Government
- Ministers' troubled attempts to reform the house-selling process received another significant setback yesterday when a leading industry body warned that a requirement for sellers to pay for information packs would prove unenforceable. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors will today meet Ruth Kelly, the communities secretary, to urge her to scrap plans to introduce home information packs on August 1. The government has already been forced into two humiliating U-turns over Hips, which have provoked unanimous opposition from industry and consumer bodies. The survey element was dropped from Hips last year and Ms Kelly last month delayed the introduction of Hips and restricted it to four-bedroom houses only. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/afc43ec2-1add-11dc-8bf0-000b5df10621.html
- Britain's next generation combat aircraft, the Joint Strike Fighter, is to enter service three years later than expected, after ongoing funding problems at the Ministry of Defence. Under its planning policy, the MoD does not publicise in-service dates for weapons systems until final procurement contracts have been signed. But a report in trade magazine Aviation Week - not denied by the ministry - said officials had pushed back the planning date for the aircraft's entry from 2014 to 2017. The delay will have profound implications for military commanders, who are hoping to launch the first of two new aircraft carriers to take the JSF in 2013 or 2014. The MoD confirmed it was considering alternatives to fill the gap, including stretching the life of the latest version of the Harrier jump jet beyond 2019. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c432ec28-1add-11dc-8bf0-000b5df10621.html
- Family doctors delivered an overwhelming vote of no confidence in the Government's handling of the NHS yesterday. GPs accused ministers of "wasting a golden opportunity" to transform the health service by "squandering millions of pounds of taxpayers' money". Delegates at the British Medical Association's annual GP conference cheered and applauded enthusiastically when one speaker called on Gordon Brown to sack Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, when he takes over as prime minister on June 27. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/15/nhs115.xml
- Tony Blair has confided to his closest advisers that he fears Gordon Brown could be Labour's Al Gore and will lead the party to defeat at the next general election. The comparison will infuriate the Chancellor. Mr Gore had seemed certain of victory in the US presidential election in 2000 but was beaten by George W Bush. The Prime Minister fears that Mr Brown will copy the tactics of Mr Gore in the presidential poll and freeze him out of any campaigning in the run-up to the general election. Mr Gore publicly defied his advisers when he vetoed any significant role on the hustings for the former president Bill Clinton because he thought his moral legacy over the Lewinsky affair would cost him votes. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/15/nbrown115.xml
- London 2012's controversial logo yesterday received the seal of approval from the International Olympic Committee as a new opinion poll revealed two-thirds of Britons dislike it. After Tony Blair yesterday described the London 2012 logo as "brilliant or awful", the head of an IOC scrutiny panel, in London for a three-day update on progress for 2012, opted firmly for the former verdict. Denis Oswald, chairman of the IOC's evaluation commission, said: "I love it. We had a presentation about two months ago before it became public and when I phoned the IOC president to report, the first thing I told him is 'they have a fantastic logo, very young, very dynamic with flexibility about how it can be used'. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/68b4b422-1adc-11dc-8bf0-000b5df10621.html