South Korea and America are getting ever closer to making a 'beef deal'. BBC. Gordon Brown has been told to give UK cities more elected mayors. Channel 4. Ministers are to revisit the GM debate in order to discuss whether genetically modified crops will be able to combat the global… read more…

Ethical shopping is all the rage nowadays, with literally every self-respecting middle-class Stoke Newington resident bundling their dog into a jacket and heading down to Fresh 'N' Wild to grab a bag of Grandma Earth's Ultra-Organic Purity Lentils (Now With 10% Added Smugness). Quite easy to be sceptical about… read more…

Poverty in the UK is getting worse, with 2.9 million children living below the poverty line, and 2.5 million pensioners. The Guardian. The Times. ePolitix. The International Energy Agency has lowered its forecasts for this year's global oil demand due to price increases. IHT. A poll for The Times has… read more…

The BBC: The government (well, Ed Balls) is unveiling its 10-year "vision" for children. Those quotation marks look ominous. Schools are going to have refurbished playgrounds and the like, to "increase play opportunities for children" (Westmonster's non-ominous quotation marks). Sounds very business-like, "play opportunities." Meanwhile, over in The Guardian,… read more…