Iran and pensions continue to dominate the headlines this morning.The Telegraph leading with
Brown's tax raid 'forced on civil servants'
Gordon Brown's £5 billion-a-year tax raid on pension funds was forced on "nervous" civil servants who were alarmed by the scale and speed of Labour's tax changes after coming to power, it emerged last night.
The news came as the Chancellor found himself embroiled in an escalating controversy about his decision 10 years ago to scrap dividend tax relief as he aims to succeed Tony Blair as Prime Minister this summer.Mr Brown's defence of his most controversial decision in his decade at the Treasury unravelled as former civil servants and business leaders told The Daily Telegraph that they rejected his attempt to blame them for the crisis.
Brown 'railroaded' £5bn pension raid claims Blair guru says the Mail
Gordon Brown railroaded through a damaging £5 billion-a-year raid on pension funds against all advice, Tony Blair’s former chief economic adviser claimed yesterday.
Derek Scott’s incendiary intervention came as business chiefs lined up to accuse the Treasury of spin over claims they lobbied for a new pensions tax.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Mr Scott said the Chancellor’s key lieutenant, City minister Ed Balls, had been "very foolish" to claim that the Confederation of British Industry had pressed for the change.
Brown aide’s claim on tax grab is completely untrue, says CBI reports the Times
As the Chancellor maintained his silence on the issue, the Confederation of British Industry went on the offensive, saying it was “completely untrue” that it had ever supported the hugely controversial £5 bil-lion-a-year tax raid on pensions in Labour’s first Budget in 1997. The extraordinary row is a blow to the Chancellor’s long-fought-for reputation as a friend of business.
But according to the Mirror
YEO: CHANCELLOR NOT AT FAULT
TORY adviser Stephen Yeo yesterday insisted Gordon Brown was not to blame for the company pensions crisis.
A partner at Watson Wyatt pensions consultants, Mr Yeo said scrapping tax relief was not behind funding problems.
He added: "I don't think it is even in the top three reasons."
The Chancellor will today face questions about abolishing pensions tax relief when he joins Tony Blair to launch Labour's local election campaign.
Mr Brown will hit back publicly for the first time since it was revealed on Friday that he was advised against scrapping tax relief by Treasury officials. The row escalated when Economic Secretary Ed Balls said CBI business leaders had approved the abolition in Mr Brown's first Budget in 1997.
The Independent leads with
The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis claiming
A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines.
Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds.
In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The Independent has learned. The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment.
The Guardian reports signs of a first breakthrough
Iran outlines conditions for release of UK sailors
Iran's most senior diplomat, Ali Larijani, called for a "delegation" to rule on whether a British naval patrol entered Iranian waters last month before his government would release the 15 marines and sailors it is holding captive.
Laying out what appeared to be a vague road map for the freeing of the British personnel, Mr Larijani said that, if it was found they had crossed into Iranian territory, there should be an apology and they would then be released.
New hope for 15 hostages headlines the Sun
A key official crucially withdrew the threat to put the eight sailors and seven Marines through a show trial.
Instead, the regime’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani insisted they wanted to “solve the problem through proper diplomatic channels”.
Larijani — also head of Tehran’s national security council — told Channel 4 TV news last night: “We are not interested in letting this issue get further complicated. We believe that this issue can be resolved. And there is no need for any trial.”
It leads though with the revelation that
Fury at RAF Kamikaze plan
RAF Top Guns were stunned last night after being asked to think of being Kamikaze pilots in the war on terror.
Elite fliers were shocked into silence when a senior RAF chief said they should consider suicide missions as a last resort against terrorist targets.
Air Vice Marshal David Walker put forward the attacks — like those flown by desperate Japanese pilots in World War Two — as a “worst case scenario” should they run out of ammo or their weapons failed.
The Guardian leads with the news that
New evidence on date rape prompts call for drugs ban
Ministers are to consider banning two new "date rape" drugs, amid warnings from experts that the true scale of sexual assaults assisted by drugs may be greater than official figures suggest.
In a report, the government's drug advisers say substance use in rapes and sexual assaults is now a significant problem. Research concluded illicit drugs were a factor one in three assaults. Experts say that while alcohol is probably the most common "weapon", the fact that victims in drug cases are even less likely to go the police means the true picture is unclear.
The Home Office's advisory council on the misuse of drugs calls for the restriction of two substances which it says are being imported into Britain in increasing amounts from America, where they are illegal.
The Times also leads with a health story
Patients put at risk by delays in cancer care
More than half of all cancer patients needing lifesaving radiotherapy are waiting longer than the Government’s “maximum acceptable delay” for treatment, according to a damning report.
The Times has been told that the paper shows huge variations in the delivery of treatments around the country, with many “black holes” where services are extremely poor.
The study, by the National Radiotherapy Advisory Group, has not been published and ministers have not indicated that it will be. But Professor Karol Sikora, a cancer specialist, said that it should provoke “an outcry for better provision”.
The Mirror reports on a
MAY MELTDOWN
LABOUR is at risk of losing power in Wales AND Scotland in the May 3 elections, leaked papers reveal.
Documents from Labour HQ warn Tony Blair the party could lose seven seats to the Tories in Wales - paving the way for a shock Conservative win.
This comes after a series of polls have shown Labour is also at risk of losing power to the Nationalists in Scotland.
According to the polls, Scottish voters are seriously considering Alex Salmond and the SNP as an alternative to the Labour administration at Holyrood.
Guilty: cocaine baron who ran his empire from the Conran Hotel reports the Indy
The head of the "most sophisticated and successful operation" ever to smuggle cocaine into Britain was found guilty yesterday at the end of an 11-year investigation to shut down his global network.
Brendan Brian Wright, 60, known in the criminal underworld as The Milkman for his unfailing ability to deliver, could spending the rest of his life in prison when he is sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court today.
As well as trading cocaine on an industrial scale, amassing a personal fortune of about £600m, Wright was suspected of horse doping, race-fixing and bribery over the past 30 years. The professional gambler and unlicensed bookmaker was eventually banned by the Jockey Club, although never charged. Millions of pounds of drugs money was laundered through racing, investigators believe. So rapacious was Wright's appetite for betting that he even wagered an investigator £1m for a £1 stake that he would never be caught.
The Mail meanwhile reports on its front page that
Boy on skunk cannabis butchered a grandmother
a teenager who was crazed by high-strength cannabis butchered a grandmother after 'voices in his head' told him to stab a woman.
Ezekiel Maxwell, a paranoid schizophrenic, launched the horrific attack after years of smoking super-strength 'skunk weed'.
The Guardian reports the latest from Zimbabwe where
Mugabe opponents fear hope is already crushed before Zimbabwe general strike
Zimbabwe's trade unions have called a two-day national strike from this morning, ostensibly over the plummeting value of wages under rampant inflation that has left many people unable to afford the bus fare to work.
But many Zimbabweans view the strike as a demand for an end to Robert Mugabe's 27-year rule. Previous attempts to call a strike have flopped, in part because of intimidation by the police and army, but also because almost anyone with a job in a country with 80% unemployment is desperate to hang on to it.
Whilst the Independent reports from Ukraine where
Yushchenko calls snap elections
President Viktor Yushchenko dissolved Ukraine's parliament and called early elections yesterday, bringing the country's political crisis to a critical level, but parliament refused to acknowledge the order and vowed to continue meeting.
The twin moves threatened to plunge this ex-Soviet republic into turmoil amid the continuing standoff between Yushchenko and his rival, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.
Pacific panic over killer tsunami reports the Times
Dozens of people are believed to have died in the Solomon Islands after an underwater earthquake propelled a 10m (33ft) tsunami into coastal villages, washing away entire communities in one of the world’s poorest and most remote nations.
A state of emergency was declared yesterday by Manasseh Sogavare, the Prime Minister, as aftershocks from the magnitude 8.0 earthquake shook the country’s Western province and rescue teams struggled to reach thousands of refugees sleeping out in the open.
The Mirror leads with the news that
TAKE THAT PLAY FOR DIANA
TAKE That will top a sensational line-up of stars at this summer's tribute to Princess Diana.
As the Mirror unveils the full bill for the first time, we can reveal Princes William and Harry have also signed up Kanye West, Rod Stewart, James Blunt and Keane for the Wembley extravaganza.
An insider said: "It's a great line-up. The princes selected acts their mother loved and newer ones she'd have appreciated."
Ths Sun seems obsesseed with
I flashed at our Coleen's 21st
COLEEN McLOUGHLIN wanted her 21st party to be a sophisticated affair.
She had even prepared a booklet for guests, explaining how they should behave when in the company of celebs.
But one sorry, sozzled reveller ripped up the rule book and tore off her top, shamelessly showing snappers her boob.
Even more upsetting for upstaged WAG Coleen was that the flasher was boyfriend WAYNE ROONEY’s tastefully-tattooed, 17-year-old cousin NATALIE ROONEY.
And last night Natalie boasted: “I’ll do the Full Monty if I get an invite to their wedding next year!
“Coleen will probably be fuming about it but I don’t care — it was just a bit of a laugh.”
Brown's tax raid 'forced on civil servants'
Gordon Brown's £5 billion-a-year tax raid on pension funds was forced on "nervous" civil servants who were alarmed by the scale and speed of Labour's tax changes after coming to power, it emerged last night.
The news came as the Chancellor found himself embroiled in an escalating controversy about his decision 10 years ago to scrap dividend tax relief as he aims to succeed Tony Blair as Prime Minister this summer.Mr Brown's defence of his most controversial decision in his decade at the Treasury unravelled as former civil servants and business leaders told The Daily Telegraph that they rejected his attempt to blame them for the crisis.
Brown 'railroaded' £5bn pension raid claims Blair guru says the Mail
Gordon Brown railroaded through a damaging £5 billion-a-year raid on pension funds against all advice, Tony Blair’s former chief economic adviser claimed yesterday.
Derek Scott’s incendiary intervention came as business chiefs lined up to accuse the Treasury of spin over claims they lobbied for a new pensions tax.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Mr Scott said the Chancellor’s key lieutenant, City minister Ed Balls, had been "very foolish" to claim that the Confederation of British Industry had pressed for the change.
Brown aide’s claim on tax grab is completely untrue, says CBI reports the Times
As the Chancellor maintained his silence on the issue, the Confederation of British Industry went on the offensive, saying it was “completely untrue” that it had ever supported the hugely controversial £5 bil-lion-a-year tax raid on pensions in Labour’s first Budget in 1997. The extraordinary row is a blow to the Chancellor’s long-fought-for reputation as a friend of business.
But according to the Mirror
YEO: CHANCELLOR NOT AT FAULT
TORY adviser Stephen Yeo yesterday insisted Gordon Brown was not to blame for the company pensions crisis.
A partner at Watson Wyatt pensions consultants, Mr Yeo said scrapping tax relief was not behind funding problems.
He added: "I don't think it is even in the top three reasons."
The Chancellor will today face questions about abolishing pensions tax relief when he joins Tony Blair to launch Labour's local election campaign.
Mr Brown will hit back publicly for the first time since it was revealed on Friday that he was advised against scrapping tax relief by Treasury officials. The row escalated when Economic Secretary Ed Balls said CBI business leaders had approved the abolition in Mr Brown's first Budget in 1997.
The Independent leads with
The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis claiming
A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines.
Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds.
In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The Independent has learned. The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment.
The Guardian reports signs of a first breakthrough
Iran outlines conditions for release of UK sailors
Iran's most senior diplomat, Ali Larijani, called for a "delegation" to rule on whether a British naval patrol entered Iranian waters last month before his government would release the 15 marines and sailors it is holding captive.
Laying out what appeared to be a vague road map for the freeing of the British personnel, Mr Larijani said that, if it was found they had crossed into Iranian territory, there should be an apology and they would then be released.
New hope for 15 hostages headlines the Sun
A key official crucially withdrew the threat to put the eight sailors and seven Marines through a show trial.
Instead, the regime’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani insisted they wanted to “solve the problem through proper diplomatic channels”.
Larijani — also head of Tehran’s national security council — told Channel 4 TV news last night: “We are not interested in letting this issue get further complicated. We believe that this issue can be resolved. And there is no need for any trial.”
It leads though with the revelation that
Fury at RAF Kamikaze plan
RAF Top Guns were stunned last night after being asked to think of being Kamikaze pilots in the war on terror.
Elite fliers were shocked into silence when a senior RAF chief said they should consider suicide missions as a last resort against terrorist targets.
Air Vice Marshal David Walker put forward the attacks — like those flown by desperate Japanese pilots in World War Two — as a “worst case scenario” should they run out of ammo or their weapons failed.
The Guardian leads with the news that
New evidence on date rape prompts call for drugs ban
Ministers are to consider banning two new "date rape" drugs, amid warnings from experts that the true scale of sexual assaults assisted by drugs may be greater than official figures suggest.
In a report, the government's drug advisers say substance use in rapes and sexual assaults is now a significant problem. Research concluded illicit drugs were a factor one in three assaults. Experts say that while alcohol is probably the most common "weapon", the fact that victims in drug cases are even less likely to go the police means the true picture is unclear.
The Home Office's advisory council on the misuse of drugs calls for the restriction of two substances which it says are being imported into Britain in increasing amounts from America, where they are illegal.
The Times also leads with a health story
Patients put at risk by delays in cancer care
More than half of all cancer patients needing lifesaving radiotherapy are waiting longer than the Government’s “maximum acceptable delay” for treatment, according to a damning report.
The Times has been told that the paper shows huge variations in the delivery of treatments around the country, with many “black holes” where services are extremely poor.
The study, by the National Radiotherapy Advisory Group, has not been published and ministers have not indicated that it will be. But Professor Karol Sikora, a cancer specialist, said that it should provoke “an outcry for better provision”.
The Mirror reports on a
MAY MELTDOWN
LABOUR is at risk of losing power in Wales AND Scotland in the May 3 elections, leaked papers reveal.
Documents from Labour HQ warn Tony Blair the party could lose seven seats to the Tories in Wales - paving the way for a shock Conservative win.
This comes after a series of polls have shown Labour is also at risk of losing power to the Nationalists in Scotland.
According to the polls, Scottish voters are seriously considering Alex Salmond and the SNP as an alternative to the Labour administration at Holyrood.
Guilty: cocaine baron who ran his empire from the Conran Hotel reports the Indy
The head of the "most sophisticated and successful operation" ever to smuggle cocaine into Britain was found guilty yesterday at the end of an 11-year investigation to shut down his global network.
Brendan Brian Wright, 60, known in the criminal underworld as The Milkman for his unfailing ability to deliver, could spending the rest of his life in prison when he is sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court today.
As well as trading cocaine on an industrial scale, amassing a personal fortune of about £600m, Wright was suspected of horse doping, race-fixing and bribery over the past 30 years. The professional gambler and unlicensed bookmaker was eventually banned by the Jockey Club, although never charged. Millions of pounds of drugs money was laundered through racing, investigators believe. So rapacious was Wright's appetite for betting that he even wagered an investigator £1m for a £1 stake that he would never be caught.
The Mail meanwhile reports on its front page that
Boy on skunk cannabis butchered a grandmother
a teenager who was crazed by high-strength cannabis butchered a grandmother after 'voices in his head' told him to stab a woman.
Ezekiel Maxwell, a paranoid schizophrenic, launched the horrific attack after years of smoking super-strength 'skunk weed'.
The Guardian reports the latest from Zimbabwe where
Mugabe opponents fear hope is already crushed before Zimbabwe general strike
Zimbabwe's trade unions have called a two-day national strike from this morning, ostensibly over the plummeting value of wages under rampant inflation that has left many people unable to afford the bus fare to work.
But many Zimbabweans view the strike as a demand for an end to Robert Mugabe's 27-year rule. Previous attempts to call a strike have flopped, in part because of intimidation by the police and army, but also because almost anyone with a job in a country with 80% unemployment is desperate to hang on to it.
Whilst the Independent reports from Ukraine where
Yushchenko calls snap elections
President Viktor Yushchenko dissolved Ukraine's parliament and called early elections yesterday, bringing the country's political crisis to a critical level, but parliament refused to acknowledge the order and vowed to continue meeting.
The twin moves threatened to plunge this ex-Soviet republic into turmoil amid the continuing standoff between Yushchenko and his rival, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.
Pacific panic over killer tsunami reports the Times
Dozens of people are believed to have died in the Solomon Islands after an underwater earthquake propelled a 10m (33ft) tsunami into coastal villages, washing away entire communities in one of the world’s poorest and most remote nations.
A state of emergency was declared yesterday by Manasseh Sogavare, the Prime Minister, as aftershocks from the magnitude 8.0 earthquake shook the country’s Western province and rescue teams struggled to reach thousands of refugees sleeping out in the open.
The Mirror leads with the news that
TAKE THAT PLAY FOR DIANA
TAKE That will top a sensational line-up of stars at this summer's tribute to Princess Diana.
As the Mirror unveils the full bill for the first time, we can reveal Princes William and Harry have also signed up Kanye West, Rod Stewart, James Blunt and Keane for the Wembley extravaganza.
An insider said: "It's a great line-up. The princes selected acts their mother loved and newer ones she'd have appreciated."
Ths Sun seems obsesseed with
I flashed at our Coleen's 21st
COLEEN McLOUGHLIN wanted her 21st party to be a sophisticated affair.
She had even prepared a booklet for guests, explaining how they should behave when in the company of celebs.
But one sorry, sozzled reveller ripped up the rule book and tore off her top, shamelessly showing snappers her boob.
Even more upsetting for upstaged WAG Coleen was that the flasher was boyfriend WAYNE ROONEY’s tastefully-tattooed, 17-year-old cousin NATALIE ROONEY.
And last night Natalie boasted: “I’ll do the Full Monty if I get an invite to their wedding next year!
“Coleen will probably be fuming about it but I don’t care — it was just a bit of a laugh.”
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