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I'm the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

Ofcom has ordered BSkyB to cut the price it sells Sky Sports 1 and 2 to its rivals. Sky has said it will challenge the ruling. BT says it doesn't go far enough and the .

Freeview says its move into HD means sharper pictures will reach the mass market. Half of all homes will be able to receive HD signals by the time of the World Cup. that Freeview is launching a £6m ad campaign.

The editor of Radio 4's Today is under fire from listeners for suggesting on Feedback that women aren't tough enough to present the programme . They respond on the Radio 4 Blog.

The Liberal Democrats have launched a spoof advertising campaign attacking the two main parties .

The government's proposals for a National Care Service in England are given short shrift by the papers as .

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Commentators consider the merits of the government plans for a compulsory levy to create a universal system of social care for adults in England.

costs are unclear but calls the announcement a milestone and urges all parties to look at how they would tackle care for the elderly:

"All the parties are preparing the battlegrounds on which they want to fight for votes. As part of that, we look forward to all of them setting out positive pitches on the future of care. But they also need to avoid boxing themselves in by rejecting sound proposals, just to draw political dividing lines."

that the new policy would be unfair:

"This will hit the less well-off who at present get care for free. The exclusive beneficiaries will be the better-off, or rather their heirs, who will no longer see their inheritance run down to pay for their parents' care. A strange policy for a Labour government this, a subsidy to inheritance that robs poor Peter to pay better-off Paul."

The the government doesn't explain how it will fund more elderly care:

"In the end, the feasibility of the plan depends on the money. Britain spends just over 8 per cent of its national income on health; the USA spends more than twice as much. We could cut elsewhere in order to choose to spend more. Or, we could reallocate the health budget to reflect the central importance of social care. For this all-important question the Health Secretary has no answer."

creating a national anything is tough and can cost a political career but should be worth it:

"Sometimes a politician, if he or she has a vision - and a national care service with standards that matches its name - needs to say to the electorate: this is what we need, this is how we will pay for it; this is why I believe it's right. And then risk his or her political future on the response. That's how history is made - and that's how so called 'Broken Britain' can step a little closer to becoming a compassionate society."

to beware politicians bearing gifts for the elderly:

"But the small print reveals a catch or two. Does the reduction in the attendance allowance lead to cut in disabilities benefits? And should the PM have been quite so keen to trumpet "free care" when accommodation charges can be quite so hefty.
Clearly, so close to a general election, it's hard to get anything like plain-speaking - let alone a political consensus - on something as controversial and challenging as care for the elderly."

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I'm the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

The that the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ has been told by the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Trust to delay the launch of its iPhone apps for news and sport, after complaints by the Newspaper Publishers Association.

The Press Complaints Commission has upheld a complaint against a blog for the first time. The Spectator columnist Rod Liddle was censured after claiming on the magazine's website that the "overwhelming majority" of violent crime in London was carried out by young Afro-Caribbean men .

Ofcom has said internet service providers are still not delivering the promised broadband speeds and the .

her voice to those criticising the Government plans to switchover to digital radio.

Claudia Winkleman is taking Jonathan Ross's place as host of Film 2010. The and the that she says it's her dream job and she even lives next to an Odeon.

There is little consensus in the papers about who came out on top in the TV debate between Chancellor Alistair Darling and his Tory and Lib Dem counterparts as .

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• Read Monday's Media Brief.

• Read .

Commentators give their verdicts on .

The that the debate marked the end of a two-horse-race political system:

"The single most striking thing about the chancellors' debate, however, was that it was a genuine three-way contest. Parliamentary debates maintain the pretence that we still have only two parties. But that's not true. We have three - and more. The presence in the debate of the Liberal Democrat Vince Cable changed the dynamic from the old Labour versus Conservative slanging match to something more nuanced, more problem-orientated and more truthful."

that George Osborne's suggested changes to national insurance gave an excuse for the other two parties to gang up on him:

"I thought Darling and Cable tag-teamed Osborne quite effectively, not least because Osborne persisted in calling his plans a tax cut when, for average earners, they're actually just not a tax rise - which isn't quite the same thing.
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"Overall, Cable was able to play both sides, casting himself as both the Wise Man and the populist bashing both main parties. Darling reminded one that, perhaps alone amongst Labour ministers, his status has risen these past 18 months while Osborne was passable but didn't do much to inspire a great deal of confidence in his abilities."

she was a little bored by Mr Darling and Mr Osborne's "sniping" at each other:

"'You stole my policy,' taunted George while Alistair smirked. Vince had to step in, acting as a sort of grizzled Super-Nanny, getting laughs with his trenchant comments and asides, such as his denunciation of bankers as 'pin-striped Scargills' holding us to ransom."

Vince Cable to have been the "clear winner" and was surprised Alistair Darling "didn't shine", but said George Osborne had the hardest job:

"He's under pressure and the expectation was that Cable and Darling would gang up and do him in. They had a couple of early goes, but he stood his ground and got over his early nerves. It is not an exaggeration to say that this is a show that, if it had gone badly wrong for Osborne, could have done serious damage to the Tories election chances. It didn't go wrong and he emerged stronger."

that he is not prepared to join the "cult of Vince the wizened seer":

"Early on they were asked to boast about their character traits. No British man - not a proper one - is ever comfortable doing such a thing. 'I've got a lot of experience,' said Mr Cable, who has never held a government job, or even been within gravy-sniffing distance of one. He presents himself such an old know-all, but not always with justification."

he would have been scared of the audience:

"Insofar as they came out of it best, it was the audience wot won it. In a representative democracy I'd say these people were largely unrepresented. Serious, reserved, unbiddable - but far from inert. They would have terrified me. They asked very clear, pertinent questions and listened carefully to the answers (that was the most aggressive thing they could do, to listen to the answers)."

the balance of the debate:

"In terms of the grammar of the debate, tonight was fascinating. What happened was that Alastair and Vince attacked George and George and Vince attacked Alastair. The moderator challenged George and Alastair, but Vince somehow managed to sashay through the middle posing as the 'voice of the people,' and as the 'anti-politician.' It worked brilliantly, but at no point did anyone challenge anything he had to say and there was absolutely no scrutiny of his policies whatsoever. It was quite extraordinary. This ought to lead to a review of how the leaders' debates are to be conducted."

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I'm the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

The Government could face a public backlash over its plans to switch national radio stations over to digital transmission, peers have warned. The Communications Committee of the House of Lords says there is "public confusion and industry uncertainty" and the Government must explain its policy urgently and the . The founding director of Digital Radio UK, Andrew Harrison, and Guardian technology editor Jack Schofield debated the issue on Radio 4's Today Programme:

The that Ofcom is expected to review the TV advertising sales system under which commercial broadcasters are forced to sell all their airtime. It could mean increased income for ITV, Channel 4, five and S4C.

The first Conservative posters since the party rehired Maurice and Charles Saatchi go up today. They attack Gordon Brown, after the ones promoting David Cameron seemed to backfire and the

There's a boom in Mills & Boon books being downloaded onto electronic readers such as the Kindle or Sony Reader. Sales are up 57% in Tesco. The publisher says online readers prefer the raunchier titles .

The Times paywall strategy.

Rupert Murdoch has "surrendered" by erecting paywalls around The Times and Sunday Times.

Conservative plans to reverse - in part - a rise in national insurance have attracted much opinion in the newspapers as .

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Commentators gear up for .

the challenges facing Alistair Darling, George Osborne and Vince Cable:

"Osborne might be the man with the most to lose but he is also the man with the most to gain. Osborne's stock is undervalued at the moment, people are ignoring that he has won the argument on debt and that he was the man who forced Brown to call off the election that never was. By contrast, Cable's is overvalued - as that Andrew Neil interview showed, he is nowhere near as good as his press suggests he is. Darling has had an easy ride over the past few years because the political class sees that he is the man trying to restrain Balls and Brown's worst instincts. Darling's knowledge of economics and policy agenda have not been subject to forensic scrutiny."

The George Osborne has the most to prove out of the three and sets out its formula for his success:

"To emerge a winner from this debate, he must explain simply and clearly how he will tackle the vast waste in the public sector and reduce the terrifying national debt without crushing middle earners with punitive tax increases."

The Shadow Chancellor George Osborne's plans not to increase national insurance tax is a gamble timed to coincide with the debates:

"[O]ne can see the appeal for the Conservatives of today's announcement of a cut in national insurance. It comes just a few days after Alistair Darling's budget which was notably short on tax-and-spend doorstep pleasers - and on the morning of the chancellors' debate on television."

The timing of cuts is the only issue that will be contested in the debate:

"The parties are keen to draw the lines between them starkly but, as soon as Labour abandoned the absurd claim that they would invest while the Conservatives would cut, the distance closed. There is an argument about timing - sooner is better than later - but the difference is not measured in years. The debate, therefore, must be economically substantive. The reputation of politics is at a low ebb and, if the would-be chancellors cannot do better than play games, we might as well place a pistol in their hands and send them off to Putney Heath."

why he thinks it comes down to the timing rather than the detail of cuts:

"Given that we're in the process of electing a government for the next four or five years, this is depressingly myopic, even more so because economists themselves can't agree on the answer. For some, the key worry is the possibility of a Greek-style rise in the UK's borrowing costs, threatening the recovery. For others, the worry is a premature tightening of fiscal policy, again threatening the recovery. To ask the electorate to make a political decision on the back of a debate which even the supposed experts cannot resolve seems almost farcical.
There is, however, a good reason why the debate has descended to this. None of the political parties is prepared to admit the full truth. Instead, we hear claim and counter-claim about the need to protect frontline services."

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Commentators react to News International's announcement that they will start charging £1 a day to access Times and Sunday Times articles online.

why the subscription would cost £1:

"News International is using the 'all for the price of a cup of coffee' comparison. Matching the £1-a-day print price will fuel the fire of those who suspect the aim here is really to drive people back to paper. But the Times is promising plenty of online-native innovation, too."

how much revenue the move would make:

"Assuming that only five percent of daily users convert to the paywall system - a standard metric for paywalls - that would bring in £1.83 million if they each buy a £1 daily pass. At a 10 percent conversion, it would net £3.66 million per month for the two papers. If more people of those choose to buy the weekly pass, the revenues would be lower."

that the move runs contrary to News International owner Rupert Murdoch's previous pricing policy:

"The pricing runs contrary to Mr. Murdoch's long-standing instincts and practice of under-cutting competitors on price to gain the largest audience. In fact, when he took over The Journal, he talked about dismantling its online pay system.
But advertising has since slumped badly, making subscription revenue more important, and Mr. Murdoch has become one of the most prominent exponents of the view that news organizations must charge online."

how successful the paywall will be:

"But the wide availability of free news online has led many to question whether paywalls can attract substantial numbers of customers. In the UK, newspapers face online competition from the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, which earlier this month pledged to curtail the scope of its websites.
A global survey by Nielsen published last month found that a third of web users would consider paying to access newspapers' websites."

people will be prepared to pay for Times content:

"Of course there will be people who sign up because of their loyalty to the brand. However, the way news is consumed online is very different to the printed press - whereas people tend to stick to one newspaper, they'll visit a variety of different organisations to get their online news fix."

a cautionary tale from the days when the Independent charged for their commentary:

"I received an email from a lady in California who wanted her $1 back. She had paid to read one of my columns, the first paragraph of which was a parody of Blair-rage idiocy - you know the sort of thing:
Tony Blair... If he isn't the Anti-Christ, just imagine how bad the real one must be...
She had clicked through the pay wall to read the rest of it, which was, I am afraid, the sort of Blairdolatry with which some of you will be familiar. I replied politely, wishing her well in her quest never to read things with which she disagreed, but she never got her dollar back."

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Recent charges that the Pope failed to act against a US priest accused of abusing up to 200 deaf boys two decades ago have added to recent abuse scandals prompting commentators to ask whether the Pope should resign.

how the Catholic Church could end the scandal:

"The church needs to cast aside the lawyers, the PR specialists and its own worst instincts, which are human instincts. Benedict could go down as one of the greatest popes in history if he were willing to risk all in the name of institutional self-examination, painful but liberating public honesty, and true contrition. And then comes something even harder: Especially during Lent, the church teaches that forgiveness requires Catholics to have 'a firm purpose of amendment'. The church will have to show not only that it has learned from this scandal, but also that it's truly willing to transform itself."

the Pope to resign:

"What's fascinating in the steady onslaught of new incidences of previous cover-ups of child rape and molestation in the Catholic hierarchy is the notion that the hierarchs tended to see child rape as a sin rather than a crime. Hence the emphasis on forgiveness, therapy, repentance - rather than removal, prosecution and investigation. Obviously, there's one reason for this: they were defending the reputation of the church by hiding its darkest secrets, and they were using the authority of religion to do so. But I suspect it's also true that this is how they genuinely thought of child rape or abuse... We all know this game is now over. ..It's hard to imagine a deeper crisis for the Catholic hierarchy than this. If the church is to survive - and it will because it is the vessel of eternal truth - it will have to go through a wrenching transformation.
Beginning with the resignation of this Pope and an end to priestly celibacy."

the Catholic Church needs to follow the example set by the Pope in his recent letter to Irish Catholics, in which he apologised for abuse:

"It is the silence of the past, broken with praiseworthy moral force by Benedict XVI, that generates and feeds the hostile campaigns of today. The worst choice, for the Catholic world, would be to point to a plot by the 'international secular lobby' - to respond to attacks with the temptation of shutting oneself in a besieged fortress... It will be the Church's task and mission to no longer hide anything, to not be tempted by reticence, but to win one of its most difficult battles with truth and transparency, along the path traced by Benedict XVI."

it is still unclear how and why the allegations remained hidden for so long:

"In the same logic of truth that Benedict XVI places at the basis of morals, the Church should express its thanks to the media that have helped make revelations, rather than attacking them as aggressors against authority. But if it is possible to depict the lethal circuit between the crime of a minority of the clergy and the general vow of silence of the ecclesiastical structure as a failure of the system - dating to long before the phantom of sexual liberalisation of 1968 - it remains to be proven why not even the efforts of the most lucid of pastors succeeded in breaking this blockage."

things will change:

"The most painful experience for America's 66 million Catholics may be that the latest scandal is the oldest so far. The pattern of abuse, concealment, suppression, cover-up, pardon for the perpetrators and oblivion for the victims is the same. The higher the level at which the Church hierarchy deals with a new scandal, the more it prioritises defending the Church, rather than the children... Even the accusation that Pope Benedict XVI, in his previous incarnation as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger... did nothing, despite a plea from an American archbishop, but instead tempered justice with mercy for the self-confessed, critically ill sinner - this smacks uncomfortably of routine."

the Catholic church's previous attempts to tackle child abuse have come across as less than transparent:

"Wasn't it Pope Benedict XVI who, in 2001, as head of the Congregation of the Faith, issued the decree called 'De delictis gravioribus' - On especially serious misdeeds? It instructs bishops worldwide to report to Rome every case of child abuse. The sanction against perpetrators is the preserve of the Congregation of the Faith. It is also in the domain of the 'secretum pontificium' - the highest level of secrecy after confessional secrecy...
"In public perception the Vatican is surrounding itself with a wall of silence. The Latin vocabulary does the rest. You don't have to have read Dan Brown or the Monaldo & Sorti detective thrillers to feel a slight shiver upon hearing the words 'secretum pontificium'."

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Railway signal workers have voted in favour of strikes after Easter in a row over jobs and safety. Commentators look at the timing and significance of the industrial action.

the strikes will be self-defeating but timing the strike before the election is rational:

"But it is precisely because they could harm the Government that the unions are embarking on a round of confrontation. If you are going to strike - most especially in the public sector - do it now when ministers may intervene to pressure both sides for a settlement, rather than after the election when the public expenditure cuts will bite. Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson or Lord Adonis may see the need politically to condemn the strikers, but they are also working the phones begging the employers, as much as the employees, to come to terms."

to 1979:

"Does history repeat itself? The echoes of 1979 - national bankruptcy and strikes - are growing increasingly loud. It was, of course, when Labour last handed over power to the Tories."

one difference between the 1979 strikes and now:

"Most people's perceptions of what has been happening comes from media coverage on television and in the newspapers. This has been overwhelmingly hostile to the strikers and their union. That should come as no surprise. Even in the alleged era of union power 30 years ago, the unions were mostly the object of media hostility.
But there is one important difference now compared with then: the absence of labour or industrial correspondents. No daily newspaper outside the Morning Star has an accredited labour reporter."

Stephen Byers and Alistair Darling for the effect on public finances:

"A national signallers' strike will cost Network Rail £10 million a day in financial compensation to the train operators. In the days of Railtrack and the 1994 strike, the RMT knew that this could wipe out shareholders' annual profits in a fortnight. Now that Mr Darling and Mr Byers have replaced shareholders with taxpayers, the financial hit will all come home to the public. Well done, Mr Byers and Mr Darling, aided and abetted at the time by Andrew (now Lord) Adonis - the Marx Brothers of national rail policy, in at least two senses."

that a new wave of confidence is sweeping through the union movement:

"Filled with contempt for democracy, they are ruthlessly exploiting their strength over a badly weakened Government.
Through their cash, they have a stranglehold over Labour. Through their industrial muscle, they are causing misery to the public."

The the strike shouldn't ruin Britain's economy as wider issues are at stake:

"Yet Britain is not doomed to slink along the bottom of the European league. Its vulnerability to the crisis sprang from its overextended banks, its overindebted private sector and its overweight public sector. The first two of those imbalances are starting to right themselves. The third, for which Gordon Brown is largely responsible, will probably fall to his successor to correct, since the electorate seems minded to turf him out. So long as the next government tackles the problem courageously, Britain's prospects do not look too bad; for the openness and flexibility first fostered by Margaret Thatcher should allow the economy to regain some of its former strength."

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I'm the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

The Times and Sunday Times will start charging for access to their websites and other digital services from June. The cost will be £1 a day, or £2 for a week's subscription. Rupert Murdoch announced last summer that his newspapers would start charging for online content. The industry is divided over the wisdom of the move .

The former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev, who last year bought the Evening Standard in London, has agreed to buy the Independent and Independent On Sunday for a nominal £1. It's not yet known if the editors will stay, or whether the titles will go free and the .

The that sports bodies are threatening legal action over Ofcom's imminent announcement that it will force Sky to cut the price it charges rivals for sport content.

Several newspaper groups have been chosen ahead of ITN and STV to run three publicly-funded pilot news services on ITV. The Government proposed the services - in Scotland, Wales and the north-east of England - after ITV said it could no longer afford to provide regional news and the .

The prospect of strikes by rail staff and further action by British Airways cabin crew dominates Friday's papers as .

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• Read Thursday's Media Brief.

• Read .

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has left the US after a frosty reception at the White House, where the two allies locked horns over the issue of Jewish settlements in Jerusalem. Here, political analysts in the US and Israeli media weigh in on the growing spat.

Netanyahu has left the US "disgraced and isolated":

"The visit - touted as a fence-mending effort, a bid to strengthen the tenuous ties between Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama - only highlighted the deep rift between the American and Israeli administrations. The prime minister leaves America disgraced, isolated, and altogether weaker than when he came... Netanyahu will need to work hard to rehabilitate his image, knowing that Obama will demand that he stop zigzagging and decide whether he stands with America or with the settlers."

Eitan Haber, writing for the Hebrew language edition of the centrist daily, Yedioth Aharonot, criticised the treatment given to PM Netanyahu at the White House, but said both sides needed to do some thinking.

"The Israeli premier, perhaps the most sought-after personage in the Oval Office in the past two decades, was received like the last of the wazirs from Lower Senegal... Obama is being excessive, is being too belligerent, insulting--but we are no saints either. Besides, Obama is entitled. He is America."

In another centrist Hebrew daily, Maariv, Ben Kaspit said it was decision time for Mr Netanyahu:

"What is clear is this, that the Americans are determined. They mean what they say. They will not allow Netanyahu to continue to wink in all directions. It is not only [East] Jerusalem, Bibi, it is all the territories. Not only Netanyahu has reached his moment of truth, the 'T' junction we have been avoiding for more than 40 years - the whole of Israel stands there. America is leaving us and is in fact becoming Europe. From now, we are all alone. The whole world talks about a Palestinian state in an area similar to 1967. Obama wants to know whether Netanyahu is there - in explicit words, in writing... A simple question demanding a simple answer."

In the US media, that President Obama had made a "mistake" by treating Mr Netanyahu as if he were an "unsavoury Third World dictator":

"Obama has added more poison to a US-Israeli relationship that already was at its lowest point in two decades... Instead of waiting for that moment and pushing Netanyahu on a point where he might be vulnerable to domestic challenge, Obama picked a fight over something that virtually all Israelis agree on, and before serious discussions have even begun."

And of the deepening chill in US-Israeli relations:

"The visible gap between the two allies has offered encouragement to those who think only intense U.S. pressure can move Israel toward a resolution with the Palestinians. But it also threatens to drive the struggling peace process into a ditch and raises questions on both sides about how exactly the two leaders plan to end their growing rift."

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I'm the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

The Government is expected to name the winners of the regional TV news pilot projects today. The Independently Funded News Consortia will provide bulletins in three ITV areas, but ITV is having second thoughts about the plan and the .

Freesat has signed up its millionth customer .

In the Budget, Alistair Darling confirmed plans for a 50p a month broadband tax, and announced tax relief for video game developers .

Delia Smith has revealed that one reason she agreed to front TV commercials for Waitrose was to raise money for her beloved Norwich City. The that Waitrose will sponsor the club's catering.

Budget coverage dominates the newpapers as .

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• Read Wednesday's Media Brief.

• Read .

Political bloggers assess Alistair Darling's Budget.

the Budget was the equivalent to asking voters to sign a blank cheque:

"We just missed the last chance to have a sensible election debate about public spending. The Government could have finally told us where the axe is going to fall, and challenged the opposition parties to say how they would have done things differently."

Ex-Labour party employee and blogger about the measures which looked like they would lead to job creation:

"[P]erhaps paradoxically for a left winger, it was the Treasury approach on supporting industry that most caught my eye: the bits of the budgets I got excited by were the tax relief for industrial investment being doubled, so it will be more cost-effective for companies to buy new machinery; the recognition that small businesses need help with their Business rates and flexibility on tax repayments; the focus on supporting commercial lending; the willingness to encourage entrepeneurs to build companies by reducing their capital gains tax."

the Budget reassuringly dull:

"This was a surprisingly subdued Budget, and for that Alistair Darling is to be commended. He must have resisted all manner of pressure from Brown to put in pre-election pyrotechnics. But the budget was what it should be: a punctuation mark on the sentence of the national economy. That sentence says "our finances are going to hell," and the Budget's high point is that we are doing so fractionally slower than we were expecting to last November."

the Budget and says the accounts aren't transparent enough:

"He clearly wanted to put the Conservatives on the back foot by announcing detailed cost-cuts. But while some departments - like the Ministry of Justice for example - have mustered some convincing looking cost-cuts, others were hilariously candid about just how back of the envelope their plans are.
Labour needs to do a lot more to prove it has a credible plan to pay down that staggering £167bn of borrowings."

Blogger a tongue-in-cheek look at what's behind the cider tax:

"You see, that Alistair Darling is a clever bloke after all - the increase in duty on cider won't price teenagers out of the market but it will raise a bit more of the tax needed to pay for all those smart orange jackets that the kids get given to wear while they're cleaning up the mess they've made in the local park. So its really all just a clever job creation scheme for teenagers."

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The Israeli media has responded to the announcement that the UK Government is to expel an Israeli diplomat over the cloned British passports used in January's assassination of Hamas leader Mabhoub al-Mabhouh in Dubai.

In the English Language press the UK has dealt a blow to what he calls "Israel's arrogance":

"A British agent using an Israeli passport to track down an IRA cell would not meet with much Israeli sympathy. The massive use of borrowed identities of citizens of a foreign country is no different, in principle, than a plane entering that country's air space without permission."

At Ynet News, the website of Israel's centrist newspaper Yedioth Ahraronot, :

"The British action at this time constitutes a response to an act that caused it some embarrassment. Hence, the Mossad representative's expulsion marks a predictable diplomatic protest, in a bid to close the case without prompting an earthquake."

But in the right-leaning on the UK reaction and says Britain has "lost its moral compass":

"But even if it had 'compelling evidence' from an investigation by the Serious Organized Crime Agency into the cloning of up to 15 British passports, why has the UK government now decided to publicly humiliate Israel over the affair with so drastic a response?"

A news story in the how a National Union party member of the Kenesset Aryeh Eldad called Britain "dogs" for expelling the diplomat.

"Eldad's party colleague, MK Michael Ben-Ari, responded: 'The British may be dogs, but they are not loyal to us, but rather to an anti-Semitic system, and Israeli diplomacy partially plays into their hands. This is anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism'.

In the Hebrew language daily newspaper Yedioth Ahraronot Simon Schiffer says Israel should not get too worked up about the affair:

"The affair that embarrassed the kingdom so much ended with a reasonable price: the result was that the representative of the Mossad extension in London was asked to leave ... He who used forged British passports knew that it was possible he would have to pay a price. And the price the British set yesterday is a sale price."

Elsewhere in the same paper, investigative journalist and Israeli security expert Ronen Bergman questioned why Israel would want to alienate Britain, given their support over Iran's development of a nuclear programme:

"Between Jerusalem and London there is today a unity of interests that stems from the identical way in which the British view at least some of the central threats to the State of Israel when at the centre stands the Iranian nuke. He who listens to the way the British speak at closed forums about Iran will be very surprised by their intensity and sharpness. Was it worth it to lose all this for the liquidation of Mahmud al-Mabhouh?"

In the centrist Maariv newsapaper Maya Bengal writes that Israel was "stunned" into inaction by the decision:

"In similar situations, the country whose representative was expelled responds with the same coin, to expel a British diplomat... But this time it was decided in Jerusalem not to respond in accordance with the rules of the diplomatic game and to 'swallow the frog'."

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³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ | British press reaction to Isreali diplomat expulsion

I'm the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

The announcement of the sale of the Independent to Alexander Lebedev is expected "very shortly", says Independent News & Media in its results announcement. that its pre-tax profits fell by 39%.

The Daily Telegraph scooped six of the British Press Awards last night for its expose on MPs expenses, including Newspaper, Journalist, Campaign, Scoop and Political Reporter of the Year the .

The chief executive of Guardian Media Group Carolyn McCall is leaving to become chief executive of EasyJet .

A TV commercial in which Lenny Henry parodies the horror film The Shining has been banned from children's programming. The Advertising Standards Authority said it was likely to frighten young viewers .

The Justice Secretary Jack Straw has announced libel reform proposals aimed at tackling the "chilling effect" of Britain's strict laws, and stopping "libel tourism" .

Legislation to allow product placement on commercial television will be introduced to Parliament before the election .

Speculation about the Budget occupies the newspapers as .

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• Read Tuesday's Media Brief.

• Read .

The Foreign Office expelled an Israeli diplomat over the alleged forging of British passports relating to the assassination of a Hamas terrorist in Dubai. British press commentators look at what is next for the relationship between Israel and the UK.

any intelligence sharing will eventually be reinstated but what has happened highlights broader issues about the way Mossad operates:

"This was the latest in a number of Mossad missions deemed to have been flawed. And it is this weakness, rather than the anger of Britain and other countries, which may curtail the tenure of Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad's external arm. If that happens, London and Washington can pretend it was indeed their pressure which led to his dismissal."

The the latest news personally:

"The Mail has long been a firm friend of Israel, the only true democracy in the Middle East. But seldom has our friendship been more sorely tested.
In an earlier age, this country would have raised hell if a foreign government had cloned British passports and used them in an assassination plot.
As it is, the Israelis are lucky we've done no more than expel one of their diplomats."

The David Miliband's decision to expel a diplomat had a knock-on effect on the relationship between the US and Israel:

"As Mr Miliband was speaking, the gap that had opened up between the United States and Israel over its refusal to stop building in East Jerusalem, widened still further... Both events in London and Washington are the marks of an arrogant nation that has overreached itself. The forging of British passports is the work of a country which believes it can act with impunity when planning the murder of its enemies, while simultaneously claiming to share the values of a law-based state."

The editor of the Jewish Chronicle that this spat is insignificant:

"The crisis in relations between the UK and Israel, in other words, is not of enduring interest, let alone impact. It will soon be forgotten, in part because the UK is only a bit-part player in the Middle East. It is a different matter between the US and Israel.
And that crisis is not about assassinations in Dubai or passport cloning, but the very substance of statehood and security."

why people linked to al-Qaeda are not also being expelled:

"I for one am deeply grateful to the UK government for their sudden concern for the sanctity of UK passports and the security of UK passport holders. Though it may be a little late in the day, has the Government thought about turning this concern towards people who actually are terrorists?"

A National Union Party member of the Knesset Arieh Eldad expressed anger on the Today Programme:

"I think Britain forgot that we share the same war against terrorism. And yesterday's step was a kind of hypocrisy towards Israel... If the MI5 would know that in order to prevent the next bombing in London underground you have to steal 12 Israelis' identities, go ahead."

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³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ | Israeli press reaction to diplomat expulsion

I'm the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

Ofcom has proposed that BT's fibre lines should be opened to rival firms such as Sky and TalkTalk to encourage the rollout of super-fast broadband across the UK reports the and .

Google has stopped censoring its search service in China and moved it to Hong Kong. The move has been condemned by the Chinese government and the .

Peter Allis remembers his fellow commentator Harry Carpenter, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's voice of boxing, who also covered golf, the Boat Race and many other sports and the .

The that ITV1 will show England's first two World Cup games in June. ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ One will show the team's first two matches at the knock-out stage, if it gets that far.

Ofcom has ruled that GMTV was wrong to allow its consumer expert to promote his website on the station .

The lobbying-for-cash allegations involving former ministers continue to be explored in the papers, as does Sam Cam's need for a pram, as reflected .

Links in full

• Read Monday's Media Brief.

• Read .

Commentators anticipate Chancellor Alistair Darling's Budget speech tomorrow and wonder about the effect on the election.

The Mr Darling not to be vague about how and where he would cut spending:

"The opposition parties should be alarmed by the government's lack of candour. Whoever wins this election will oversee the retreat of the state. If this happens without Britons having been given a choice about how it should occur - or even a warning - they will be justifiably enraged, so making the task even harder. Mr Darling's mission is to ground the election in reality."

the signs are that the Budget will lack revelations for a practical reason:

"Darling delivered his pre-Budget report only last December. In effect that was a Budget too, with tax rises and the increase in spending on education commanding most attention. Long ago pre-Budget reports became Budgets. So this will be Darling's second Budget in the space of three months. There are limits to what more he has to say, or do. He has little spare cash, if any, and the spending review has been postponed until after the election. Perhaps he should stand up and state: 'Read what I said in December. Thank you and good night'."

that the survival or demise of Labour is in Alistair Darling's hands:

"Mr Darling must pull the ultimate Budget rabbit from the hat by making a virtue of being boring and being broke. Impossible as this may seem, it would be unwise to underestimate Mr Darling. Once routinely trashed by the PM's spinners, and so close to defenestration that the removal vans were near to being despatched to No 11, the Chancellor has become his party's unlikely secret weapon."

Research Director at the Taxpayers' Alliance that we need to understand how spending will be cut:

"[A] clear statement about what is coming is most important as the parties need to start working to win a public mandate for cuts. Unfortunately, clarity about what the country faces over the next decade is one thing that no one really expects in the Chancellor's speech."

that news that the public-sector borrowing was £10bn less than expected and the election looming large may lead to some giveaways:

"A couple of sweeteners - perhaps aimed at lower income groups may not be out of the question. After all it is (almost) Easter. But financial constraints mean now is probably not the time to produce a pre-election bunny out of the hat."

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I'm the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

Super-fast broadband will be available to every home in the UK by 2020, the prime minister is to promise. The Conservatives say they've made a similar pledge .

A one-week audit of older people on television has found that ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ One featured fewer over-50s than ITV1. But ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Two showed a higher proportion of older people than the population as a whole and the .

Elisabeth Murdoch has given a about her production company Shine, and her family.

Facebook has overtaken Google as the most popular website in the United States as .

a "savage" review of Channel 4 by MPs has had little coverage.

Claims that three Labour ex-cabinet ministers offered to exploit their government connections for money dominate the morning newspapers as . They follow an investigation by the Sunday Times and Channel 4.

Links in full

• Read Friday's Media Brief.

• Look at .

Commentators assess the damage done by a Channel 4 and where ex-cabinet ministers were secretly filmed apparently offering to try to influence government policy in return for cash.

The the revelations could have a lasting effect:

"This expose reveals that even after the expenses scandal the gravy train is still steaming around Westminster and Whitehall... The government, however, cannot convincingly distance itself from this. The original 'cash for questions' investigation by this newspaper, 16 years ago, helped to hasten the end of a Conservative government plagued by sleaze, division and incompetence. History may be repeating itself."

the three ex-cabinet ministers Stephen Byers, Patricia Hewitt and Geoffrey Hoon to Tony Blair:

"All three are former Labour Cabinet ministers. All three are disciples of Tony Blair. They are the true Heirs to Blair. Why shouldn't they get a little honey on their snouts when the leader they followed is using his contacts to wallow in it, buying a multi-million pound portfolio of properties and raking in an estimated £20 million?"

16 years on from the cash for questions scandal, MPs didn't react to the sting as badly as they could have:

"Try examining yesterday's Channel 4/Sunday Times exercise in the kindliest light. Not all of the MPs approached by a phoney PR company took the bait. Nobody did anything illegal. Some responses were more pathetic than menacing. Margaret Moran - on her way out after the expenses debacle - offered to ring up a 'girls' gang' of MPs to push an appropriate cause. Geoff Hoon confessed wanly: 'I've got two children at university, so I've got to get a job.'"

The what effect the investigation will have on the election:

"It's not a total disaster because all three ex-ministers are Blairites, two of whom - Hoon and Hewitt - were even involved in the abortive coup to replace Brown with David Miliband back in January. Little wonder that Miliband was one of the more vociferous members of the government yesterday, telling Sky News he was appalled by the Sunday Times revelations."

The the sting will fuel Labour party infighting:

"Mr Byers has long been a hate figure in Brownite circles. There is a familiar mafioso feel of scores being settled in the traditional manner about the whole affair. The Sunday Times was undoubtedly read with far more glee than grief in Downing Street yesterday."

The how the parties are responding to the problems of lobbying in their manifestos:

"The Conservative leader, David Cameron, has proposed extending this to two and tightening up the penalties for rule-breaking. We doubt, though, whether even this will be enough. Labour says it will include proposals for a statutory, rather than voluntary, register of lobbyists in its manifesto. The case has now been more than made, and it should not apply only to ministers. Voters are entitled to know whose interests, in addition to those of their constituents, an MP may be representing."

Conservative blogger Labour's motivation in announcing new policies around lobbying:

"I wasn't surprised to hear Labour suddenly announce a manifesto commitment to 'clean up lobbying' yesterday. It was a classic diversionary tactic, designed to deflect attention away from the fact that several of their MPs have apparently been caught with their hands in the cookie jar."

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US commentators have been by turns relieved and outraged by the passage of the healthcare bill, reforms on which Barack Obama had staked his presidency.

says Mr Obama's victory is a coming-of-age moment for the president:

"It has taken more than 14 months for Obama to vindicate as president the leadership potential that we saw on the campaign trail; fourteen months to give up on the fantasy of bipartisanship; fourteen months to start truly inspiring ordinary people as he did as a candidate. But in the springtime of March 2010, we have seen a president who evidently has learned how to lead, who relishes winning, and who is primed to become a more effective progressive. For that we should be grateful. It should whet his appetite as a fighter - and ours."

The sees this as the beginning - and not the end - of the healthcare reform:

"Just as Social Security grew from a modest start in 1935 to become a bedrock of the nation's retirement system, this is a start on healthcare reform, not the end. A lot will depend on whether future presidents and Congresses stick to the savings and deficit targets set in this legislation; on how aggressively states administer the new exchanges; on how healthcare professionals and institutions respond to the challenge of changing their ways; and on how the public responds to the mandate that everyone obtain insurance or pay a penalty.
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Our hope and belief is that this reform will in the end accomplish its great objectives. Right now, the good news for all Americans is that despite all the politics and the obstructionism, the process has finally begun."

this victory as a short-term gain for the Democrats, which could cost them dearly in the longer term:

"Once again, the big issue is abortion. And while the happy-day-are-here-again headlines will be playing big in the Mainstream Media in the wake of the House healthcare vote, the cold reality is that once again, Democrats have chosen a politically risky course, which will likely further alienate them from the center-right majority in the country.
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Indeed, the tricky tactics used by the Democratic majority in Congress to enact Obamacare in 2010 will be remembered alongside the Supreme Court's divisive decision on Roe v. Wade back in 1973. In both instances, conservatives did not start these political-cultural battles, but in both instances, conservatives are destined to win them."

This is a view shared by a "Pyrrhic victory":

"So the Democrats have a healthcare win in the House - a win that could prove mighty Pyrrhic. It will cost them dearly in the midterm elections; and come 2012, the remarkable man who seemed a shoo-in for a second term at the time of his first inauguration, will stand every chance of losing to any half-decent candidate the Republicans can muster. And in truth, this remarkable man, who has collapsed in stature since the day of that first, stirring inauguration, will have wrought his own eclipse."

The the battle in its historical context:

"The House vote Sunday to send a comprehensive healthcare reform bill to President Obama's desk put the United States on a path toward universal health insurance, a goal that had eluded reformers since then-presidential candidate Teddy Roosevelt called for all workers to have coverage in 1912. It may prove to be the signal accomplishment of Obama's administration, even though the controversy surrounding it threatens to end his party's majority in Congress. Rarely has such a good thing for Americans been perceived by so many as a threat to their livelihood and liberty."

While, the passions raised by the reforms mean anger will linger long into the future:

"The clash over health care reform has been too intense for it to subside, even after a bill is passed. (Shortly before the House vote, Rep. Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, suggested that passage of the bill would lead to the downfall of the United States.) In some ways, this battle has been a continuation of the heated political culture wars of the 2008 campaign. The passions that fuelled both are not going away, and there will be two sides to this spinning coin [...] As the never-ending healthcare debate enters a new stage, the opposing camps must now argue about what is, rather than what will be."

that however loudly the Democrats celebrate what the bill represents, there is still plenty missing:

"Some progressive priorities were glaringly absent - there's no public option, nothing remotely approaching a single-payer healthcare system. There isn't even a mandate that employers provide insurance for their workers, only a fine charged to companies whose employees get federal subsidies to buy their own coverage. It had the backing of the drug manufacturers, the hospitals, the doctors, all the major industries involved in providing healthcare in America except the insurance companies. And even insurers will wind up making billions of dollars, as millions of Americans suddenly get access to their products."

Victor Obama's efforts to transform healthcare will be just the beginning of a slippery slope:

"Obama has thrown down the gauntlet, and is trying to reify the sloganeering of the 1960s. He apparently reasons along the following lines: that centrist talk was campaign fluff; the voters fell for it, and now it's his turn to remake America with 51% of the House and 44% of the people. Think Sweden, or, better, Greece as our model at home, and something like America as Brazil in matters of foreign policy. Apparently, Obama figures that people now may not like the present partisanship, but they didn't like FDR at the time either. Yet whom do they associate their Social Security checks with? Hoover? Coolidge? Harding? I don't see why the ram-it-through, healthcare formula won't be followed by similar strategies for blanket amnesty, cap and trade, and expansions of the state takeover of cars, banks, student loans, and energy."

Writing with a pinch of salt for the that the sheer cost of the healthcare reform will end up having a direct - and negative - impact on America's global standing:

"It's [...] unaffordable. That's why one of the first things that middle-rank powers abandon once they go down this road is a global military capability. If you take the view that the US is an imperialist aggressor, congratulations: You can cease worrying. But, if you think that America has been the ultimate guarantor of the post-war global order, it's less cheery. Five years from now, just as in Canada and Europe two generations ago, we'll be getting used to announcements of defence cuts to prop up the unsustainable costs of big government at home. And, as the superpower retrenches, America's enemies will be quick to scent opportunity. Longer wait times, fewer doctors, more bureaucracy, massive IRS expansion, explosive debt, the end of the Pax Americana, and global Armageddon. Must try to look on the bright side..."

I'm the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

The new ITV chief executive Adam Crozier could earn over £16m in five years if he hits performance targets, including a "golden hello" and the .

The that the Times has told staff that it is about to preview its paywall proposals for subscribers, charging them to read the paper online.

The claims of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ bias against the Conservatives, including an episode of Basil Brush which featured a "cheating" election candidate with a blue rosette, called Dave.

what cuts at Manchester's Channel M could mean for the politicians' plans for more local TV news?

The a former Band Aid official, who says Bob Geldof is wrong in his row with the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ over relief money going to the rebels in Ethiopia.

The , which printed Geldof's attack on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, publishes a response.

The that the first Doctor Who episode featuring the new Doctor, Matt Smith, has had a movie-style premiere in Cardiff.

Columnists, including , have their say on newsreaders' clothing, after Sian Williams' claim for tax relief was turned down.

The election dominates the newspaper front pages .

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• Read Thursday's Media Brief.

• See .

The Vatican is breaking its silence on the previously-taboo subject of paedophilia. Pope Benedict has written a pastoral letter to the Catholics of Ireland with guidelines on preventing and punishing sexual abuse of children by priests. Commentators look at what this will mean for the future of the Catholic church.

that the discussion of the case included the suggestion that celibacy can create a peadophile, something he says statistics show is a myth:

"If paedophilia and the abuse of adolescents were solely a response to sexual frustration, it wouldn't be perpetrated mostly [by] people who are free to find sexual gratification elsewhere. And even in Ireland, it mostly was. The best figures I can find for this come from a 2002 government-sponsored report which says that 5.8% of all boys sexually abused were abused by clergy or religious. The corresponding figure for girls was 1.4%. So the overwhelming majority of child abuse in Ireland was carried out by people who were not bound to celibacy."

religion has clouded the judgement of people who agreed to keep child abuse in the Catholic church secret:

"Imagine if this happened at The Independent. Imagine I discovered there was a paedophile ring running our creche, and the Editor issued a stern order that it should be investigated internally with 'the strictest secrecy'. Imagine he merely shuffled the paedophiles to work in another creche at another newspaper, and I agreed, and made the kids sign a pledge of secrecy. We would both - rightly - go to prison. Yet because the word 'religion' is whispered, the rules change. Suddenly, otherwise good people who wouldn't dream of covering up a paedophile ring in their workplace think it would be an insult to them to follow one wherever it leads in their Church. They would find this behaviour unthinkable without the irrational barrier of faith standing between them and reality."

there are sections of the media that will not be happy until they've implicated the pope in sex-abuse scandals:

"[A] narrative is being formed in the public imagination that is horrifying, packed with salacious detail and very neat, in that it describes a Catholic conspiracy to hush up child abuse stretching right to the very top. The problem is that it's partly fiction.
Many Catholics - and I am one of them - believe that the Pope has been stitched up over this Munich case."

On the current scandal is very significant:

"During four decades of reporting from the Vatican, I have never seen a graver crisis affecting the very credibility of the leadership of the world's longest surviving international organisation, the Roman Catholic Church."

in the Guardian that the accelerated demise of the Catholic church will not be celebrated by everyone:

"There will be plenty celebrating the Catholic church's plight, and it is hard not to agree in some part with [Diarmaid] MacCulloch [presenter of the History of Christianity], that hubris has played a huge part in this institution's history and its current crisis. But it is also important to acknowledge that this is more tragedy than anything else. For the victims, their families, their congregations - many of whom see no cause for celebration despite their need for truth - and for those causes on which the church has proved a trenchant champion, stirring lazy consciences on the arms race, global inequality and capitalist excess."

Mgr Charles Scicluna is Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and has the task of investigating the most serious crimes. the church:

"It is possible that in the past - perhaps out of a misunderstood sense of protecting the good name of the institution - some bishops were, in practice, too indulgent towards these very sad cases. I say this was in practice because, in principle, the condemnation of this kind of crime has always been firm and unequivocal."

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I'm the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Trust has said it may allow the National Audit Office to examine the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's accounts on a regular basis to demonstrate greater financial transparency .

Alexander Lebedev moved a step closer towards buying the Independent newspapers today after the OFT ruled that the deal would raise no competition issues the .

Plaid Cymru is to give the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ detailed plans as to how it could be included in prime ministerial television debates in the general election campaign. It has accused the Corporation of breaching its duty of impartiality, .

The pioneering local TV station, Channel M in Greater Manchester, is to close down its news shows - reducing its staff from 33 to just four employees. It was recently sold by Guardian Media Group .

The newspapers are divided over the day's main story the .

Links in full

• Read Wednesday's Media Brief.

• See my .

A selection of lines from parliamentary sketch-writers.

The debate was dominated by the prime minister's admission that he had made a mistake in his evidence to the Iraq inquiry and the BA/Unite dispute.

the PM's revulsion at having to 'fess up to the way "a small child eats gristly beef - with great difficulty and with much resentment":

""When he does get it wrong, he has to find a way of saying that it wasn't really wrong wrong, more sort of right wrong."

, noting that an admittance of any kind of error from the prime minister is a rare event indeed:

"Until yesterday any Gordo retractions at PMQs were, like the dodo, mythical. So this was a once-in-a-lifetime event, like a double rainbow and Halley's Comet rolled into one. He looked miserable."

by Mr Brown's somewhat subdued mood so close to the general election:

"Had he been a specimen at Crufts you would have concluded that this sausage dog had a dry nose.
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"Just a couple of weeks ago the lava flowed from Mr Brown, red and molten. Yesterday he was no more volcanic than a mole hill."

that John Bercow's chosen style as Speaker has thrown up the issue of who calls time on his own increasingly lengthy interventions:

"His interventions have become comically long. His statement yesterday made a three-course meal out of a cupcake."

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Universities in England have been told that they will receive less funding for the first time since Labour came to power. Commentators ask what is next for higher education.

if we are going to see the end of the "student experience":

"The past few years, with the introduction of top-up fees, has seen students demanding more value for money from their lecturers and more one-on-one sessions to help them through their courses. An increase in tuition fees is likely to add to this pressure from students keen to get value for money. However, the cuts in funding are also likely to lead to a reduction in lecturers' jobs, making it more difficult to find the time for increased engagement. It seems likely, in this world of rapidly advancing technology, that more and more interaction between students and lecturers will take place online. It's a university education, Jim, but not as we know it."

The that a decline in admissions isn't necessarily a bad thing:

"The rapid expansion of tertiary education has been a success for this government, with applications continuing to rise, despite fee increases and, for most, less generous assistance from the state. But the Government's target of getting 50 per cent of school-leavers into higher education was always of dubious worth. A little more selectivity could help raise standards and reduce drop-out rates."

that because competition for places is going to get tougher, the question of what to do about EU students has to be asked:

"In a period of expansion, EU students added bulk to university numbers at a time when bulk was good and money flowed to universities based on the numbers they were teaching. But now, because the economy has contracted, these numbers look much more problematic."

universities scaling down:

"The higher education system is a shambles. Its bloated, expensive structure has done nothing for the economy. Far too many young people have been pushed into universities against their own interests. They have been given a false prospectus about the benefits of a degree, particularly one in a weak subject from a second-rate university."

The now the funding is to be cut, a cap on fees has to be relaxed:

"The cap, a political sop to Labour MPs opposed to the whole idea of fees, threatens real damage - particularly to our elite universities. Britain has four of the top 10 global institutions, a remarkable record given the paucity of funding: Harvard is this year charging nearly £22,000 in tuition fees. Our universities will struggle to maintain their international standing without access to more resources."

Chair of the Russell Group of top universities and vice-chancellor of Leeds university Professor Michael Arthur said on the Today programme that this cut will be small but he is worried that next week's budget will bring more cuts:

"This size of cut won't have an effect on its own, but it's a harbinger of things to come... I think it's really clear that further cuts beyond this will make things quite problematic."

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I'm the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

Two Government press advertisements which used nursery rhymes to raise awareness of climate change have been banned for overstating the risks. But three other advertisements, including a TV commercial, were cleared by the advertising watchdog . Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, defended the campaign on Today.

Ofcom has received almost 50 complaints that This Morning's "sex week" is showing unsuitable material before the 9pm watershed according to the and the .

At last night's Royal Television Society Awards, Harry Hill took the prize for best entertainment performance. Charlie Booker's Newswipe beat Britain's Got Talent and The X Factor in the best entertainment show section the .

Links in full

• Read Tuesday's Media Brief.
• See my .

US commentators look at the future of the Israel-US relationship after a row over Israel's announcement during US Vice-President Joe Biden's visit of plans to build 1,600 new Jewish homes in Arab East Jerusalem.

this a watershed moment:

"[I]t's past time that Palestinian failings cease to serve as an excuse for Israel's remorseless, cynical scattering of the Palestinian people into enclaves that make a farce of statehood. That is 'an affront' to America.
In this sense, Biden's foray has been salutary. It brought U.S. 'vital interests' to the surface. It challenged Israel's ostrich-like burrowing into polices that, over time, will make one divided, undemocratic state more likely than 'two states for two peoples.'"

that although the US is right to be upset over the incident, the US-Israel relationship is "solid to the core":

"There have been almost a dozen separate high-level visits to each country in just the last two months, as the two countries are cooperating extremely closely in their efforts to prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. The United States also stood with Israel in resisting the unbalanced Goldstone report on Gaza. The two countries also engaged in a massive military exercise together recently."

there may be dangerous consequences to an anti-Israel stance:

"The Obama administration is making an enormous and dangerous mistake. Jerusalem is and should always remain the undivided capital of the Jewish people and the state of Israel. Washington is wrong to use such hysterical and heavy-handed measures to berate Israel and to try to force her to divide her own capital. Doing so will lead to another major war, not to peace."

what he thinks shouldn't be done in the coming weeks:

"It would be shortsighted for the administration to use this episode as an opportunity to reward the Palestinians - who, after all, have been unenthusiastic about American requests for negotiations for months -- or to accept Palestinian arguments that 'proximity talks,' rather than direct negotiations, are an appropriate forum for substantive give-and-take. And it would be an analytical blunder for the administration to believe that this incident is an opportunity that could precipitate Netanyahu's political demise: after all, this government - or another with him at the helm - is an accurate reflection of what Israeli politics these days is all about."

Israel's current government is intent on "thumbing its nose at the American president":

"I'd hope that all American Jews, on both sides of the two-state issue, would agree that an insult directed at the Obama Administration is an insult directed at us all... and that AIPAC members, who I'm sure see themselves as Americans first, will behave accordingly."

this as an important change in relations between the US and Isreal:

"Finally, the reason Israel engages in this intransigent, arrogant conduct is because it believes (with good reason) that U.S. officials will never be willing to (and, in any event, cannot) take any real action against it. At this point, the Obama administration - as reflected by the excellent questions posed yesterday to David Axelrod by ABC News' Jake Tapper - still seems far from ready to do so. Still, there's no denying that the very public condemnation of Israel by the Obama administration is unprecedented at least over the last two decades..."

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I'm the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's media correspondent and this is my summary of what's going on.

the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ of "taking the axe" to the radio drama department "which nourished Stoppard, Pinter, Gielgud and Dench".

The if David Beckham will now become a TV pundit for the World Cup, after his Achilles heel injury, and if so will it be for ITV or the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ?

The that Sheila Hancock accuses theatre critics and actors of being "snooty" about musicals. She's one of the judges in the new ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Andrew Lloyd Webber show, searching for a Dorothy for The Wizard of Oz.

David Cameron's ITV interview attracted only 1.7m viewers, far fewer than Gordon Brown's ITV interview with Piers Morgan (though that one inherited a large audience from Dancing On Ice) .

But the the pre-show publicity about "SamCam" has boosted the Conservatives' polls showing.

Should a levy on Google and BskyB be used to help fill the gap in funding for rigorous journalism? A Carnegie Trust inquiry into the future of "civil society" thinks so .

The row in the music industry over the proposals in the Digital Economy Bill to curb illegal downloading was investigated by Radio 1's Jo Whiley for Panorama.

And the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's Rory Cellan-Jones' asks in his blog where the Dot.com millionaires are now, ten years after the peak of the dotcom bubble?

The analysis that the European Commission's warning that Britain is not doing enough to cut its deficit.

Links in full

Jo Wiley | ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ | Panorama
Rory Cellan Jones | ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ | UK dotcommers: Where are they now?

• Read Monday's Media Brief.
• See .

A possible strike by BA cabin crew has taken on an additional political dimension after Gordon Brown called the plans "unjustified and deplorable." Commentators are divided about the prime minister's actions.

The Gordon Brown is right to side with the management, saying the union has a blindness "lifted directly from the 1970s":

"Whatever his true feelings about where blame for this breakdown in relations lies, Mr Brown should press behind the scenes for a resolution. Any form of settlement is better than industrial action. But the fact remains that, of the two sides, it is the union which urgently needs to come back down to earth."

The Gordon Brown for going against their funder Unite the Union:

"And yet, despite every incentive not to aggravate the Labour party's principal paymaster, the Prime Minister said that the strike was 'deplorable' and 'unjustified'. When silence was an expedient, he is to be applauded for making the correct call. Clearly, on the threshold of a general election, Mr Brown is reflecting the anger of the public at industrial action that reeks of self-indulgence and harms all concerned."

Gordon Brown could have gone further by explicitly citicising Unite the Union:

"Despite the damage to Labour from that dreadful period of industrial unrest, which led to Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan's election defeat and the rise of Margaret Thatcher, there are increasing signs that Gordon Brown has not learned the lessons and is turning the clock back to the bad old days of the Seventies."

Assistant general secretary of Unite the Union that politicians have misunderstood them:

"I don't blame Gordon Brown for trying to bring together parties to resolve the dispute, but it is unfortunate that politicians always seem to want to kick unions and employees without considering management's responsibilities.
Much of the political positioning seems based on the misapprehension that Unite is refusing to talk to BA. In fact we have talked the hind legs off a donkey and will talk the front legs off too, if it will help."

that anti-union talk is inappropriate:

"Underlying the dispute, of course, is a series of corporate failures under Walsh's stewardship, the impact of recession and the threat from low-cost airlines that have led the way in driving down labour costs and standards across the industry... But what is truly preposterous is the Tory and media insistence that the dispute confirms the grip trade unions, and the Labour-affiliated Unite in particular, have on the government. As the last couple of days have amply demonstrated, nothing could be further from the truth."

the Tories need a plan to avoid union turbulence of their own:

"Naturally the Tories are delighted to point out the contradiction in Labour's official condemnation of the strike, while still being bank-rolled by those same union barons. But the Opposition has lessons of its own to learn from the BA debacle.
Unite is clearly capable of desperate action. Should the Tories win the election and implement the public sector cuts promised, it will be them fighting a union backlash. But where are their plans for such a situation?"

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I'm the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's media correspondent and this is my summary of what's going on.

There's close scrutiny of Samantha Cameron's first TV interview in ITV's profile of the Conservative leader . In the battle of the leaders' wives, that Sarah Brown must wonder what she has unleashed. the two women's strengths.

The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ faces criticism over a "lavish" glass studio it is building for the World Cup in Cape Town with a view of Table Mountain according to the and the .

The that the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ says it will take 295 staff to cover the World Cup, 15% fewer than in Germany four years ago.

The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is also under fire for sending staff on a Facebook course, .

The sports bodies have written to Ofcom supporting BSkyB over the pay-TV review, due to be published later this month. They say sports income would be hit hard if Sky has to cut its prices.

And the English Cricket Board will tell the Government it could lose £130m if the Ashes are put back on "free to air" list of sports events as recommended by the Davies committee .

it would make "perfect sense" for News Corporation to buy the 61% of BSkyB it doesn't own already. BSkyB shares rose to a seven-year high on Friday on the rumour.

All national newspapers lost circulation year-on-year, with the Observer down 20% as it prepared to relaunch .

Newspapers criticise the Children's Commissioner for saying James Bulger's killers were too young to understand the consequences of their actions as .

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At the Liberal Democrat spring conference, party leader Nick Clegg used his speech to lay out the big themes for his party. Commentators are generally only interested in one thing - Mr Clegg's refusal to reveal who the party would form a coalition with in the event of a hung parliament.

by Nick Clegg's refusal to name who he would support:

"If the opinion polls now give an accurate account, not just of voting intentions but of the outcome of the general election, we could end up with a hung Parliament in which Mr Clegg helps depose first Gordon Brown and then David Cameron. Yet the Liberal Democrat leader insults our intelligence by denying this possibility even exists."

Nick Clegg's attempt to hold the balance of power once the votes have been counted while not smothering the policy message:

"Clegg's 'I am not a kingmaker' formula, paraded all over the press, addressed this problem skilfully. It flattered voters and activists by telling them they 'give the marching orders' while avoiding offence by leaning even slightly left or right. The party with the 'strongest mandate from the voters will have the moral authority to be the first to seek to govern', he said. Careful words which leaves options open."

that Nick Clegg won't name which party he would go into coalition with to maximise his supporters:

"Yesterday, Clegg said he was 'not a kingmaker'. As so often when politicians make an emphatic comment of this kind, he meant the exact opposite - that he hopes to have the power to endorse Gordon Brown or David Cameron depending on what happens on polling day. The big question is whether Clegg can walk the tightrope without falling off and carry on trying to appeal to both undecided Labour and Tory voters all the way until election day."

what Liberal Democrat party member reactions would be to the secrecy:

"The question hanging over the speech, and indeed the weekend, was whether Nick preferred Dave or Gordo. First, he told us that he was not the kingmaker. The Lib Dems clapped while hoping, desperately, that it wasn't true. Then, just like a kingmaker, he told us what was wrong with each."

the only way to read Nick Clegg's claim that he is not a 'kingmaker' is that he won't be prepared to enter into coalition with either Labour or the Conservatives:

"Given that Clegg won't be Prime Minister, the only sense in which Lib Dem voters are going to be the Kingmakers is a negative one. Their votes could rob either Cameron or Brown of a majority.
The most surprising thing about today is Clegg's decision to depart from the usual obfuscation and evasion on the issue of coalitions (evasion which some Lib Dems say is vital for keeping their options open). It looks like he has, for the first time, ruled out any form of coalition. If he means what he says."

how a coalition with the Conservatives would affect policy:

"The most important part of any Lib-Con pact would involve the budget. On this, Clegg can be relied upon to play ball. In his speech yesterday, he declared himself 'the guarantor, whatever the outcome of the election, that no risks will be taken with Britain's financial position'. He has some credibility on this point, having torn up almost all the Lib Dem proposals for extra spending and saying that the deficit must be tackled using only spending cuts - rather than the mix of tax rises and cuts that the Tories advocate. A Lib-Con axis on finance would be a marriage of tough, and tougher."

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David Cameron has announced that his wife Samantha will join him on the campaign trail. Commentators consider what the role of the political spouse will be in this election.

she would be more inclined to vote for Mrs Cameron and Mrs Brown than for their husbands:

"For the truth is, not only do both these women give their pumpkin-head husbands a lustre they do not entirely deserve, they are quite often more impressive than them, too. As mothers, they have had to confront their own tragic losses, and no one could doubt their devotion to their families. As women, they have never been defined by their husband's jobs - not yet anyway. The coming months could change all that."

how useful the support of wives will be:

"It may well suggest to the public a lack of self-confidence by a party leader to make his wife campaign on his behalf. None of our most successful prime ministers - Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, Harold Macmillan, Margaret Thatcher, even Tony Blair - have resorted to this tactic."

if Samantha Cameron getting involved in the campaign could come across as inauthentic:

"Her discomfort in the role of the loyal political wife, banging the drum for her husband, will be so obvious it'll be a big turn-off for the fence-sitters. It reeks of precisely the sort of phoney electioneering that today's media-savvy voters can spot at a hundred paces. People will think, 'If he's reduced to brow-beating his wife into pretending she's a member of the blue-rinse brigade, he really must be desperate.'"

that leaders' wives are completely irrelevant to the election:

"This election, more than any election for a very long time, is about extremely serious issues. It will and ought to be decided not on who has a little windmill on their chimney pot or who shouts at his secretary, but on the desperate state of the British economy and how we may be in an even more seriously bad state a couple of years down the line. We owe a terrifying amount of money with little apparent idea as to how we may pay it back and could well be in as parlous a mess as Greece if things are not managed properly. So Mesdames Brown and Cameron are less than irrelevant to it and we should not allow the media to con us into believing otherwise."

these concerns:

"If the pair of them want to stand for Parliament in their own right, well and good. I'm sure they'd both be no worse and even, as successful women, better candidates for Westminster than many.
"But until then I think they should get on with their own lives and leave their worse halves to slug it out without the little women in tow."

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Pink Floyd has won a court ruling stopping EMI selling its album tracks as single downloads on iTunes and other internet music services . But will it make much difference? Editor of The Word magazine Mark Ellen and the music journalist Mark Beaumont discuss the issue on Radio 4's Today.

Kate Middleton, Price William's girlfriend, has won the first round of a legal challenge over pictures of her playing tennis .

were the Twitter rumours of Sarkozy's infidelity a media hoax?

The Conservatives have pledged to give Britain the fastest broadband in Europe if they win the election - 100Mbps by 2017 and the .

Channel 5 made a loss of £37m but its owner RTL says it is still 100% committed to it .

The that Johnston Press profits fell by 56% to £43m but ended the year stronger than it began it.

The court appearance of three MPs over expenses claims dominates the front pages as

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The government is recommending a new high-speed rail network, featuring 250mph trains on new line between London and Birmingham with a future extension to northern England and Scotland. Commentators look at various questions raised.

The the plans:

"[O]nly a visionary or a fool would stand up in parliament and announce plans for a £30bn, 330-mile, 225mph rail line, whose construction would not even begin until 2017, and whose completion will take much more than a decade. Yet that is what Andrew Adonis, the transport minister, did yesterday, and he deserves much congratulation for it."

Conversely, the proposals fade away:

"It is also the ultimate expression of the political classes' fatal preference for the flashy showpiece over the dull grind of improving the quotidian things that matter. It is the product of the same mentality that has given us thousands of shiny new school buildings - but paid much less attention to the quality of teaching."

The the big question is the route:

"The real question posed by a new high-speed rail network is more fundamental than just cost and timing. Quite simply, where do we want the centres of British commerce to be in the 21st century? London, obviously, will always be central. But which cities should follow after that?"

how the rail line would affect the spread of the population:

"My suspicion is that the line will not remotely redress the north-south imbalance; instead it will amount to the further expansion of the south east, which as a political entity now well exceeds its geographical definition. Vast swathes of attractive rural Warwickshire will now become easily, if expensively, commutable from London; this will suit those now living in the south east and looking for an agreeable bolt-hole, rather more than it will suit those in the midlands, where the wages are lower."

the service will bring back the glory days of rail travel:

"Can the new high-speed stations recapture any of the romance so calamitously lost by the pudding-faced suits who ran the old BR? Not if, like the airports, they are run as shopping malls. Nearly 200 years ago railways changed attitudes to time and space: there is a metaphysics of timetabling. And they changed the shape and style of cities with brave and original architecture. That's the opportunity again."

The that cost should not put off ambition:

"In straitened times, how can the nation afford the £30 billion eventually to be invested in this project? Yet Britain cannot simply stand still, paralysed by indebtedness. We need to show we have not lost the ambition exemplified by a national project such as this."

The the matter of timing:

"Construction work (and serious spending) would not begin on the new rail line until 2017, by which time it is assumed the present fiscal crisis will be behind us. Yet we should still be pleased that there is a cross-party consensus for this is the sort of long-term transport infrastructure project that governments of all stripes have rejected in the past on expense grounds. This has been a false economy."

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Thousands of schoolchildren will report the news today on . Children from one school interviewed Haiti schoolchildren .

Bob Geldof says the director of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Service and two other editors should be sacked over a report that some of the aid money he helped raise for Ethiopian famine victims in the 1980s went to buy weapons. the World Service of a "total collapse of standards and systems", also . The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ says it stands by the report, which put forward evidence that millions donated to famine relief ended up in the hands of Ethiopian rebels.

On Radio 4's The Media Show, a World Service editor said the report didn't say what its critics claimed.

The first 3D television sets will go on sale in the UK later this month say the and the .

The that the Independent could become the UK's first free national newspaper if its takeover by Alexander Lebedev goes ahead.

for accusing the Conservatives of attacking the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ to help Rupert Murdoch.

The T-Mobile flashmob commercial won the top prize at last night's British Television Advertising Awards .

The story of two sisters made pregnant 18 times by their father over 25 years are widely reported as .

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Commentators discuss the merits of Gordon Brown's warning that "there are still real risks to the recovery" and whether this makes him the right person to lead the country after the election.

The Gordon Brown has often been surprisingly accurate in past economic forecasts, but gives its advice on election strategy:

"[H]is best chance of winning the election is to keep warning that the Tories would rein in spending too soon and too unfairly and hurt the worst-off. That is broadly true, but Labour should lighten the gloom with some proposals for how it will rebuild a shattered manufacturing base and an economy still too dependent on the City."

The astonishment at Gordon Brown's speech, which, it says, purposefully tried to scare the public:

"The public finances were in a worse state than they might have been if he had not spent, in the second half of his time as Chancellor, the money he had accrued in the first. Britain fell into a deeper recession, which lasted longer than those of its main competitors. The British economy does now appear to be heading in the right direction, but slowly, and the recovery is still fragile. In these circumstances, it is rather rich of the Prime Minister to claim, as he did in his speech yesterday, that the very fragility of the economic recovery is a reason to vote for him."

on the subject of whether Gordon Brown's financial policies adopted 18 months ago make him the right person to lead Britain in the recovery. He criticises Mr Brown for created a huge deficit, for the reduction in VAT not being enough and for being too slow to act. But he does give Mr Brown some praise:

"With respect to his direct response to the banking crisis, Mr Brown's self-congratulatory comments yesterday were fully justified: October 2008 really was 'a period that provided one of the greatest tests of character'. It really was a time when 'the old conventional wisdom or short-term headlines should not constrain our thinking'. And Mr Brown's willingness to defy short-term headlines and conventional wisdom really did allow him to 'make the tough decisions that were necessary to give us a fighting chance'."

The the Mr Brown's speech lacked a "credible recover policy" and adds that his biggest flaw is not being able to take responsibility for his mistakes on spending:

"Mr Brown is anxious to avoid an election based on his record because it is hard to defend. In particular, he blames global events for Britain's economic woes, when his own failures as Chancellor to keep some of the revenues from the good times to help us through the bad reflect his hubristic belief that boom and bust had been abolished, a claim he is no longer in a position to make."

the speech reflected a dilemma faced by the parties when discussing the economy before an election:

"The Prime Minister wants to claim the credit for getting through the worst, but daren't sound too optimistic in case the next set of economic statistics show us falling back again. The opposition feel the equal need to point out just how much worse everything is than the government is admitting but don't, on the other hand, want to put off the voters by sounding too draconian in what they may do in response."

what he sees as a dodgy claim in the speech that freezing the pay of public sector workers could save £3bn:

"All in all, what appeared to a large saving coming from an attack on the wages of the public sector fat cat few is, in fact, a reannouncement of future pay restraint for the not-so-well-off public sector many, saving nothing extra. I don't think that was easy to deduce from Mr Brown's words."

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Government proposals up for consultation try to tackle dangerous dogs by suggesting dogs are microchips, they have compulsory third party insurance and a dog Asbo is introduced. Commentators dissect the plans.

The the idea of dog insurance to cover compensation to people who are bitten:

"This time what will happen is that millions of law-abiding dog owners will stump up for the insurance, with much grumbling, while the bad owners of badly-behaved dogs will ignore the law, much as many of them do with the obligation to insure their car. There will be much complaint about yet another unnecessary burden for the majority which will be ignored by the minority who cause the problems."

that dogs have always been a divisive issue:

"It has been so since MPs first tried to curb fierce, unmuzzled dogs in public places in 1839. The police power to judge a dog both dangerous, not under proper control and liable to be destroyed dates from the 1871 Dogs Act. Respectable Victorians were very snifffy about the 'mongrels' of the poor."

current proposals are unenforceable:

"Sadly, unlike the dogs, the law has no teeth. You can't take someone's dog and microchip it without permission, or enter a house, stop the home-breeding and neuter the dogs, and vets can't report dogs injured in fights, and the bad owners know this. So perhaps the government needs to toughen up on dog owners and ignore the whingeing 'good' owners who are worried they'll be penalised along with the nasty ones."

some negative long term consequences from the regulations:

"Not for the first time, an extreme of behaviour (the 'devil dogs') seems set to make life considerably more tiresome for the generally harmless majority. The state and its busybody offshoots will prosper. Another little slice of liberty will shrivel.
And in the end, I suspect, lots of us will simply deduce that it is not worth owning dogs. Postmen will cheer but for millions of others, the dog basket will fall silent and life will be less fun."

In the his dog killed a swan, but he is concerned new regulations are scaremongering:

"Owning a dog is, or ought to be, one of the joys of life: an extra dimension of love, care and friendship. No matter how much Alan Johnson dresses up his statement in canine-friendly language, he is encouraging canine-phobia. That may be the right political response to prejudiced newspaper pictures of snarling pitbull terriers. But it will deny a lifetime of pleasure to thousands of girls and boys who are encouraged to believe that every dog is closely related to the Hound of the Baskervilles."

The the proposed legislation would cause hassle for the wrong people:

"We all know, too, that the bureaucracy needed to oversee this system will grow in size and expense. In fact, this is about a failure of policing, not of administration. The reason why the number of "weapons dogs" has grown in our inner cities is because the streets have been turned over to the thug. Responsible dog owners should not be made to suffer because the Government has failed in its fundamental duty to provide law and order."

that the reasons why people use dogs as weapons should be examined:

"I bet that, in vast numbers of council estates, violent crime has doubled. So, sure, it's deplorable that people are using dogs to protect themselves. But we should spend a while asking why they think they have to. Consider the microsociety these people live in: welfare ghettoes where violent crime has soared, a rise always underplayed by the national statistics because it's countered by a fall in crime in rich areas which are always better policed."

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The it understands that the News of the World has paid £1m to Max Clifford to drop a legal action over the interception of his voicemail messages. It follows a similar payment to Gordon Taylor, head of the Professional Footballers Association. The Guardian says the News of the World declined to comment, but quotes Max Clifford as "very happy with the outcome".

The Press Complaints Commission and the Football Association are investigating that newspapers have been offered recordings of discussions between England's players and coaches.

The long-awaited sequel to Phantom of the Opera has divided fans at previews, ahead of last night's First Night.

Love Never Dies is Andrew Lloyd-Webber's finest musical since Phantom of the Opera.

by Love Never Dies. Where's the menace, he asks?

The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Secretary Alan Johnson has added his voice to those saying Facebook should put the official 'panic button' on its screen, after the murder of schoolgirl Ashleigh Hall according to the and the .

The inquest verdict into the deaths of four UK soldiers, including one woman, in Afghanistan is widely reported as .

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Andrew Lloyd Weber's musical Love never Dies is the sequel to the Phantom of the Opera. Theatre critics gave it their score.

the performance four stars:

"What I have no doubt about whatever is that this is Lloyd Webber's finest show since the original Phantom, with a score blessed with superbly haunting melodies and a yearning romanticism that sent shivers racing down my spine."

The the piece three stars, as he says it lacks narrative tension:

"There is much to enjoy in Andrew Lloyd Webber's new musical. The score is one of the composer's most seductive. Bob Crowley's design and Jack O'Brien's direction have a beautiful kaleidoscopic fluidity. And the performances are good. The problems lie within the book, chiefly credited to Lloyd Webber himself and Ben Elton, which lacks the weight to support the imaginative superstructure."

The the old Phantom, so gives the piece only two out of five stars:

"But then this Phantom is not the phantom we knew. The "poisoned gargoyle who burns in hell" has clearly taken an anger management course in New York... Where's the menace, the horror, the psychological darkness? For that I recommend a trip to Her Majesty's, not the Adelphi."

three out of four stars for an implausible plot:

"Some snippety wag has already named the show "Paint Never Dries." It's true that unless you can bring a sense of amusement to the bizarre mechanics of the plot, you'll be nonplussed. If you can, there's plenty to enjoy."

a "phantastic" five stars:

"This mix of the heart-stopping and the stomach-lurching (a true kinaesthetic experience) characterises some of the best sequences in Love Never Dies."

the show takes too long to get going:
"So: a hit? Not quite. It is too much an also-ran to the prequel, and its opening is too stodgy. But if it is a miss, it is -- like Christine -- a noble miss, noble because Lloyd Webber's increasingly operatic music tries to lift us to a higher plane."

The the show doesn't live up to the Phantom of the Opera:

"Sets and special effects cannot be faulted, the singing is terrific.
Director Jack O'Brien cranks up the melodramatic tension to a stunning ending.
But phantastic? Afraid not."

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A selection of lines from parliamentary sketch-writers.

Children, Schools and Families Secretary Ed Balls and his opposite number, Michael Gove took to the floor in a debate that touched on free school meals, Eton, future spending cuts and Carol Vorderman.

, not only was the debate about schoolchildren but the behaviour of the two main players resembled that of a pair of adolescents:

"As the questions were on schools, it was entirely appropriate that what we got was a playground fight, with the Speaker as the poor sod in charge of supervising break, who actually couldn't care less about the rights and wrongs of their scrap, or voices chirping: 'Sir, sir, he started it, sir!'"

, saying that the cabinet minister and his learned shadow opponent had the "maturity of toddlers fighting over a toy truck":

"'You keep refusing to listen!' moaned Mr Balls (are they married? I think we should be told). Then he announced: 'I think he should do his homework a little bit better.'
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"At which point Mr Gove snapped: 'I think it is you who will get an F for fail on this!'"

that the session was in sharp contrast with that which went before it - as Justice Secretary Jack Straw discussed the case of Jon Venables with his fellow lawyers, Tory Dominic Grieve and Lib Dem David Howarth in a non-political-point-scoring way:

"At one point he had to be asked by the Speaker to withdraw a silly allegation that his shadow, Michael Gove, was lying. Mr Balls did so in such a sullen way that the Tory benches immediately barked: 'Hah!'
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"Mr Balls: 'It sounds like they've had a large lunch and that was a large belch.'
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"Ew."

to being totally confused by the whole debate:

"They were, he and Michael Gove, each accusing the other of quoting misleading figures. We were all misled. But, as I have come to realise, it is what we are for."

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Facebook has urged its users not to meet strangers after a convicted sex offender murdered a teenager he met on the social networking site, the and report.

On the Today programme, Chris Huhne of the Liberal Democrats says Facebook does not have the same security online protection options as Bebo and MSN. He says the sex offenders list must be updated for the internet age.

Chris Evans is back from a week's holiday and his breakfast show on Radio 2 is "too busy and too self-centred". Terry Wogan is not the same in his new live Sunday show, according to her correspondents.

As Katherine Biglelow becomes the first woman to win the best director Oscar, the why there still so few women directors?

The it has found its longest-serving reader - Douglas Bates has been reading it for more than 70 years. But the story doesn't make its online edition!

The debate over Jon Venables continues to dominate the newspapers, the .

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In a statement to the Commons, Jack Straw has resisted demands for information on one of the killers of James Bulger, Jon Venables. Commentators are split as to whether they agree with him.

that Venables' treatment reflects an attitude to rehabilitation which has already trickled down to offenders of lesser crimes:

"But the broader question is less about Venables's actions than about the light this shadowy returnee shines on the British soul. Though his crime was terrible beyond understanding, he is also a reminder of the shame of others. Just as no one knows what made him kill James Bulger, nobody knows what Furies drove him, hated and hunted, to where he is today. His actions, whatever they may be, do not justify the vindictive instincts of those, journalists included, who never knew his victim but whose object is to destroy Venables the man in a way they could not destroy Venables the child."

The Mr Straw's decision, pointing out that if Venables' real identity were revealed it could make him "untriable" by a jury:

"[R]eleasing information on Venables could leave us in a still more unsatisfactory position if it blew the court-ordered anonymity of an innocent person (we must remember that Venables has not yet been found guilty of any new crime) or disrupted criminal proceedings that could be in the pipeline."

that anonymity is more important now:

"If Venables lost his anonymity, he would spend the remainder of his life in fear of being killed by vigilantes who feel that death alone is sufficient punishment for his crimes. Ensuring that such an extrajudicial killing did not take place would probably be beyond the capacity of those charged to protect him. Those who have expressed outrage at the cost to the public purse of keeping Venables safe should reflect that protecting him after his cover has been removed would not only be more difficult but also probably more expensive."

the withheld information to what he sees as a government which takes more and more information about the public but is stricter about its own information:

"How many people suppose the details of Jon Venables's reimprisonment are being concealed merely to serve justice? How many, instead, think the justice department's overriding concern is to shield those who released him in the first place?"

no good can come from hiding the truth about Venables' crimes:

"[T]his secrecy is far from desirable. First, we have every right to know the way in which taxpayers' money is being spent on the treatment of criminals.
More pertinently, such secrecy allows incompetence to flourish. It means we have no way of knowing whether the treatment of young offenders is going wrong; no way of holding childcare or psychiatric professionals - whose record hardly inspires much confidence - to account."

Lawyer Duncan Lamont in the Sun dismisses the idea that revealing Venables' identity would result in an unfair trial:

"The legal system can, and if called upon will, provide a fair trial for the person previously known as Jon Venables - even if Mr Straw gives us some official information now. Mr Venables does not exist anymore. He has a real new identity.
It is very convenient for the Government and Mr Venables' support team to have no scrutiny at this stage - because clearly something very serious has gone wrong."

that even if calls to reveal more information are sincere, they still shouldn't be granted:

"It's possible that, in outraged newsrooms, writers are genuinely affronted by the justice secretary's refusal to see things their way. They may feel that in a battle between accountability and fair trial, accountability should win. They may believe that some fleshed-out detail on tomorrow's front page is really more important than the steely progress of a criminal case to its just conclusion, whether that is conviction or acquittal.
In which case, Jack Straw is right. The more we're told about what Jon Venables may have done, the more likely he'll stand unmasked before his court - and the more unlikely that any trial will take place. The government should hold its nerve."

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Commentators give their reactions to the 2010 Oscar winners.

the Academy Awards have a history of supporting independent films over blockbusters:

"[I]t's fair to assume The Hurt Locker's triumph over Avatar will be considered the way we talk about How Green Was My Valley topping Citizen Kane, or Annie Hall over Star Wars. The Academy has always moved in mysterious ways, far removed from the desires of the fanboys or the public at large. That's something that no amount of James Cameron whizbang CGI magic can ever change."

that the ceremony remained apolitical despite the controversial subject matter of some of the films:

"This seemed to be the year where the winners, Hurt Locker included, kept their mouths shut. There was no Sean Penn speech on civil rights, or quips about Sarah Palin or even references to President Obama. Even Mo'Nique's reference to the politics surrounding Precious was very fleeting: You'd have to be a pretty close awards season observer to even know that there has been a flap about the movie's portrayal of African Americans in the slums."

the first woman to win best director and the first African American to win the writing award are both long overdue:

"The history of the Oscars amounts to a kind of parallel, alternative history of the United States. One question, perhaps, is why an art form that ostensibly reflects our life and times has so often lagged years or even decades behind evolving social realities. Time will tell whether last night's recognitions were harbingers of change or exceptions that prove the rule."

that the wins for Hurt Locker and Precious were no surprise:

"All the pundits had been picking these as the winners for weeks now. Snore. The only race to have a bit of heat was between Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock for Best Actress, a prize that Sandy B took home for The Blind Side."

the ceremony itself dragged on, which wasn't helped by the predictability of the winners:

"[W]hen the majority of the big awards are no-brainers, something's gotta give when it comes to the show format to keep people interested. The Academy shouldn't be faulted for the fact that the Big Four were locks, it's just that they surely could have done something to spice up the remainder of the show."

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The debate continues over the decision not to explain why John Venables, one of the killers of James Bulger, is back in jail. Several newspapers have given details of what he is alleged to have done. The and pick up the story. The Justice Secretary Jack Straw is interviewed by John Humphrys, following media criticism of the decision not to explain why John Venables is back in jail. Radio 4's Today.

On International Women's Day, Katherine Bigelow has become the first woman to win the Oscar for best director. Her film The Hurt Locker dominated the night with six Oscars. Avatar won three of the technical awards. The the winners.

Women are outnumbered two to one on the TV screen and tend to be younger than their male counterparts, according to a Channel 4 diversity analysis to mark International Women's Day and reported by the and the .

Bob Geldof has challenged the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ to prove its claim that aid to Ethiopia was spent on weapons. He and leading charities have denied it. The it stands by its story and the .

The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ head of future media and technology that the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ had allowed its website to "sprawl". By cutting it back, it wants to do better with less.

The Alexander Lebedev, the former KGB agent expected to complete his takeover of the Independent shortly.

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Gordon Brown's appearance at the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war has attracted a lot of comment.

In the Gordon Brown's evidence:

"For Gordon Brown to say he has given the military all they asked for is not true. They asked for more helicopters but they were told they could not have any more.
In the end because of his budget restraints the helicopters arrived far too long after the conflict in Afghanistan had begun. He should have protected the helicopter budget but it was raided in 2004 and he was too late rectifying the situation."

that Chilcot did not address the issue of "chronic underfunding" across the board:

"Had our force levels been higher earlier then our risks would have been reduced earlier. I know that the Prime Minister 'gets' this now, but no amount of rewriting history can compensate for the years when he neither understood defence properly nor was persuaded to pay for it fully."

to these criticisms:

"Lying to Parliament used to be regarded as just about the gravest offence that a politician could commit. But there is a worse one: lying to or about the armed forces. That is what Mr Brown has done, repeatedly: the worst crime of his premiership. No government could guarantee that there would never be a shortage of equipment. But any government worthy of the name would guarantee to uphold the military covenant. This is an implicit understanding between the nation and the armed forces."

Gordon Brown to Tony Blair and isn't impressed:

"But, like his predecessor, he is shockingly indifferent to the agony of the people most affected by the Iraq war, a war Brown still says was 'the right' thing to do for the 'right reasons'. His only regret? They should have thought a bit more about what to do next after they had defeated Saddam and pulled down his statues.
Not a word about the countless Iraqis killed when we bombed indiscriminately in civilian areas, no word of sorrow, however hollow or feigned, about the dead children or those now born in that blighted land with two heads and other grotesque abnormalities."

accusations of dishonesty levelled at the prime minister:

"What an astonishing six hours of slick dodginess. If you believe what our Prime Minister said to the Chilcot Inquiry yesterday, well, you'd probably believe that Sir Cyril Smith once dated Diana Dors and that Stonehenge was designed by Ken Dodd's dentist."

The , unlike most of the comment, congratulates Gordon Brown on his performance:

"Mr Brown began with an unambiguous declaration that the Iraq war was the right policy, embarked on for the right reasons. He then produced an answer for every question that the panel asked, not least the potentially tricky ones about defence spending during Mr Brown's Treasury years. Mr Brown's reputation as a details man - the sort of man who really reads Annexe E, as one of the interviewees in Andrew Rawnsley's new book puts it - was much in evidence."

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I'm the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's media correspondent and this is my summary of what's going on.

The advertising giant WPP has announced a fall in profits in 2009 but says 2010 should be better, driven by growth in Eastern markets. Its chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell told Radio 4's Today it had been a brutal year but he thought a corner had been turned.

Tony Blair's long-awaited memoirs, The Journey, will be published in September by Random House, the . The he will make £4.6m from them.

The Terry Wogan's TOGS are taking their revenge on Chris Evans while he has a week off, saying how much they prefer his replacement Richard Allinson.

Metro has retained its contract to be distributed on the London Underground for another seven years .

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Worldwide has bought the rest of the 2Entertain DVD publishing company from the administrators of Woolworths .

The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's head of audio and music that 6 Music must go because the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's network of radio stations is too big.

The the newspapers' focus on the return to jail of one of James Bulger's killers.

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Tim Davie | ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ | The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Strategy Review & ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio

• Read Thursday's Media Brief.

As Gordon Brown prepares to appear at the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war, commentators set out the questions they would like to be asked.

The the public will want the inquiry to get to the bottom of reasons for inadequate equipment in Iraq:

"The country today is less interested in Mr Brown's part in the decision to topple Saddam, and more concerned to discover whether, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he did anything to place our soldiers in greater danger. Whether or not the Armed Forces were properly equipped is a matter that Mr Brown very much needs to address, especially given the continuing war in Afghanistan."

Gordon Brown's antipathy to defence spending is notorious:

"It absorbs cash that, in his view, would be better bestowed as largesse on Towerblock Tracy with her five children to 11 putative fathers - a policy euphemistically described in Brown's weasel vocabulary as "eliminating child poverty". If the inquiry panel has any ambition to justify its existence it must pillory Brown on this."

Colonel Stuart Tootal was involved in the invasion of Iraq. that he expects some "pretty tough questioning" of Gordon Brown on the provision of equipment which he remembers as poor:

"The prospect of conflict in Iraq was known about months in advance, but much of the kit that we needed only reached us just before we crossed the desert border leaving us little time to train with it. Some never arrived at all and some of it, such as the Snatch Land Rovers we were forced to use, was very obviously sub-optimal."

This sentiment is . Her son Private Phillip Hewett was killed by a roadside bomb whilst in a Snatch Land Rover. She isn't expecting her questions about soldier deaths to be answered:

"The political class want an inquiry into everything except what is important -- Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary, decided that it was not "appropriate" to have an inquiry into the deaths of soldiers. We, the parents of the soldiers who died, feel completely cut off from the people in Westminster. Take the fuss about Lord Ashcroft: what on earth is the relevance to ordinary people of whether he paid his taxes when you have a real issue here -- the needless deaths of soldiers? The people in Westminster aren't just living in a bubble; they're on another planet."

some key questions:

"Was Brown aware that Blair wrote to Bush in 2002 promising that if Iraq had to be disarmed militarily, "Britain will be there"? Did he support that stance?
Was Clare Short right to allege that Brown conspired with other Cabinet members to create "a lie, a deliberate lie", the 'blame the French' strategy to avoid responsibility for the collapse of diplomatic negotiations at the UN?"

Conservative MP the questions he would like answered by Gordon Brown at the inquiry:

"What was his attitude to the war? Did he ever question its wisdom or its legality? Why didn't he make a strong case for it when out and about as a senior cabinet Minister in a government committed to it? Did he have any reservations then or now about what the UK did?"

Links in full

A selection of lines from parliamentary sketch-writers.

Harriet Harman and William Hague took centre stage for proceedings as the prime minister was meeting South African President Jacob Zuma.

The shadow foreign secretary chose to kick off his set of questions with one on government bonds, a tactic that was a sure-fire way to get the leader of the house in a flurry:

"Finance gets Hattie in a terrible twist. She sounds like a four-year-old explaining space travel to a pretend friend. Jargon and overheard half-concepts are mashed together in a confidently asserted jumble of bilge."

For her part, Ms Harman made sure to bring up the subject of Lord Ashcroft at every opportunity, an approach that increased her confidence against her opponent:

"Harriet Harman saw it as her Boadicea moment. To say that she was on her high horse does not quite capture it - think of the artist Mark Wallinger's plans for a 50-metre white horse in the Thames Estuary and you get the idea."

But, as Ms Harman thought she had the better of her opponent, going for the jugular on the issue of the Tory deputy leader's own integrity regarding the Tory donor, that Mr Hague's mention of her husband's selection as a Labour candidate won the round:

"[I]t's often the way - it's not the big punch that wins but the counterpunch."

It was a particularly raucous PMQs with constant barracking from all sides throughout, regardless of who was speaking. the behaviour of the government backbenchers at one point to "a party of eight-year-old boys given Modern Warfare 2", describing Speaker John Bercow's role in proceedings as "resembling a PE teacher as he begged for order".

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I am the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's media correspondent and this is my summary of what's going on.

The Trinity Mirror's profits fell 41 per cent to £72.7m in 2009. Ad revenue at its regional newspapers fell by almost 30 per cent.

Delia Smith and Heston Blumenthal are to star in TV commercials for Waitrose. It's the first time Delia has endorsed a supermarket .

The the Justice Secretary Jack Straw has announced that lawyers must cut their libel "success fees" from 100% to 10%. Last week a committee of MPs said they were having a "chilling effect" on investigative journalism.

TiVo, which pioneered the digital video recorder business in the US but left the UK after losing out to Sky+, is launching a new box .

Kimberly Quinn, the former Spectator publisher who hit the headlines over her affair with David Blunkett, has written a children's book. .

The GMTV presenter Penny Smith is leaving the sofa after 17 years amid claims of ageism.

Evocative posters of the "golden age" of rail are being auctioned. Ten of them can be .

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• Read Wednesday's Media Brief.

Jon Venables, one of the killers of two-year-old James Bulger, is back in prison after breaching the terms of his release. Commentators consider whether his anonymity should be withdrawn.

Criminologist that the public have the right to know details of Jon Venables' licence breach:

"Keeping us all in the dark will only further undermine faith in the justice system. The problem is that the public have been utterly patronised by our politicians.
They've treated us like children who can't handle the truth. But until we know the truth, there can't be a proper debate about the important implications of this case."

about the consequences of secrecy around Jon Venables:

"It is not that the people are in contempt of court, but that the courts are held in contempt by the people. Law and order are trotted out by Labour and Tories alike yet each year sees many laws yet little justice. You will find it far easier to establish a secretive police state than to dismantle one."

Jon Venables' return to the news shows that the public would like "death-penalty lite":

"Full-life tariffs are a tacit death-penalty-lite, a way to deny a life without having to extinguish it - an understandable but enormous compromise that demonstrates how imperfectly the capital punishment debate was ever concluded. And, moreover, the hair's breadth we are from reopening it."

that the anonymity of the license should remain if we believe in rehabilitation:

"The authorities showed admirable courage in the face of huge emotional pressure to be punitive. Instead, the killers were offered redemption and rehabilitation as decent human beings. If we held our nerve then, we must continue to do so now. All the evidence shows that children's lives can be turned around; and that this is the correct, logical, humane policy for the future."

if we really have given up on the idea of redemption:

"We cannot feel anger at this man who was detained yesterday, for we no longer know who he is. He may be married. He may be a father. He may have a job. He may be kind and considerate. He may be rotten and deceitful. He may have shoplifted. He may have sold drugs. It does not matter, for we are not interested in him; we are interested in the little boy who terrified us with his malice all those years ago, and we do not want to let that shudder evaporate and lose its power."

Links in full

A selection of lines from parliamentary sketch-writers.

Lord Turner appeared in front of the Treasury Select Committee to discuss how banks and bankers can be controlled in future to prevent another financial crisis. unconvinced, or simply confused, by the Financial Service Authority chief's answers:

"Lord Turner had a number of solutions. The ones any normal ignoramus could understand were silly, and so I assumed - perhaps unfairly - were the ones we couldn't.
Ìý
"To stop a boom while it was still booming he was recommending a 'macroprudential committee' on which he had placed 'maverick economists' in order to 'institutionalise intellectual challenge'. That's like sending missionaries into the Big Feast armed only with the New Testament printed on sugar paper."

At Foreign Office questions, as the debate turned to the issue of Yemen, Labour MP Keith Vaz asked David Miliband if he would consider visiting the country with his US counterpart Hillary Clinton. that, instead of being embarrassed by the insinuations about the pair's relationship after Mrs Clinton called Mr Miliband "vibrant and attractive", he positively played on it:

"You might think Mr Miliband would try to shrug off this erotic speculation and give a serious answer. Not. 'Needless to say,' he purred, 'I have thought of many places for a joint visit with the secretary of state...'"

Away from Westminster, Kenneth Clarke was speaking at an event in Canary Wharf, home to many of the City's bankers. that if the Tories' plan was to present him as an experienced antidote to Cameron and Osborne, who were also there, it did the trick:

"Mr Osborne was so pale he was almost green. Mr Cameron's hair glistened."
Ìý
"[Mr Clarke's] own hair cut, scraped and pineapple spiky at the back, was old-fashioned. He was a disorganised figure, even almost doddery as he stumbled over words, his enunciation foggy, the vowels moving towards us with all the despatch of smoke rings."

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Commentators assess the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's strategic review which includes the closure of two radio stations.

the changes are politically motivated:

"So why has Mark Thompson done it? Because he feared that if he didn't jump from the second storey window, an incoming Conservative government would push him off the roof. He is right to be anxious. The Tories have indeed signalled a hostility to the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ that is rare, if not unprecedented, in an opposition. Why might that be? Two words: Rupert Murdoch.
Ìý
People often speak of the unique influence of the media magnate, with his combination of economic and political muscle, but "influence" doesn't quite capture it. Instead David Cameron has simply allowed News Corp to write the Conservative party's media policy."

that the closure of 6 Music will be bad for new music:

"The only way this decision will be palatable is if they incorporate the elements of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ 6 Music that strike a chord with the public into one of their other channels, such as Radio 2. That would mean making a commitment to showcasing new and unsigned bands, not just bands on major labels, and giving space to bands who haven't got a platform anywhere else, not just the next hyped act. But honestly I don't feel very hopeful that this will happen."

The the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ a sprawling media monolith and says the cuts don't go far enough:

"Its subsidised presence in far too many parts of the media is slowly squeezing the life out of commercial rivals. Yesterday's package of measures looks like the minimum that the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ thinks it can get away with to fend off a rising tide of criticism."

The Telegraph editorial calls the plans embarrassing:

"Instead of fixing what is wrong, the review illustrates perfectly the corporation's failings. Political and cynical in equal measure, this is a smoke-and-mirrors operation designed to give the impression of radical reform, while actually amounting to little more than a rearrangement of the deckchairs."

Channel 4 ex-chairman Luke Johnson told the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's World at One that the proposals doesn't go far enough:

"Why have they not committed to scrapping all imported shows and stopping showing of all Hollywood movies? And why are they continuing in funding ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ3 and ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ4 and why are they taking so long to bring in these changes? Why 2013? If they were the private sector they would do these things a lot quicker."

An ex-chairman of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Board of Governors he supports the review:

"Of course, the Daily Mail and News International are never going to be happy until the head of the director general is served up on a silver plate, but they're wrong. The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ remains one of the greatest cultural organisations not only in the United Kingdom but the world."

also supports the review:

"There is a case for splitting the public service element away from the showbiz side. But we should tread cautiously, feeling our way, preferring to make a series of small changes that can if necessary be reversed, rather than propounding some radical vision that will seem absurd in another 10 years' time. This is something that is good. It needs to be nudged, not caned."

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Telegraph | The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ: from national treasure to broadcasting bully




³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio 4 blog | The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ strategic review on WATO

I'm the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's media correspondent and this is my summary of what's going on.

The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ director general Mark Thompson will meet union leaders today to discuss his planned shake-up at the Corporation. They've promised to fight any closures. The campaign to save 6Music is growing as and .

The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ chairman Sir Michael Lyons has been interviewed on Today.

The newspapers are divided over the wisdom of the plans and whether the cuts go far enough.
The the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ should have taken an axe to bloated management, not programme services.

The the cuts are a start but look like the minimum the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ thinks it can get away with.

The the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ has gone from national treasure to broadcasting bully. the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is caving in to a Tory media policy dictated by Rupert Murdoch, but that the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's dominance will remain.

The ITV has announced profits of £25 million, following a £2.7 billion loss in 2008. that they're the first figures to be unveiled by its new chairman Archie Norman.

and the the three main party leaders have agreed to the terms of three TV election debates, on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ1, ITV1 and Sky News. Smaller parties are still lobbying to get their own debates.

The how ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ plans are being dissected by the newspapers.

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• Read yesterday's Media Brief.

Conservative donor and deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft has admitted he does not pay UK tax on earnings outside Britain. Commentators look at what this means for the Tory party.

the story comes down to semantics:

"So the question of whether Ashcroft has complied with his 2000 commitment comes down to whether you believe that "permanent residence" can be reasonably taken to be the same as "long term residence" (in this case referring to non-domiciled tax status)."

The David Cameron's tough treatment of MPs expenses and asks why he was so gentle with Lord Ashcroft:

"The rough justice Mr Cameron meted out to Tory troops who exploited their expenses without actually breaking the rules stands in contrast to his prolonged indulgence of Lord Ashcroft's desire to keep his dealings private. Perhaps he is instinctively more forgiving about avoiding tax, which some right-wingers always regard as an indecent affront, than the free use of public funds. Or perhaps Lord Ashcroft - whose carefully targeted donations are currently helping Conservatives campaigns in crucial marginal seats to defy faltering national performance - has been treated especially gently."

The , commending Mr Cameron's handling of the affair:

"It is to Mr Cameron's credit that he has forced this issue, planning legislation to require both peers and MPs to pay full tax. In this, the Conservative leader has been both pragmatic and principled. And yet, even now, Lord Ashcroft keeps the same smirking tone."

Labour MP if this revelation will lead to a rethink of political financing of democratic activity:

"Giant scandals rocked French, German and Italian politics over the last quarter century and reforms were enacted to bring in state funding. Britain's eternal self-satisfied smugness that we are squeaky clean in terms of the public interface between parties, government and external sources of finance surely now needs re-examination in the light of Ashcroft."

The president of the polling organisation YouGov that Lord Ashcroft's funding will have an effect in marginal seats but not on the national political outlook:

"The ground war is where you contact your supporters, you find out where they are. You put a lot of effort street by street, house by house to find out where your supporters are and making sure they go out to vote on the day... I don't think money makes much difference in the big politics of the election but it can make a difference to the mobilisation on the ground in the key seats, money does count there."

The the Labour reaction "synthetic outrage":

"Lord Ashcroft was of value to Labour's propaganda machine only when there was doubt about his tax position. Now that we know he has precisely the same non-dom status as prominent Labour donors such as Sir Ronald Cohen, Lord Paul and Lakshmi Mittal, it is going to be difficult for Labour to make any serious mischief on this issue - which rather reinforces the point that he should have come clean much sooner."

Political blogger accusations against the Tories for taking money from non-doms hypocrisy:

"Since 2001 Ashcroft has given £5,160,915 to the Tories and Labour's troika of of non-dom donors, Mittal, Cohen and Paul have given £6,734,250."

Links in full

A selection of lines from parliamentary sketch-writers.

The Commons science committee was grilling two witnesses from polar opposites of the climate change debate. First up was former chancellor Lord Lawson of Blaby, a longstanding critic of the climate policy. Then it was the turn of Professor Phil Jones, the scientist from the University of East Anglia who was at the centre of the leaked e-mails controversy.

that the former chancellor's many years' experience as a politician were apparent in the way he handled the committee's questions:

"With the aggression of someone who used to go eyeball to eyeball with Margaret Thatcher, Lawson laid about the 'climate alarmists' and, without naming Jones, spoke with dripping contempt."

that Professor Jones's demeanour was reminiscent of Dr David Kelly in front of the foreign affairs select committee several years ago:

"His voice quavered, hands shook, eyes darted as though he was watching a video of Wimbledon on fast-forward."

However, that the scientist seemed uneasy, describing him as "eerily calm":

"He seemed, like a dead calm sea, almost glassy. And, like ships in the Bermuda Triangle, questions that got near him just seemed to disappear."

that the committee was out to get Professor
Jones:

"They may be looking for a blood sacrifice. If I were Dr Jones, I'd get the details of a transfusion service."

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As the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's media correspondent, I cover the personalities, politics and ethics of the media, as well as creative, business, technology and legal issues. This is my summary of what's going on.

The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ will unveil a new strategy today that could lead to the closure of 6 Music, the Asian Network and half its website pages. In the Guardian, the Director General Mark Thompson explains the thinking and says the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ must not do everything.

• Monday's Media Brief

As the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's media correspondent, I cover the personalities, politics and ethics of the media, as well as creative, business, technology and legal issues. This is my summary of what's going on.

The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ has said its strategic review plans will be put to the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Trust shortly. It has not confirmed reports that it will propose closing 6 Music, the Asian Network, Switch, Blast and large parts of its website.

• Friday's Media Brief.

Commentators assess David Cameron's performance at the Conservative spring conference.

the Tories need an effort of "heroic proportions" to win the election, but Mr Cameron delivered a clear speech:

"Optimism, urgency, radicalism he promised, a pointed reply to those who charge him with pessimism, complacency and timidity. It is too early to judge whether his performance turned the tide. But the battle starts now."

David Cameron's "deathly pale" appearance was due to pressure of being the favourite to win:

"It was a lacklustre, tick-box speech and Dave had just ticked off non-judgmental compassion. A few minutes later he promised to 'recognise marriage in the tax system' ('Hi, marriage'). Behind him, William Hague looked glummer than ever. Years of sitting in cabinet lie ahead of him. Probably."

Mr Cameron is at his best when the threat is greatest:

"Early on, Mr Cameron decided that yesterday's speech would be another high-wire act. With neither notes nor a lectern for protection, it was trapeze artistry without a safety net. In previous noteless forays, Mr Cameron had memorised chunks of the text. This time, he merely worked out a structure and then improvised. The final product lacked the molto vivace of his finest party conference performances - 2005, 2007 - but there was plenty of excitement. Moreover, this will not be a stand-alone speech. It was his opening salvo in the intensified phase of the election campaign."

with Cameron performing without notes:

"Why does a feat of technical virtuosity become an election-winner? Why does the manner of delivery become The Story for the media? Isn't the message more important than the memory? David Cameron's strategy is fundamentally and, we can now see, finally and irrevocably flawed. His message, as defiantly and unequivocally re-stated today, is one of radical change. The key question this provokes, however, is change from what?"

David Cameron was cool and stuck calmly to his plan:

"I'm not sure it will have had Lazarus rising from his deathbed but it was calmly assertive, with a few good jibes at the ruination of the Labour years, 'all those people who have been trashing family values' and the 'dysfunctional' Cabinet. 'It is time to put our government on a diet', he said. Eric Pickles winced."

The David Cameron's repeated claims of a broken society don't resonate with the voter:

"Mr Cameron defiantly repeated the same message yesterday, insisting that "the country was in a compete mess" and that people had a patriotic duty to throw Labour out. It could be argued that an abrupt change in tone at this stage would only unnerve the Tory rank and file and prompt fresh charges of wobbling, but the danger remains that his message does not entirely match the public mood - in part because most people have been shielded from the full impact of the economic downturn by massive borrowing."

The there are contradictions in Mr Cameron's policies:

"But a Conservative leader who says 'I love the NHS' and lists public service workers as a reason he wants to "win it for them" faces a particular problem when his priority is cutting the national debt."

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