It is time for me to turn my back on the obsessive Westminster

“It is time for me to turn my back on the obsessive Westminster village,” he said. But he made clear that, as MP for Hartlepool, he would not disappear from the political scene. “I am not going to become a hermit or forsake my voice on issues I think are important.”He suggested that he had been a victim of the “hysteria” stemming from the media, which demanded instant answers. He believed that both journalists and politicians had “rushed to judgement” on him.Mr Mandelson said: “If any good comes out of this affair, I hope that in similar situations in future better judgement – and a pause for judgement – can prevail over the dictates of instant deadlines and short-term headlines.”A defiant Mr Mandelson said he was proud of his role in helping Labour to return to power after 18 years in the wilderness, and to be Northern Ireland Secretary when an all-party government was set up in the province.

He said: “What matters for me isn’t London, it’s local, it’s Hartlepool, where hopefully I will be able to perform more like a good constituency MP than a walking media event.”. Former Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson and Europe minister Keith Vaz have been cleared of improper conduct over the Hinduja passport affair by the Hammond inquiry. Former Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson and Europe minister Keith Vaz have been cleared of improper conduct over the Hinduja passport affair by the Hammond inquiry.
Sir Anthony Hammond ruled it was “likely” that Mr Mandelson telephoned immigration minister Mike O’Brien personally about Srichand Hinduja’s bid for naturalisation, but added: “Mr Mandelson’s belief that he had not had a telephone conversation with Mr O’Brien was honestly held.”Mr Mandelson said this morning that his name and reputation had been cleared: “Sir Anthony’s report established that I did not lie, I did not deceive and I did not set out to mislead.”He called the affair “a muddle rather than a misrepresentaion”, but ruled out a return to office, saying there were “other ways to serve New Labour”.Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, whose Parliamentary questions led ultimately to Mr Mandelson’s downfall as Northern Ireland Secretary, said he was “only one aspect of a very large jigsaw”. He called for the whole mechanism of government to be examined.. The threat to William Hague’s leadership of the Tory party grew yesterday with the disclosure that a former minister had gathered enough rebel MPs to challenge him. The threat to William Hague’s leadership of the Tory party grew yesterday with the disclosure that a former minister had gathered enough rebel MPs to challenge him.
Twenty-five Conservative MPs have pledged to sign a motion of no confidence in the leader after the election, The Independent has learnt.The Conservative leadership was already reeling from The Sun’s decision to give Labour its full endorsement for the next general election.

The newspaper’s declaration was seized on by Mr Hague’s opponents as proof that he has no chance of cutting the Government’s 20-point poll lead, and will lead them to a heavy defeat.MPs from the centre-left and centre-right, the “assassination squad”, are ready to act if the Conservatives fail to cut Labour’s majority to fewerthan 60 seats at the election. One former minister has told MPs and candidates in winnable seats that he has enough names for a challenge.Under rules introduced by Mr Hague when he succeeded John Major, at least 25 of the parliamentary party would have to sign such a motion to trigger a vote.In a separate development, allies of Michael Portillo, the shadow Chancellor, have dismissed claims that he is unwilling to stand for the leadership. A Portillo supporter said: “Michael knows there’s a life outside politics. He’s not plotting against Hague; he’s quite relaxed about the current position. But if you are asking me ‘is he up for it?’, yes he is.”In a speech last weekend to a Tory conference, Mr Hague said Britain would become a “foreign land” under Labour. This was seen as the “last straw” by some MPs, who were appalled by theattempt to appeal to the party’s core vote on issues such as asylum. Critics in the party note that The Sun and the conservative Spectator magazine have condemned his decision to use asylum and immigration for electoral gain.Mr Portillo’s supporters are understood to have built up a list of Tory candidates at the election who are prepared to offer their backing in a contest.

But Mr Hague’s allies claim he remains buoyant about the election and say undecided voters could swing behind the party.In an indication of the bitterness between the camps, Baroness Thatcher, who once said she thought Mr Portillo, her former acolyte, was “confused” on social issues, told one Hague ally recently: “He’s Spanish, that’s his trouble.”. Nearly one in 10 British people has experienced conditions of “absolute poverty” without basic human necessities such as enough food, safe drinking water and proper sanitation, a report said yesterday. Nearly one in 10 British people has experienced conditions of “absolute poverty” without basic human necessities such as enough food, safe drinking water and proper sanitation, a report said yesterday.
The study found that extreme forms of poverty thought to exist only in the Third World were prevalent in Britain, with 5 million people suffering from severe deprivation.Breadline Europe states that the highest rate of absolute poverty was among lone parents. More than 40 per cent of single parents with one child said they had incomes of less than £163 a week, which was the amount needed for essential items, and more than half of those with two or more children survived on less than this amount, the researchers said.The report is based on a survey in 1999, six months after Labour started its anti-poverty drive. In the Budget on Wednesday, the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, announced a new package of measuresdesigned to help low-income families.Academics from Bristol University and London University said the study was the first to measure poverty scientifically using the United Nations definition, which defines absolute poverty as a shortage of food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information.David Gordon, a senior research fellow at Bristol, said: “Absolute poverty is not supposed to exist in a country like Britain.”But on the basis of the definition agreed by 117 governments in 1995, 9 per cent of the British population have reported their income a lot below that needed each week to keep their household out of absolute poverty.” A further 8 per cent reported earning a little less than the minimum.One quarter of single pensioners had to survive on less than the fundamental amount of £106 a week, and nearly one in five elderly couples were said to live in absolute poverty.In addition, 15 per cent of households with two adults and one child lived on less than the required £205 a week.The study also found levels of poverty had increased severely in other countries in the past 10 years. The biggest numbers of households judged to be living in absolute poverty were, unsurprisingly, in the former Soviet Union, Hungary and Poland.Peter Townsend, a professor of international social policy at the London School of Economics, who co-edited the report, said: “The UK has become the special case of Europe. Some observers believe that, under successive governments, the country has been going so far down the road of residualising welfare that it has become detached from most of the other European states and is following lamely in the wake of the US.”.

Tony Banks, a former sports minister, launched a stinging attack on the Government yesterday for trying to complete prestigious national projects “on the cheap”. Tony Banks, a former sports minister, launched a stinging attack on the Government yesterday for trying to complete prestigious national projects “on the cheap”.
He criticised ministers’ handling of schemes such as the new Wembley stadium, saying they should intervene and fund such projects. Giving evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, he said: “There’s a culture in this country of doing things on the cheap. You can see this in a number of projects, people try to do it on the cheap and try to find someone else to pay for it. In the end we end up paying a high price.”Mr Banks, who resigned as Sports minister to lead Britain’s vain bid to stage the 2006 World Cup, criticised the new national stadium project at Wembley. The project fell into chaos after Chris Smith, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, rejected plans for a temporary athletics track to host Olympic competition.Mr Banks said the £40m plans could have been made to work but senior ministers did not let him invest the money.