Mr Michael O’Higgins, the chairman of the Audit Commission, denied accusations made by Mr Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, of organisational extravagance exemplified by spending £5,943 to hire the Reform Club for a 25th anniversary event and £40,000 on pot plants for its offices.
Mr Michael O’Higgins, the chairman of the Audit Commission, denied accusations made by Mr Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, of organisational extravagance exemplified by spending £5,943 to hire the Reform Club for a 25th anniversary event and £40,000 on pot plants for its offices. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that the emergency Budget in June was regressive, hitting poorer people hardest. In the three months to June, in the run-up to the election, the Conservatives were given £12.3 million in donations; Labour £10.9 million and the Liberal Democrats £2 million, according to the Electoral Commission. Mr Charles Kennedy, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, dismissed talk of his joining the Labour party. The late William Whitelaw was said, while Northern Ireland Secretary in 1972, to have arranged to have a priest (who died in 1980) suspected of belonging to the IRA removed to Donegal after the bombing at Claudy, Co. Londonderry, that killed nine people. A girl was born to Mrs Samantha Cameron while she and Mr David Cameron, the Prime Minister, were enjoying a holiday in Cornwall, a county in which he was struck by an egg earlier this year. David and Victoria Beckham were reported to have parted with 14 of their 50 servants because of the hard times.
The pass rate for A-levels rose to 97.6 per cent, with A grades rising to 27 per cent and the new A* accounting for 8 per cent.
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