The death rate after major surgery within NHS hospitals is three times as high as it should be. The Telegraph. David Davis won his by-election with a huge majority of 15,355 - maybe it would have been easier if he'd just moved office or something. BBC. Nick Clegg has been… read more…

Home secretary Harriet Harman has announced controversial new plans that require companies to favour ethnic minorities and women when it comes to taking on new employees. The new Equalities Bill will also seek to stop pensioners being witheld NHS treatment because of their age and allow mothers to breastfeed their… read more…

Ed Balls has spent the past four months under investigation for his expenses. The Times. Yorkshire Post. North Korea is set to hand over a declaration of its nuclear activities. BBC. Reuters. The Government has been warned to take biosecurity more seriously. Yorkshire Post. Britain's top Asian policeman has accused… read more…

Is there anything fluffier than a squirrel? If there is we don't wanna know about it. In a shocking piece of news from the folks at ePolitix, Westmonster was disheartened to learn that a Conservative MP by the name of David MacLean has called for the mass cull of the… read more…

A UN official has claimed that the Taleban made $100m (£50m) from the sale of opium in 2007. BBC. Energy bosses are preparing to justify their upcoming price increases to MPs. BBC. The ambulance service has admitted to losing a computer disk containing the personal information of a million 999… read more…

Maybe in years to come - rather than being seen as the year in which spiralling fuel prices heralded the beginning of the collapse of civilisation - 2008 will go down in history as the year in which several politicians made absolute arses of themselves by slipping racist nonsense… read more…