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Henry McDonald and photographer Paul McErlane visit the Royal Mail's national returns centre in Belfast, which receives all the UK's undeliverable mail
A binman who discovered £10,000 in torn-up bank notes has been told he can keep the cash - but must first separate all the bits of paper and assemble them back together as individual notes before he can spend any
British sport was yesterday handed a £304m fighting fund for London's 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games in a package aimed at helping the teams surpass the record-breaking medal haul at Beijing in the summer.Sports such as cycling, rowing, sailing and swimming that spearheaded Britain's greatest Olympics for a century were rewarded for their success with significant increases in their previous budgets.But those sports in which Britain has little or no Olympic tradition, and consequently a lesser chance of making the podium in London - such as beach volleyball, handball and water polo - have missed out on individual funding. It is the biggest financial windfall Britain's Olympic sports have ever had and is intended to encourage Team GB to at least match the haul of 47 medals which propelled it to fourth in the table at Beijing.Despite the worldwide financial crisis, 19 Olympic sports will receive a total of £246m, 15 Paralympic sports will be given £45.6m, and there will be a £12m pool for outstanding individuals in nine Olympic and four Paralympic sports not awarded their own deal.The biggest loser in the package, announced by UK Sport yesterday, was athletics, which failed to meet its target of five medals in Beijing. But officials were not complaining as more severe cuts had been feared than the reduction of £1.4m to £25.1m announced yesterday. The UK Athletics chief executive, Niels de Vos, said: "This is very good news for the sport and is a vote in confidence in UK Athletics. It gives us the opportunity to demonstrate that the sport is making significant moves forward towards our ambitions in 2012." UK Sport, the agency that distributes the government funds, had a £50m shortfall in the expected budget for elite athletes because of a failure to raise private investment and worked from a "brutal no-compromise approach" based on past performance and future potential.In 2006 Gordon Brown, then chancellor, promised £600m for elite sport with £100m to come from the private sector.Extra cash, including £21m in anticipated lottery sales and a £29m last-minute injection from the government, means UK Sport is still £50m short of its £600m target. The £550m covered funding from 2006 onwards, with £246m spent in the period leading up to Beijing.Rowing, which won six medals in Beijing, was the biggest beneficiary yesterday with an award of £27.47m. This was followed by cycling - where Chris Hoy won three golds among 14 medals - on £26.92m. Swimming - restored to Britain's sporting map by Rebecca Adlington's two golds in Beijing - was given £25.6m.Sue Campbell, chair of UK Sport, said: "Those sports that have the prospect of medalling at the Olympics, they are our priority. But of course because it is a home Olympics Britain gets the chance to enter a team in every sport so we have a dual commitment. "One is to do well in the medals table and the other is to help those sports that will not medal to perform credibly in 2012."Nine sports, in which medals in London are considered unlikely, have not had their figures confirmed because of the failure to land the extra £50m in funding.Andy Hunt, the British Olympic Association's chief executive, said: "It is disappointing that, despite extensive lobbying, we find ourselves in the position now, just three months after the most successful Olympic games for Britain in 100 years, where the government has failed to honour their funding promise."But UK Sport denied that lesser sports were being frozen out. "We are not putting anybody on the scrapheap," said Campbell. "I know that is how it feels for those sports without a four-year package but it is why we have the £12m and we are not abandoning those sports."On Monday evening Andy Burnham, the culture secretary, secured a further £29m from the Treasury. It enabled UK Sport to save some team sports from cuts: basketball receives £8.7m and hockey £14.12m. "It shows that the hard work of the last four years has paid off," said British Basketball's chairman Bill McInnes.Not everybody was happy. Table tennis is one of the 13 sports in the £12m pool and Alex Murdoch, chairman of the British Table Tennis Federation, said: "To me, it's nonsense and it is very difficult when you consider the funding runs out in March."Winners and losersThe funding allocationsIncreasesArchery £4.5m (up from £2.5m)Basketball £8.7m (£3.7m)Boxing £8.0m (£5.0m)Canoeing £16.3m (£13.6m)Cycling £26.9m (£22.2m)Diving £6.6m (£5.9m)Equestrian £13.6m (£11.7m)Gymnastics £10.3m (£9.0m)Hockey £14.1m (£9.9m)Judo £7.6m (£6.9m)Modern pentathlon £6.4m (£5.9m)Rowing £27.4m (£26.0m)Sailing £23.4m (£22.3m)Swimming £25.6m (£20.7m)Synch swimming £3.5m (£1.6m)Taekwondo £4.5m (£2.7m)Triathlon £5.4m (£5.1m)Paralympics £45.6m (£29.5m)CutsAthletics £25.1m (decrease from £26.5m)Badminton £8.6m (£8.8m)Unconfirmed, but with likely cutsFencing (currently £3.1m)Handball (£3.0m)Shooting (£5.1m)Table tennis (£2.5m)Volleyball (£4.1m)Water polo (£3.1m)Weightlifting (£1.7m)Wrestling (£2.1m)Total £304.4m* (up from £264.6m)*includes £12m from sports where funding is not confirmedOlympic games 2012guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
A corrupt ex-detective who helped a drugs baron evade police in return for cocaine and nights with prostitutes was jailed for five years yesterday.Former detective constable John Jones, who got to know murder suspect Allan Foster at a gym where they both worked out, was condemned for "a huge fall from grace" by a judge at Newcastle crown court.Jones, who became a building college lecturer after leaving Northumbria police during a prolonged inquiry, used privileged access to the force computer to warn Foster of planned raids and undercover operations. He became Foster's "eyes and ears", the jury heard.Jones was caught after the murder of a rival dealer, David "Noddy" Rice in 2006 in south Tyneside. Police want to question Foster about the death. The killing revealed fears among potential underworld witnesses that "Foster had a cop on the payroll", the court heard. Foster, now 32 and believed to be in Spain, was able to keep a step ahead of detectives and eventually flee the country after Rice's killing in time to avoid arrest, the jury heard. Toby Hedworth QC, prosecuting, said Jones had originally cultivated the dealer as an informant but had fallen for offers of gifts and trips to London where the pair trawled nightclubs for prostitutes.The nine-week trial heard evidence from a London prostitute who remembered Jones, a former plumber from Seaham, County Durham, who is married with two teenage sons.Jones denied four counts of misconduct in public office but was convicted by the jury after 17 hours of deliberation. He was acquitted of accepting money in return for confidential police information. Passing sentence, Judge Esmond Faulks told Jones he had abused the public's trust by safeguarding Foster, even when the dealer became the main suspect in a murder inquiry. The two men met soon after Foster had been released from an 11-year-sentence for violence, drug-dealing and possessing guns and ammunition.The judge told Jones: "You used your privileged position as a police officer not just to access the criminal intelligence system about him but to pass on to him sensitive police information. You also failed to enter on to the police system any information about Allan Foster even after it was clear to you Mr Foster was a suspect in a murder." The judge commended a team of Northumbria officers who tracked Jones's dealings after suspicions had been raised.Ben Nolan QC, defending, said Jones still protested his innocence. He told the court that Foster had been an official informant and Jones had thought him worth cultivating. The disgraced officer told colleagues on his arrest: "I will be honest with you, I did like the lad. I got on really well with him." He admitted only that he had been "foolish" in getting so close.Det Supt Ian Daws, head of Northumbria police's integrity unit, said Jones's double-dealing had severely impaired the Rice murder inquiry. He said: "The failure of a serving police officer in such a high-profile investigation underlines how corrupt he became."Bruce McCall, the owner of the gym in Seaham where Jones and Foster met, was also jailed for 15 months yesterday for importing and supplying illegal growth hormone drugs.Crimeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Environment Agency drops plans to dispose of 22 lock- and weir-keepers' properties in spending review
Response: Balancing the child's needs and those of the parents can be intolerable, says Louise Emanuel
Flightline Ltd's collapse left Premier League players stranded at Southampton airport before European tie
Four out of five commercial properties could still be overvalued, casting doubt on the worth of property funds, according to new data. Property measurement group IPD, whose figures are used for benchmarking fund manager performance, for real estate derivatives and for spread betting, says up to 82% of the valuations of properties in its index may be wrong. It says anyone using its information should be aware that many figures "underpinning rental returns and capital values have been issued with warnings about heightened uncertainty".It blames "market instablity" for these warnings although it believes its figures are still the "best indication".NB Real Estate, a commercial property agency, says valuations of properties within funds have now lagged too far behind the real price at which properties are being bought and sold.Over the past year, the IPD main index has fallen by about 20%. But NB Real Estate believes the real property market fall is 30-35%. "This is based on actual transactions where real cash changes hands rather than on valuations where the property is not for sale. The collapse of Lehman Brothers is a factor in accelerating the fall in prices," says Peter Trinder at NB. "Valuations are especially difficult when the volume of sales through the market is so low."This is why many property funds and listed property companies are trading at such a discount to their net asset value; they are reflecting the real prices at which properties are selling at and factoring some further declines in values going into the new year. "Valuing commercial properties is a tough job at the best of times but the gap now between real prices and official valuations is significant."This is bad news for investors in insurance and unit trust-based property funds, some of which have banned holders from cashing in as property market sources suggest cash buyers - few can borrow from banks - are all holding out for deals where they can see a total return approaching 15% per annum over the medium term, which means prices may still have some way to fall.Trinder said: "The only substantial sellers of commercial property in the market are those funds that need to because of redemptions and other cash-strapped forced sellers."Real estatePropertyCredit crunchRecessionguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
The combined Lloyds TSB/HBOS bank is to become the largest single shareholder in New Star under the terms of the debt-for-equity swap that will require the troubled fund management group to be delisted from the stock exchange. After intense negotiations with bankers, led by HBOS, the terms of the swap indicate that the shareholders are being wiped out. The banks could end up owning 95% of the company, which was floated at 225p three years ago and worth £500m at its peak but now has a value of about £20m.The founder and chairman, John Duffield, has been forced to cede control of the firm to the banks so he can relieve New Star of a £240m debt burden.HBOS is the lead bank in a syndicate that includes Lloyds TSB, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and National Australia Bank that granted New Star the loan last year. This indicates that the taxpayer, which owns 58% of RBS and an expected 45% of the combined Lloyds-HBOS, will own a substantial part of the company.New Star's shares closed at 4.75p although the announcement about the restructuring was made after share trading had ended for the day.Stock brokers Altium have put a "token 1p" valuation on the shares of New Star amid the ongoing uncertainty about its future that has led to concerns about investors withdrawing savings from its funds.The debt-for-equity talks were announced by New Star in a stock exchange announcement on Monday in which it said it had asked the UK Listing Authority to halt trading in its shares. However, the shares fell almost 70% after the UKLA, part of the Financial Services Authority, refused the request; it argued the request had not been made formally before the announcement was made to the stock exchange.The terms of the swap include a new incentive package for the fund managers who have traditionally been paid low salaries and received large share payouts instead. Those payouts are virtually worthless given the fall in the value of the company.New Star Asset ManagementInvestment fundsLloyds TSBHBOSBanks and building societiesUK banking sectorguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Jesse Norman: Labour is locked in a 1970s economic mindset, and is more concerned with preserving power than helping people
June Edmunds responds to Anthony Glees
An online survey of teenage girls by teen magazine Bliss and Women's Aid produces some 'shocking' results
What's interesting isn't so much what has been left out of the Queen's speech ? out goes the communications data bill, with its much-disliked notion of a central "pool" for the nation's electronic traffic ? as what has been left in, particularly the measures on making government more "accountable".This includes a constitution for the NHS, although its final shape is still unclear, and directly electable police authorities, about which there has already been considerable and heated debate among those who care about such things.There was room, too, for a communities bill, which will place a duty on local councils to face regular public hearings and will widen existing pilot schemes on participatory budgets, where local communities get together and vote on spending pots of carefully-allocated money. Is this accountability? We know that participation in politics is still a minority sport, no matter how many online petitions there are. Systems of accountability have been built around the fact ? unpalatable to some - that most of the adult population, most of the time, may have political views, but fail to feel strongly enough to act on them.We have complex systems of scrutiny and regulation of public bodies precisely in order to make those bodies accountable to standards decided by experts and professionals. Regulation is disliked and does not always work in the way intended, but it is there for good reason. The government, however, particularly the communities secretary Hazel Blears, appears convinced that we, the public, are longing to get more involved, that there is a surge of community activism waiting to be unleashed. The measures outlined in the Cabinet Office policy document, Fair Rules for Strong Communities, published yesterday, are right to focus on the importance of local communities in helping the country face bad times. Participating in local and community groups does bring people together and local programmes can help communities tackle some challenges, but given the scale of the economic downturn, the effectiveness of local schemes to tackle worklessness is questionable. The new measures won't be enough to satisfy the localists. The Local Government Information Unit has already said it will be keeping a close eye on the detail, to ensure local councils have enough powers. Yet the measures will annoy those who argue accountability is not about, say, directly electable police authorities. Jeremy Beecham, who chairs the Labour group of the Local Government Association, has already pointed out there are local people, elected to represent the community: they are called councillors. "Why set up a parallel, and potentially conflicting, system with a competing mandate," he asked, a couple of months ago. It's a question that many deeply concerned with accountability across all public services will be echoing today.Queen's speechLocal governmentPublic services policyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Company blamed increased competition from rival drugmakers rather than the worsening economic climate for the cut in jobs
What are conjoined twins?Conjoined twins occur when a single fertilised egg splits to form twins but the separation is incomplete. They are always identical ? they have the same genetic code and are of the same sex. There is no typical case. Where and to what extent the twins are joined and the number of organs shared or joined varies widely. Nearly three-quarters (73%) are connected at the chest wall or upper abdomen; around a quarter (23%) are joined at the lower torso and share hips, legs or genitalia; 4% are connected at the head.How rare are they? Extremely rare ? the incidence may be as low as one in every 200,000 live births. The birth of conjoined twins can be extremely traumatic, with around 40-60% delivered stillborn. Another 35% survive just one day. The overall survival rate of conjoined twins is between 5% and 25%.Are they always separated? Historically they were not, as doctors lacked the means to do it. In the developed world, separation surgery, where possible, is now standard practice. In general, children joined at the heart are inoperable and will usually die, according to Great Ormond Street Children's hospital. It is often not possible to operate on children joined at the brain, although twins conjoined in this way have been successfully separated at Great Ormond Street.What factors are considered before separation? Doctors will assess the way in which the twins are joined and each twin's chances of survival. If they have separate sets of organs, the chances for surgery and survival are greater than if they share the organs. Doctors must consider the chances of one or both twins surviving surgery, and what the quality of life for one or both twins after the operation will be. They must consider the twins' likely quality of life if they remain joined. In most cases, one twin is stronger and doctors may make decisions in the interests of that twin rather than both. Sometimes there are only enough internal organs to support one twin after separation. Immediate surgery is required when one twin is stillborn or is in such poor health that it threatens the life of the other. It is thought that separating twins while they are still too young to realise they are conjoined helps their psychological recovery.What about the ethical considerations?The issue regularly raised in cases of emergency separation is whether it is right to sacrifice the life of one twin in order to save the other. Such cases include that of Gracie and Rosie Attard, who were born in October 2000 joined at the pelvis with a fused spine. The parents, devout Catholics, were not prepared to agree to the ending of Gracie's life, even though it would be the saving of Jodie's. The case went to the high court which ordered that the separation should go ahead, and then quickly on to the court of appeal, where judges eventually ruled in favour of Jodie's right to life.How successful are separations?This depends on whether the separation is planned or an emergency operation. Planned separations are those where the children are in a stable condition and where the operation can be attempted when they are not newborn. In the past, surgery was delayed until twins were 6-12 months old, so that they could become stronger. The survival rate for such operations carried out at Great Ormond Street is over 80%. The survival of both twins is more common than not, and the children often have very good quality of life. Emergency separation, such as in the case of Faith and Hope Williams, where one or both children are dead or dying is far less successful. Survival rates are probably 20-25%, although survivors may enjoy a good quality of life.More profiles of conjoined twins can be found on the Channel 4 website and on About.com.Healthguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Northern Rock today pledged to wait six months before taking action to repossess homes of borrowers who have fallen behind with their mortgage repayments.The government-owned lender said it was formalising an existing policy "as part of its ongoing commitment to working with customers who are experiencing mortgage repayment difficulties".Earlier this year the bank was accused by charities of taking an aggressive approach to repossessions since being nationalised in February. Its approach to lending before nationalisation, when it offered mortgages of up to 125% to first-time buyers, has been blamed for an increase in arrears at the bank.By the end of September, 1.87% of its mortgage book was at least three months in arrears compared with 1.44% across the industry as a whole.Northern Rock said less than 1% of repossession cases currently involved customers who were fewer than six months in arrears, and that on average it worked with people for a period of 15 months before a property was repossessed.Chief executive, Gary Hoffman, said: "We continue to work with customers facing repayment difficulties to try and agree an acceptable debt management solution and avoid repossession. "In the vast majority of cases, where repossession regrettably does take place, we have been working with the customer for well over six months."Northern Rock is the second major lender to announce a six-month breathing space for borrowers who have fallen behind on repayments. On Monday, the Royal Bank of Scotland, which owns NatWest, said it would also wait until a borrower was at least six months in arrears before starting repossession proceedings. The moves follow a warning from the City watchdog last Friday that lenders should ensure they are treating customers fairly. Repossessions jumped by 12% in the third quarter of the year and are expected to continue to rise as increasing numbers of homeowners struggle to make their mortgage repayments. Figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) show that by the end of September 30,200 properties had been taken into possession by lenders so far this year, compared with 26,200 in the whole of 2007.RepossessionsMortgagesPropertyBorrowing & debtHousing marketguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
China Investment Corporation is to put the brakes on making investments in western banks until governments come up with coherent policies to cope with the global economic downturn.Lou Jiwei, the chairman of the sovereign wealth fund, said today: "Right now, we do not have the courage to invest in financial institutions. We have to wait for the time when there won't be massive collapses of financial institutions."China had lost confidence in many financial institutions, Lou said, because foreign governments seemed to be changing their policies "every week".The announcement by CIC, which has a 9.9% stake in US investment bank Morgan Stanley and a $3bn stake in US private equity firm Blackstone Group, will come as a big blow to many American banks that had hoped CIC would help bail them out.Mark Williams, an economist at consultants Capital Economics, said: "I think it would be unlikely that they would rule out any investment in western institutions whatsoever, but such investments would have to be structured so there's next to no chance of them losing any money."He said it was unlikely that CIC would pull out of institutions such as Morgan Stanley and Blackstone because it would lose too much money.CIC was given $200bn to invest by the Chinese government last year. Its biggest investment to date is $5bn in Morgan Stanley, staked in December 2007. Since then, it has been relatively cautious as the credit crunch has worsened.Credit crunchUK banking sectorEuropean banksUS housing and sub-prime crisisUS economyChinaguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
'Tis the season to be merry, allegedly. But has the credit crunch crushed our festive good cheer? Is the recession ruining yuletide? Will this, in short, turn out to be the crappiest Christmas on record?It's certainly beginning to look that way. In Peterlee, County Durham, outraged shoppers have dubbed the unusually weedy Christmas tree that's just gone up outside Castle Dene Shopping Centre "a twig", "an insult to the town", "the worst Chrstmas tree in the country", and "like something people would throw in a skip after Christmas". At the Lapland New Forest park on the Dorset-Hampshire border - an attractive idea, in theory, for those unwilling to fly to the Arctic Circle to see the real thing - 25 frightened staff have been pulled out by their agency after parents, angry at having forked out £30 a head and queued for four hours to see what some described as "a glorified car boot sale in a muddy field", took their frustrations out on Santa and three of his little helpers. By last night trading standards had received more than 1,300 complaints.Elsewhere, a 37-year-old man in Florida has been arrested after he threw a three-foot Christmas tree at his father in a fit of Yule rage; "Scrooge-like" Norwich councillors have written to the city's hairdressers warning them that they face six months in jail and a £20,000 fine if they serve their customers a glass of mulled wine in the run-up to Christmas; and John Sergeant, for heaven's sake, is releasing a Christmas single. Perhaps the one piece of good news out there is that our bad-news Christmas is likely to be covered in several feet of snow, so no one will be able to see all the cheapskate decorations anyway.We need you to help us document this credit-crunched Christmas. We've set up a Flickr group for your finest examples of what's making Christmas 2008 awful. So send us evidence of all the scraggy trees, tasteless decorations and dire attractions you spot. We can get through this together.ChristmasSaving moneyCredit crunchguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
A woman has been severely injured after being run over by a thief who stole her car as she was scraping frost from the windscreen outside her home.Caroline Johnson was preparing to take her son to school yesterday when a man jumped in and knocked her down as he drove off.Her husband said she was in a "terrible state" in hospital following the attack in Humber Way, in Langley, Berkshire, between 7.30am and 8am.Johnson, 46, was taken to Wexham Park hospital in Slough where she is being treated for internal injuries and injuries to her arms and legs. She is believed to be a stable condition.Her husband, Mark Collins, 51, told the Daily Mail she had been preparing to take their youngest son Jason, 13, on the school run when the car jack happened.He said: "You would think you would be safe taking your kids to school."She's in a terrible state. Doctors can't say what the outcome will be but she's had an operation now. Basically she bled so much internally that her heart stopped beating and both her lungs are badly damaged."They think she was dragged out of the car, she was basically mown down, run over and left in the road by someone with no morals."I can't stress how important it is that we find these people and we find this car."A Thames Valley Police spokesman said they were trying to trace the champagne-coloured Citroen Picasso registration number MC02 CAZ.Detectives say they are looking for a white man who is believed to be in his 30s.Detective inspector Steve Armstead of Slough CID said: "I would appeal for the public to contact police immediately if they see this vehicle."guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Company warned that the economic downturn will push unemployment much higher in London and hit its rail business hard
British universities are not hotbeds of Islamic radicalism, despite fears about the rise of "campus extremism", a new study argues.The University of Cambridge research, based partly on in-depth interviews with 26 students at UK universities, found that most young British Muslims are opposed to political Islam and are more likely to join Amnesty International than al-Qaida.This contradicts research published by the Centre for Social Cohesion earlier this year, which suggested Muslim students on British campuses believed killing in the name of religion could be justified.And ministers have issued guidelines for university staff on how to combat the threat of violent extremists targeting campuses as potential breeding grounds for new recruits.Muslim students from Cambridge, the London School of Economics and the University of Bradford were interviewed for the study.It found that while Muslim students in the west are often regarded as prime targets for extremists seeking young, impressionable and educated recruits, many have a stronger sense of civic responsibility and British identity than their elders.The study acknowledged that extreme political views can be found among a minority of young western Muslims but found little evidence of any threat, suggesting such fears have been exaggerated.It describes young Muslims as better integrated into British society than their parents, with a stronger sense of national identity."Contact with social democracy, multiculturalism and new generational experiences and opportunities have created a momentum for accommodation rather than a clash," he report said.The interviewees disliked the British government's alignment with regimes such as Turkey, Egypt or, until recently, Pakistan, which oppose political Islam but are nevertheless regarded as oppressive. The research found young Muslims view restrictions on the expression of their religious identity, such as wearing the hijab, as an abuse of human rights rather than as obstructing a wider, political Islamic cause."Attempts to ban the hijab were perceived as incompatible with western and in particular British commitment to freedom of speech and multicultural practices, and a European commitment to values of freedom, choice and individuality," the report argues.Dr June Edmunds, who carried out the research, said: "The findings show that the young Muslims best equipped to lead radical opposition to western society are also among the least inclined to do so. "Although a minority have extreme political views, most are concerned about human rights and social democracy."The UK in particular now hosts a new generation of Muslims who are more confident of their national identity and more politically engaged than their parents."More than half described themselves as British, and 91% either as British or "British-hyphenated" such as British-Pakistani.Most were members of student Islamic organisations but these tended to be moderate groups without international links.Their favourite websites were guardian.co.uk, BBC news and the Independent, rather than religious sites.Whereas the lives of many first- and second-generation Muslims centre on the family and the local mosque, younger Muslims revealed themselves to be better disposed to contribute directly to British society and culture. Few of the participants in the study were members of political parties but most voted and many had attended anti-war rallies. The study suggests their links with ancestral "home" countries are weakening and their political interests are more global than those of previous generations. Most participants preferred to dissociate themselves from radical Islamist politics. Many, for example, opposed the introduction of Shari'a law in Britain on the grounds that "you have to abide by the laws of the country"."The overall picture is of a new, settled generation of young Muslims whose interests and needs differ from those of the previous, immigrant generation," Edmunds said."If there is a conflict here, it is between the UK government's promotion of multiculturalism at home and its acquiescence with authoritarian opponents of political Islam abroad."Western Muslims could come to play a crucial role in helping to change attitudes to the more turbulent nations that their parents left behind."But the research has been criticised for being too "flimsy" to draw such strong conclusions.Anthony Glees, professor of politics and director of Buckingham University's centre for security and intelligence studies, accused Cambridge of trying to prove that British universities are not "hotbeds of Islamic radicalism" on the basis of "flimsy and uncompelling" research."That the Economic and Social Research Council should fund it is even more amazing," he said."To be fair to Dr Edmunds she does concede that 'a minority have extreme political views'."The current Whitehall view (which she should have sought) is that some universities fostered radicalisation and were a source of radical young Muslims, particularly from early 1990 to the early 2000s."Today, Whitehall says, there is still a problem in some universities and colleges but not most," he added."Even if it could be shown that students are not overrepresented among Islamists, it still tells us something about our higher education that they should study and yet hate this country and its values."Student politicsStudentsUK security and terrorismGlobal terrorismguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Sarah Boseley describes a report in the Lancet which says one in 10 British children are abused or neglected
A TV ad for DFS featuring Nickelback's song Rockstar has been banned for using special effects to make its sofas look bigger. By Mark Sweney
British Forces Broadcasting Service, the television and radio service for UK servicemen and women, is poised to make 30 workers redundant. By Ben Dowell