Straw demands reform to end libel tourism

Foreigners could be barred from bringing libel actions with tenuous links to the UK under reforms being considered by ministers

Hunt supporters rally against ban

Frozen conditions cancel many Christmas hunts, but foxhunting supporters turn out in their thousands in show of defiance

2009 Quiz of the year

£6,000 a digit for NHS 60th anniversary logo

Ministers across Whitehall routinely pay top commercial design firms to "conceptualise" and "update" simple logos

My Christmas Week: Gordon Brown

“You’ve lost something, Gordon,” says the Tony ghost. “And I’m going to help you get it back.”

SNP offered to prop up failing Heath government after February 1974 election

As Edward Heath fought to stay in power he learned of a private approach by the Nationalists to Tory MP Teddy Taylor

More politicians face charges over expenses

Scotland Yard sends files on potential fraud charges against two more parliamentarians to the Crown Prosecution Service

Troop training a casualty of war

Cuts and a change of focus in Afghanistan meant the Armed Forces missed out on more than 50 training exercises this year

Brown and Mandelson 'clash over middle-classes'

Disagreement over plans to reassure better-off voters raise concerns that leader only wants to shore up traditional support

Injured woman found outside house is named

Police have set a date to interview David Ross after naming Sniezana Kobeniak, found outside his house ‘with clothes missing'

Asylum changes exploit the weak, says archbishop

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, says that cuts in financial support will leave many destitute this Christmas

Transport Secretary away as UK freezes up

Lord Adonis has come under fire after rejecting demands that he cut short his skiing holiday to deal with Britain's travel chaos

Army halts training to cut costs

Troops are pulled out of Nato exercise with US, raising concerns about the readiness of military personnel in Afghanistan

Brown will give Iraq evidence after election

Tories cry foul after it emerges that PM and two other Cabinet ministers will not be called to Chilcot inquiry for months

Ex-minister: I said Brown would be ‘effing disaster’

John Hutton, the former Defence Secretary made the remark in the aftermath of a Labour revolt in 2006

Three 'legal highs' banned after deaths

Drug groups welcomed the action but warned that people would be willing to work around the law to produce the substances

Foreign prisoners given £500 to leave Britain

Incentives to persuade foreign prisoners to go home after their sentences should be given to Britons too, argue critics