Gordon Brown and George Osborne offered their individual visions of how Britain and the world can recover from the economic crisis yesterday, with the Prime Minister calling for a return to the values of the good society, where banks recommit to their fundamental role.

Though his official biographer tends to deny it, there is a very noticeable gap between Lucian Freud's present style and the way he painted at the outset of his phenomenal career.

The government is considering introducing electronic voting for British forces abroad amid concerns that thousands of soldiers will be left without a vote at the forthcoming general election.

A FORMER Labour cabinet minister has boasted about how he used his government contacts to change policies in favour of businesses.

BA today insisted that more cabin crew than expected had turned out to defy the three-day strike.

A MAN wearing a barrister’s wig and a battery strapped to the back of his hand sparked a terror alert on the London underground during the morning rush hour, it has emerged.

THE novelist Philip Pullman has been threatened by religious zealots over his new book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ.

THE British Army is facing allegations that at least 10 Taliban suspects were beaten and given electric shocks after being handed over to local security forces in Afghanistan.

Even for a place as rugged and uncompromising as Pakistan’s Punjab region the sight of a shaven-headed little boy crying by the roadside at sunrise was unusual enough to catch the attention of passers-by.

THE first detailed study of Britain’s onshore wind farms suggests some treasured landscapes may have been blighted for only small gains in green energy.

Even by the overheated standards of the internet, the success of the latest pop video by a little-known Los Angeles band called OK Go has been extraordinary. In its first few days of release on the web, it has attracted more than 8.7m viewers.

DRINKERS face substantial price rises in this week’s budget, barring a last-minute change of heart by Alistair Darling, the chancellor.

In Heathrow terminal 5 yesterday Robert Scully, who was travelling on business, was angry to be at the mercy of British Airways strikers. “I shouldn’t have to go through this,” he fumed.

FOR more than 40 years Mike Lesser has lived with a nuclear secret that once had him on the run from MI5.

THEIR flights to eastern Europe are better known for parties of Britons on drunken stag and hen weekends. Now, however, no-frills airlines have spawned a new breed of “Easystudents” from east European countries who want to study at British universities that have cheap travel links to their homeland.

SOME of Britain’s biggest business tycoons have made secret payments totalling more than £1m to a woman at the centre of a £400m divorce battle.

LABOUR’S new 50% tax on high earners will leave Britain with the highest income-tax rates in the G8, just a year after the UK had the second lowest in the influential grouping.

THE Foreign Office, which is so cash-strapped that it struggled to pay its bills this month, has lavished £27m on a new embassy in Zimbabwe that was more than 50% over budget.

A FORMER Labour cabinet minister has boasted about how he used his government contacts to change policies in favour of businesses.

MARGARET MORAN was so keen to take up a role with the undercover reporter’s fictitious company that she suggested she might start immediately, while she was still a Labour MP.