Aaron Staton, who plays Ken Cosgrove in Mad Men, is Phelps. "When we started looking at the roles, Dan Houser [vice-president of Rockstar Games], had seen Aaron in Mad Men and thought he was an interesting actor," explains McNamara. "Luckily, we used the same casting agency as Mad Men, so once we had Aaron on board, half the rest of the cast heard about it and asked to be in it, too. Lots of them have cameos!" There are over 400 characters in the game, and its script that would cover two seasons of a major TV series. But, for all this talk of human drama, LA Noire is still an action game. Between the interrogation scenes, there are shoot-outs and car chases, there are bank robberies to foil. Team Bondi claims a new style of co-operative gameplay will emerge to deal with this dichotomy. "One interesting phenomenon we've seen while testing the game is that three or four people will sit down and play together on a couch, with one handling the shoot-outs and the brawls, and someone else doing the conversations. It becomes an interactive experience that families might choose over half an hour of TV," adds McNamara. So is there a future in which games abandon the need for visceral action altogether and concentrate on human relationships? McNamara is convinced this will happen, and, as internet-connected televisions become more readily available, we're going to see experiences that merge traditional TV shows with video game elements. "It's going to happen sooner than you think," he says. "We have shown with LA Noire the level of humanity you can get into games, the level of immersion, the believability of the characters. Games have always been good at interactivity, but where we've fallen down is in areas like story and characters. If we bring all that in, there's no reason interactive TV shows couldn't happen." Until recently, games were about crude characters blasting space aliens; now they can be about rounded humans learning to gauge photorealistic strangers. McNamara's ideas about deep interactive dramas being broadcast like TV shows sound outlandish, but the technological building blocks are there. LA Noire points the way. We are going to need to put down our controllers and pick up on our people skills. • LA Noire will be released for Xbox 360 and PS3 on 20 May guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Posted: 05 May 2011 04:32 PM PDT  Corn Exchange, Cambridge Dividing 19 years of marriage by $20m alimony, John Cleese's former wife made $3,650 each day she spent as Mrs C. The divorce has driven Cleese to undertake his first ever UK standup tour. Alyce Faye Eichelberger (for it was she) gets it in the neck for a tart 10 minutes, before spiky cedes to cosy and our host settles into rose-tinted reminiscence of his TV heyday. It's more This Is Your Life than standup, but Cleese proves a better tour guide than he was a hotelier, leading us along the promenade of wartime Weston-super-Mare and up to the giddy heights of 1960s and 70s entertainment. The funnies here are more likely to be found on grainy old film footage, of Cleese and Marty Feldman on their 1960s sketch show, say, than live onstage. Cleese traces his ascent from stifling lower middle-class, where the apex of ambition was avoidance of embarrassment, to Broadway, where he ended up part of a hit Footlights revue. We see slides of him, Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor onstage, screen-grabs of a scene he performed with Peter Sellers, and clips of the Frost Report, Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, with well-oiled anecdotes attached. Ex-wife-bashing aside, there's no hint of the black humour Cleese claims as his trademark. His drily funny commentary can't hide a serious-mindedness, and he encourages, rather than undercuts, the reverence in which his once-anarchic comedies are now held. But stateliness is redeemed by Cleese's affection for his co-stars of yesteryear, and his gratitude that opportunity came his way. It's a nostalgic evening rather than an especially comical one. While Cleese may be now relatively short on dollars, in showbiz memories he's still a rich man. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Submissive fantasies turn me on Posted: 05 May 2011 01:00 PM PDT  Introduce him to some playful erotic bondage, advises Pamela Stephenson Connolly I'm a 29-year-old girl who has always been turned on by submissive fantasies – such as being raped, tortured, tied up etc. I know these are common female fantasies, but my problem is I can't have an orgasm during normal sex. I can't even get turned on unless I think about submissive situations. My partner wouldn't understand if I told him what I really crave. Sometimes I think I should just give up on normal relationships and find a partner who'll be my "master" as opposed to a kind, loving, normal guy who I can enjoy all other aspects of my life with. It's interesting that you think your current situation is the opposite to what you crave, because this "normal" relationship actually has all the trappings of power-exchange sex. You withhold pleasure from yourself because you don't allow your partner to understand who you really are sexually, and he – through ignorance – is unwittingly performing a dominant role. People are more multi-faceted than you think, and he may surprise you. Your desires are not unusual. Stop allowing your guilt to maintain this unconscious acting-out of your sadomasochistic desires. Find a gentle, palatable way to gradually introduce him to some playful erotic bondage, domination, or role-playing in a safe, sane and consensual manner. If you tandem "vanilla" fantasies with the submissive ones you will eventually develop more variety, but give yourself permission to accept your sexual style. • Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist who specialises in treating sexual disorders. • Send your problem to private.lives@guardian.co.uk guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Third of Africans 'now middle class' Posted: 05 May 2011 09:56 AM PDT  Findings challenge view of continent as a place of famine and poverty One in three Africans is middle class, a rising group of consumers to rival those of China and India, researchers have found. Record numbers of people in Africa own houses and cars, use mobile phones and the internet and send their children to private schools and foreign universities, according to the African Development Bank. Mthuli Ncube, the bank's chief economist, said the findings should challenge long-held perceptions of Africa as a continent of famine, poverty and hopelessness. "Hey you know what, the world please wake up, this is a phenomenon in Africa that we've not spent a lot of time thinking about," Ncube said. "There is a middle class that is driven by specific factors such as education and we should change our view and work with this group to create a new Africa and make sure Africa realises its full potential." Ncube said the study used an absolute definition of middle class, meaning people who spend between $2 and $20 a day, which he believed was appropriate given the cost of living for Africa's nearly 1 billion people. The study found that, by last year, Africa's middle class had risen to about 34% of the continent's population, or about 313m people – up from around 111m (26%) in 1980 and 196m (27%) in 2000. The growth rate of the middle class over the past 30 years was about 3.1%, slightly faster than that of the total population. Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt had proportionately the biggest middle classes in Africa, while Liberia, Burundi and Rwanda had the smallest. The Africa middle classes are more likely to have salaried jobs or own small businesses. They tend not to rely entirely on public health services, seeking more expensive medical care. The middle classes tend to have fewer children and spend more on their nutrition and schooling. Sales of fridges, TVs and mobile phones have surged in virtually every African country in recent years, the report said. Possession of cars and motorcycles in Ghana, for example, has gone up by 81% in the past five years. "They own houses and they account for the bulk of housing ownership," Ncube said. "They own cars – people are driving cars in Lagos, in Kampala, in Harare, in Ouagadougou – it's the same middle class. You can even see it in the consumption of petrol. The bulk of them are consuming ICT services and mobile telephony, although the poor are also consumers of mobile telephone services.. They would also send their children to school, preferably private schools, but also schools outside the continent. The same class is sending their children to universities outside their home country, in South Africa, in Australia, in Canada, naturally Europe – France is a bigger absorber from the French-speaking countries – and the US." The middle class was responsible for at least half of Africa's GDP of $1.6tn, he added. The trend reflected years of sustained economic growth, with sub-Saharan Africa projected at 5.5% this year. "This has implications," Ncube said. "How should the rest of the world engage with Africa, given this middle class? I think it means that those who want to invest should take the opportunity and look for partners within Africa to invest jointly with." The focus of aid and development assistance would also have to change in the next 10 to 15 years, he argued. "It will have to concentrate less on the bottom of the pyramid and move to the middle, which means it has to be supportive of private sector initiatives, which then are the way middle class people conduct their lives." Africa has a relatively young population and has seen millions migrate from rural areas to cities, where shopping malls with designer labels and smart coffee shops are springing up across the continent. Ncube acknowledged that a widening, internet-literate middle class could pose a threat to autocratic leaders, as seen in Egypt and Tunisia. "The middle class is a source of democracy in Africa in a sense that they are custodians of democracy. They are the people who are educated, they know how to vote, they know what they want, they've got interests to protect. Supporting this class in a way also helps institution building in Africa. But the research found that poverty remains deeply entrenched, with 61% of Africa's population living on less than $2 a day. An estimated 21% earn only enough to spend $2 to $4 a day, leaving about 180 million people vulnerable to economic shocks that could knock them out of the new middle class. At the top of the pyramid, an elite of about 100,000 Africans had a collective net worth of 60% of the continent's gross domestic product in 2008, the report said. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Posted: 05 May 2011 01:19 PM PDT  'There is comfort in pop fandom – I'm reassured by a new Fall release. Michael Bublé fans can say the same of him' Like a lot of people, I was thoroughly seduced by the first Fleet Foxes album, to the extent that my initial thought on hearing their new one was: hold on, do I actually need this? They smelt, from the start, like a band that did a particular thing very well. Did that mean they should do it again? Subsequent plays of Helplessness Blues have left me little the wiser. Fleet Foxes are very kind indeed on the ear, so it's easy to lose yourself in their heartbreaking wistfulness – but it was the first time around, too, and a second dose of this immediately soothing folk-pop feels a little like sucking both thumbs at once. Perhaps they'll be one of those bands that simply sticks with the style they've got and wrings maximum effect out of it. A couple of weeks ago I asked friends on Twitter to name the acts who had gained the most critical acclaim with the least stylistic variety. I got a range of convincing responses, from the Ramones to the White Stripes, which pointed to two ways to keep critics onside without changing your sound too much. One – the most common – is to go the AC/DC route, and spin your consistency as a brand of no-bullshit efficiency or truth-telling. The other is to be so idiosyncratic that you own your own patch of pop from the start, like Stereolab. What was interesting, though, were the answers that got me all defensive. Take the Fall, for example. Once you've been initiated, it's very easy to see the group shift between post-punk, rockabilly, and art rock: play Totally Wired then Free Range and the differences are obvious. Except they're also not – to the non-fan, the primary texture of the Fall is absolutely changeless. The band is forever a scary man mumbling nonsense over a savage clatter: next to that, the precise nature of said clatter is irrelevant. We like to think that the fan's perspective is more valid, and it's certainly more rewarding and interesting to hear from people who've dug into a band enough to track its progression. But it's also the case that the idea of artistic progression flatters the listener: there is a strong element of comfort in pop fandom, not necessarily tied to any smoothness in the sound. Once I'd been buying Fall records for a while I realised I felt reassured – cosy, even – when each new one appeared, and I'd imagine a Michael Bublé fan would say much the same about him. These powerful feelings are obscured when we focus on the differences between records. There's nothing necessarily wrong with comfort, but it helps if we're honest about it and don't dress up habit as discernment. "Same as last time, only better," is a powerfully attractive proposition: just ask Adele. It's also a potential trap. When the BBC opened its repeat season of Top of the Pops with a 1960s clip show, a familiar highlight was Status Quo doing Pictures of Matchstick Men. But for all the song's charm, the main intrigue is trying to spot hints of the band's future as the ultimate icons of rock consistency. You can hardly imagine these likable hippie chancers evolving, like some terrifying Pokémon of pop, into the Quo's perpetual boogie machine. But there were flashing glances from Francis Rossi to Rick Parfitt that seemed to say: "Hey, Rick, let's ditch this psychedelic malarkey and just chug." Fleet Foxes are as un-Quo a band as you could find, though I already get the sense that if they wanted to make the same record forever, they'd find an uncomplaining fanbase. But Helplessness Blues reminds me more of Portishead's second album. Both records worked to consolidate a debut that hit big out of nowhere. Both managed to completely satisfy expectations and still leave a niggle of disappointment. Portishead, back then, looked as if they might make a career out of consistency. Instead they vanished for a decade, tore the guts out of their sound, and returned on the startling and brilliant Third as a dystopic version of themselves. It doesn't seem likely that Fleet Foxes will do the same. But it's fun to imagine them trying. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Amazon reveals its romantic side Posted: 05 May 2011 04:22 AM PDT  Venture is latest stage in online retailer's growing expansion into publishing its own titles Amazon.com has announced plans to move further into publishing with the launch of a new romance imprint, Montlake Romance, "bringing readers the freshest, most innovative and compelling love stories possible". Montlake, named after a neighbourhood in central Seattle, is the online retailer's fourth imprint, following its flagship venture Amazon Encore, literature in translation imprint Amazon Crossing and bestselling author Seth Godin's The Domino Project, "a series of manifestos by thought leaders". Launching in November with the award-winning writer Connie Brockway's The Other Guy's Bride – in which a budding archaeologist in turn-of-the-century Egypt poses as another man's fiancée – Montlake will publish across the romantic fiction spectrum, from romantic suspense to paranormal romance and fantasy. The "broad range" of new titles will be available to readers in North America in print, Kindle and audio formats from Amazon's website and from bookshops in the US. "Romance is one of our biggest and fastest-growing categories, particularly among Kindle customers, so we can't wait to make The Other Guy's Bride and other compelling titles available to romance fans around the world," said Amazon Publishing vice president Jeff Belle, announcing the news. Brockway said the new imprint was giving her "the opportunity to write romances that capture the imagination as well as the heart and I'm thrilled to invite readers to join me on this exhilarating journey. There are so many stories I've been dying to tell you, and people you simply have to meet." Amazon.com is also looking into launching imprints focusing on other fiction genres, including mystery, science fiction and thrillers, according to US books magazine Publishers Weekly, and is recruiting staff to increase its publishing presence. "We also know our customers enjoy genre fiction of all kinds, so we are busy building publishing businesses that will focus on additional genres as well," said Belle. The Bookseller's news editor Graeme Neill said that Amazon was "definitely becoming more aggressive in its publishing business", pointing to the news last month that the online retailer "came close to winning a multi-million dollar auction for self-published author Amanda Hocking, the first time it has bid on a frontlist title", and to its new hiring strategy. "If you go onto Amazon's website, they are currently hiring acquisition editors, publicists, marketing staff. This is something they weren't looking at several years ago," he said. The move into romance is a good one for Amazon, he added, particularly digitally, as "romance and crime readers were the first to really buy into ebooks, so Amazon having its own romance imprint makes a lot of sense as it will only sell its romance ebooks through its own Kindle e-reader". Publishers, however, will be eyeing the retailer's increased publishing presence uneasily. "Publishers will be concerned Amazon is increasingly encroaching on what they see as 'their' business," said Neill. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Posted: 05 May 2011 07:51 AM PDT  I cower at the mere sight of fake guns in the theatre. Why must plays be peppered with this weapon of mass distraction? "Warning: shots will be fired during tonight's performance." Oh no. Must they be? Can't I persuade you to reconsider? If there's one thing I like even less than shots being fired during tonight's performance, it's the nervous anticipation of shots being fired during tonight's performance. Like many a victim of hand-held weaponry before me, I put my hands up: I am scared of gunfire in the theatre. Being shot, to my mind, could scarcely be more painful. Is it just me? We should be able to identify each other easily, we fake-gun-phobes. I'm the one wriggling in discomfort, my fingers poised over my ears, eyes glued to the waggling gun-shaped prop, willing it not to go off – or to bloody well go off now and get things over with. It's happened repeatedly in the last fortnight. (Gun crime-wise, Britain's theatres make South Central LA look like Henley-on-Thames.) At Mamet's Prairie du Chien at the Arcola, a gunshot warning at the auditorium entrance had me on edge throughout. When the shot was fired out of the blue, I all but went through the roof. (It's unexpected loud noises I can't stand; bursting balloons and champagne corks have a similar effect. Pathetic, isn't it?) Guns fired in Little Eagles at Hampstead; guns fired in Uncle Vanya, also at the Arcola. There Vanya was, swinging his shotgun hither and yon, out to avenge some property-related slight; and in the audience, I cowered and winced. This particular episode is at least mercifully brief. Theatre-makers aren't always so delicate. I've seen dozens of productions that derive the lion's share of their drama from a brandished pistol. Sometimes, it's justified. Often – and this is usually in sub-Tarantino tough-guy capers – it's instant, unearned tension; a way for everyone involved to feel like Joe Pesci without doing the spadework. If you're cursed with my phobia, it can compromise your evening. Screeds of dialogue have passed me by over the years, as I've sat with fingers in lugs, anticipating gunfire. That's not irrational. If there's a gun being toted in one's vicinity, one seldom focuses elsewhere. And to be nervous of guns is a survival instinct, right? Just ask the actor David Birrell, accidentally shot in the eye with a fake pistol during a performance last year of Sondheim's Passion at the Donmar. Guns – even stage ones – are dangerous things. But it's not the danger that bothers me, it's the ear-splitting, heart-juddering pop. In a real-life held-at-gunpoint scenario, I reckon I'd be fine – given that, if the bullet was fired, either death or extreme pain would presumably take my mind off the noise. But at the theatre, where there's no such consolation, I'm happiest when I get less bang for my buck. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Are you being stalked by software? Posted: 05 May 2011 05:35 AM PDT  Everyone from Facebook to Ken Livingstone is using the internet to direct marketing at individuals Ever get the feeling you're being followed? I did when I got an email from "Matthew Gale", co-curator of the Joan Miró exhibition at Tate Modern last week, less than 24 hours after seeing the show. "I'm so pleased you visited," he said. "From what I've read on Tate's blog, people appear to be relating to Miró's work in a deeply personal way." I'll tell you what I am relating to in a deeply personal way, "Matthew Gale": being stalked electronically. "Matthew Gale" is not the only piece of software stalking me. I'm also in communication with "Ken Livingstone" and "Ed Miliband". "Ed" sends me rousing emails insisting that I do something about the government. I confess I have been a bit remiss about that. After March's budget he wrote to me: "We're left with a chancellor claiming to deliver a budget for growth – while downgrading the growth forecast. You and I know it's not the wrong type of snow that's to blame, it's the wrong type of chancellor. Get involved." "Ken" has thanked me for all I am doing (think nothing of it, Ken), but he'd like me to do more: "I've launched a new campaign #getagripboris calling on the mayor to sort out the transport crisis in London. Click here to sign the petition," he urged in a "personal" email to me a couple of weeks ago. Meanwhile Facebook is watching my every move, telling me today – seconds after I made a brief visit to the site for the purpose of research – "Welcome back to Facebook!" (I am NEVER coming back, Facebook) and a few days earlier: "You haven't been back to Facebook recently." Have I brought this unwelcome electronic attention on myself? Well, yes: in the sense that, when I signed up for membership of these things, I accepted the privacy policies that went along with them. "Cookies" and similar devices are used to make online interaction more efficient – and to direct marketing and advertising at individual users. Without them, the ability of the internet to function smoothly would be impeded. Cookies are files put on to our computers by websites so that they can remember things about us, such as our browsing habits and payment details when we transact online. They are not illegal. However, the Data Protection Act provides that websites should not process "excessive" personal data, and guidance from the information commissioner's office (ICO) says that organisations collecting data should consider the extent to which that data can be processed anonymously. Later this month a new law amending the EU's privacy and electronic communications directive will come into force, which will require organisations to obtain consent from visitors to their websites before using cookies. However, the directive doesn't require that user consent is obtained if the cookie is "strictly necessary" in order for the website to provide the service requested. The government has confirmed, in its response to consultations on the implementation of the directive, that it regards, for example, the use of cookies in online shopping baskets as "strictly necessary". The government is talking to the industry about enhanced browser settings to harvest consent in other cases and about the use of cookies in behavioural advertising, but that work will not be completed before the 25 May deadline for implementing the directive. In the meantime, the ICO is not expected to take enforcement action where websites are "working to address their use of cookies or are engaged in development work on browsers and/or other solutions". The directive does not apply to Facebook, a US company, and it is not clear whether it would apply to the sort of communication I received from the Tate. I can, in theory, unsubscribe to emails (the Tate was unable to process my request today). That would solve the "Ed" and "Ken" problem, but it wouldn't stop Tate and Facebook snooping on me, because the Faustian contractual pact to which I signed up lets them do it. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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