Category: news

George Osborne has promised to see through the government’s spending cuts programme, saying it will “get us out of this stronger”.

The chancellor, who will unveil the Spending Review on Wednesday, said overcoming the deficit was key to the UK “paying our way in the world”.

He declined to discuss press reports that child benefits for 16 to 19-year-olds could be abolished.

Labour accused the chancellor of planning “economic masochism”.

Mr Osborne’s Spending Review will outline which areas of Whitehall’s budget will be hit the hardest, as the government attempts to reduce the £155bn deficit. The aim is to save £83bn in four years.

Ministers are understood to have agreed an 8% cut in the Ministry of Defence’s £37bn budget, following tense negotiations.

The government has also announced new sanctions to deal with benefit cheats, promising that anyone with three convictions could forfeit their rights to claim money from the state for up to three years.

Mr Osborne told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show: “We have to see this through”.

He said: “The priority has been to target waste and welfare, to invest in our healthcare, to have real increases in our school budgets and to invest in the things that are going to make our economy strong…

“We have got to make some tough decisions but the priority is healthcare, children’s education, early years provision – particularly for some of our poorest – and the big infrastructure developments like Crossrail, Mersey Gateway, the synchrotron, broadband.

“Those things are actually going to get us out of this stronger and able to pay our way in the world.”

He added: “Our plan is the plan that will restore credibility to the public finances.

“It is what the IMF, the OECD, international observers say is necessary. It is what British business says is necessary.

“So we have to see this through, and the course which I set in the Budget is the one that we have to stick to.

“People in this country know we were on the brink of bankruptcy, and if we are going to have growth and jobs in the future we have got to move this country into a place where people can invest with confidence.”

But Labour’s shadow chancellor Alan Johnson today accused the government of “economic masochism”, adding that cuts could happen “too deeply and too quickly”, damaging the recovery.

He said he believed that a tax on banks should “play a bigger role” in cutting the deficit and that Labour would look at increasing capital gains tax.

Mr Johnson, who was made shadow chancellor last week, added: “I don’t want us to be in a double-dip recession – what it looks like to me, and I’m learning the jargon already, is an L-shaped recession.

“We’re bumping along the bottom, we’re not picking up any kind of momentum at all.”

Labour will unveil its own plans for the economy on Monday, setting out a £7bn “push for growth” funded largely by levies on the banks.

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Chancellor George Osborne suggests work on two aircraft carriers will continue, despite planned spending cuts.

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Plans for a controversial £30bn Severn barrage tidal energy project stretching from Weston-super-Mare in Somerset to Cardiff are expected to be scrapped.

Secretary of State for Energy Chris Huhne is expected to make the announcement in Parliament on Monday.

Reports suggest the scheme is to be axed as it is not “financially viable” and that instead he will give the go-ahead to new nuclear power stations.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change could not confirm or deny it.

Supporters of the tidal project, which would link Lavernock Point near Cardiff, to Brean Down near Weston-Super-Mare, claimed it could generate 5% of Britain’s electricity.

Dr Rob Kirby, an oceanographer and independent consultant, said: “The government’s view is that it’s too big a project to approach in financial terms.

“Raising the money in this financial climate would be too much of a challenge.

“The barrage has been killed off for the moment by environmental fundamentalism because environmentalists have always objected to the Severn barrage.

“It’s quite unambiguous – the Cardiff to Weston (barrage) can only benefit the environment and those who say otherwise are not telling the truth.”

Chris Witts, a Liberal Democrat councillor for Gloucester City Council and a River Severn historian, said: “I’m delighted if the barrage is to be scrapped.

“We’re messing with nature in too big a way. I hear stories from around the world that barrages have created problems and I wouldn’t want to see problems created on the Severn.

“I’m not against getting energy from the Severn but not with a barrage on this scale.”

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Liverpool boss Roy Hodgson has received the backing of the club’s new owners, New England Sports Ventures, ahead of Sunday’s Merseyside derby with Everton.

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Two people have died and three others suffered minor injuries when their vehicle overturned in Bridgend.

The crash happened just after 0400 BST at Blackmill Bends in Bridgend.

The injured people were treated at the scene and fire and rescue crews are still there.

South Wales Police say the A4061 is currently closed in both directions, and they are investigating. More details will follow later.

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Fourteen people were injured, two of them seriously, when a car mounted a pavement and struck them outside a nightclub in Greater Manchester.

The victims were standing outside Dali Bar in Rochdale town centre when the collision happened in the early hours.

Two men were believed to be in the Saab, which was then driven off. Greater Manchester Police said they were looking for the car and driver.

A spokesman said no-one was believed to have life-threatening injuries.

The hit-and-run collision happened on Packer Street, a main street near the town hall, at about 0200 BST.

Emergency services were called and six ambulances attended the scene. Ten casualties were taken by ambulance to three local hospitals.

The others suffered minor injuries and were treated at the scene.

They are now being treated in Fairfield General Hospital in Bury, Royal Oldham and North Manchester Hospital.

Investigations are continuing.

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A British security consultant who was kidnapped by armed gunman in Somalia is “well and is being looked after”, the charity Save the Children has said.

The consultant, and a local worker, who was later freed unharmed, were seized in the town of Adado on Thursday.

Anna Ford, Save the Children’s spokeswoman in Nairobi, said: “We can confirm that he is well. He is being looked after and is in good spirits.”

She also called for his release, the Press Association news agency reported.

She said the charity was still extremely concerned for the welfare of the man – a British national who was born in Zimbabwe.

The security consultant had gone to the area to see if it was safe enough for Save the Children to set up a new base to help malnourished and sick children, along with their families.

But on Thursday evening, a group of masked gunmen stormed the building used as a staff residence.

High walls and a heavy steel gate reportedly forced the kidnappers to climb in through a window before they fled with their hostages into an area said to be controlled by the hardline Islamist group al-Shabab, which has links to al-Qaeda.

Adado, which is near the Ethiopian border, is also closely linked to pirate groups who routinely take ships and crew hostage and demand hefty ransoms.

Until now, Adado had been seen as a relatively stable part of Somalia, with aid groups considering relocating there after being forced out of more volatile regions.

Several foreigners have been kidnapped in Somalia in recent years.

Most have been freed unhurt after a ransom has been paid.

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Pope Benedict XVI is due to officially recognise Australia’s first saint, Mary MacKillop, a Melbourne-born nun who worked with needy children.

Thousands of Australians have arrived in Rome to witness the canonisation of MacKillop, who died in 1909.

She clashed with senior clergy and was briefly excommunicated, in part for exposing a sex-abusing priest.

Five other people are to be canonised, among them Brother Andre, a Canadian monk credited with healing powers.

After excommunicating Mary MacKillop in 1871, the Church later exonerated her and she was eventually put on the road to sainthood by Pope John Paul II, who beatified her in 1995.

For anyone to become a saint, the Church has to officially recognise their intermediary role in two miracles.

Pope John Paul II recognised the first, and last year Pope Benedict ruled a person had been cured of cancer after praying for the nun’s assistance.

Because of her role in exposing clerical abuse, some have called for MacKillop to made a patron saint of abused children.

In recent years, there has been a wave of cases around the world in which Church authorities failed to deal properly with priests accused of child abuse, sometimes just moving them to new parishes where more children were put at risk.

Hundreds of nuns from the order MacKillop helped found, the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, have travelled to the Vatican to witness her canonisation.

Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd will also be among the spectators.

He described MacKillop as “an extraordinary Australian woman”.

She has become a kind of religious celebrity in Australia, where there is great anticipation about her canonisation, says the BBC’s Duncan Kennedy in Rome.

She has been the subject of a musical, has stamps and pop songs in her honour and her image has been projected onto Sydney’s Harbour Bridge.

Thousands of people have attended a Mass in Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral to mark her passage to sainthood.

And all week, pilgrims have been converging on the chapel and museum at the site in North Sydney where she died, says the BBC’s Nick Bryant in Sydney.

Candidates from Canada, Poland, Italy and Spain are also being officially recognised as saints at the Vatican ceremony.

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Fifa is investigating allegations two of its officials offered to sell their votes in the contest to host the 2018 World Cup.

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Britain’s Andy Murray beats Roger Federer 6-3 6-2 in the final of the Shanghai Masters to win his second title of the year.

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Six men have been charged following the seizure of a substantial quantity of illegal drugs in Portstewart.

The haul on Friday was estimated to have a street value of half a million pounds.

The six men, aged 20 to 26, have been charged with a number of offences including possession of Class A drugs with intent to supply, and conspiracy to supply Class A drugs.

They are expected to appear before Coleraine Magistrates Court on Monday.

A 35-year-old man who also arrested during the police operation has been released unconditionally.

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Queen guitarist Brian May is to receive an award in the House of Lords in recognition of his animal welfare work.

The 63-year-old rock legend is being honoured by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

Mr May, who has homes in London and Surrey, has supported the Harper Asprey Wildlife Rescue centre in Camberley.

He also launched the Save Me campaign to ensure that the present laws protecting animals from cruelty are kept in place.

He said: “Fighting for the welfare of our wild animals is not a task that any of us want to have to do.

“We do it because these magnificent animals live, breathe, see, hear, and feel pleasure and pain like we do, but they do not speak our language, so in the world of humans, they have no voice.

“They have no way to speak out against the abuse being perpetrated against them.”

Mr May will receive his honour during the Animal Action Awards ceremony at the House of Lords on Tuesday.

Robbie Marsland, the director of IFAW, said Mr May had been dedicated to protecting animals for many years.

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Pope Benedict XVI has officially recognised Australia’s first saint, Mary MacKillop, a Melbourne-born nun who worked with needy children.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

The government has set out a series of measures to tackle benefit fraud, as ministers spend the weekend finalising spending cuts.

The steps would mean anyone with three convictions could forfeit their rights to benefits for up to three years.

Chancellor George Osborne told the News of the World that welfare cheats were like muggers who robbed taxpayers of billions of pounds a year.