An online debate over global warming science has broken out after an unknown hacker broke into the e-mail server at a prominent, British climate-research center, stole more than a thousand e-mails about global warming research and posted them online. Global warming skeptics are seizing on portions of the messages as evidence that scientists are colluding and [...]

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Racism is alive and kicking in Orpington Conservatives, as revealed in a couple of emails sent on the Bromley Council email system to their local councillors and constituency chairman in the early hours of this morning, and leaked to me today. The emails, from Orpington councillor Peter Hobbins, who had eyes on being the Tory Mayoral London Mayoral candidate and who used to be bag carrier to

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My Eastern Region MEP Robert Sturdy has accused the EU of “a classic fudge” over the appointment of its first president and foreign minister, the two top jobs in Europe. The Belgian Prime Minister, Herman Van Rompuy, is the first president elected by European leaders under the Lisbon Treaty, while Baroness Ashton, former Trade Commissioner, [...]

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Paul Belien over at Brussels Journal has an inside track on Herman Van Rompuy. Despite his comic-book name and his benign, avuncular appearance, this is a shrewd political operator. He was once, by all accounts, a human being, but has gone over to the Dark Side. Paul equates him to Saruman in the Lord of the Rings. The important point to take on board is that this is the Commission's man on the Council....

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So the news is spreading that the Belgian PM, Herman Van Rompuy, would be the first president of the EU. I am not going to comment on what that means for the EU now. It’s after nine in the evening here, and I’m preparing my teaching for tomorrow morning (and for reasons I need not [...]

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CONSISTENCY ISN'T THEIR STRONG POINT, CONT'D.... We talked yesterday about how Republicans haven't exactly been consistent when it comes to their deeply held beliefs on the perils of judicial filibusters. But their consistency on trials for terrorists is arguably more...

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People in Wales at risk of contracting swine flu have been urged to get vaccinated against the virus after it emerged five people have been diagnosed with a strain resistant to Tamiflu.

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Bank loses appeal over wheelchair access case The Royal Bank of Scotland has lost its appeal over a ruling that it failed to cater for the wheelchair access needs of a disabled teenager who was awarded £6,500 damages. David Allen, 18, who has muscular dystrophy, took legal action after the bank failed to install wheelchair access at the Church Street branch in Sheffield, close to where he is studying...

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The emergency services are braced for more heavy rain after England's wettest day on record claimed the life of a "heroic" policeman and left thousands of others counting the cost of flooded homes and businesses.

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The British couple kidnapped by Somali pirates have spoken on camera for the first time to warn that their captors are "losing patience" and could kill them within a week.

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JOHN Carlin, owner of the Allerdale Court Hotel in Cockermouth town centre: "I have lived here for 15 years and have never seen anything like it. At two o'clock, it wa

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The Administrators of Threshers' owner First Quench announced another swath of store closures and more than 1,900 job losses yesterday. KPMG said 381 stores would close with the loss of 1,908 jobs, while a further 34 staff would go at the off-licence group's head office.

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