Virtualisation programs such as Parallels Desktop are extremely useful for people who need to work with both Macs and PCs, as they allow you to create a ‘virtual machine’ that works just like an ordinary PC, but which runs on your Mac at the same time as all your normal Mac programs (unlike Apple’s Boot Camp, which requires you to restart and switch back and forth between the Mac and Windows environments).
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The GroovePlatinum earphones fall in the middle of a new range of affordable iPod in-ear headphones from Cygnett. Priced between £10 and £20 they represent value for money, particularly if you break or lose the ones supplied out of the box from Apple. While cheap they don't look like they came from your nearest pound shop and have a solid feel considering the price. Stylish without overdoing the bling they perform well enough but lack the clear benefits of more expensive choices and traditional over the ear headphones.
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Bravo for onOne for offering up a free taster that doesn’t leave your Mac bloated with software that won’t work once the trial period ends. PhotoTools 2 Lite offers 15 photo effects for Photoshop that can add a professional sheen to any image. It’s a small selection from the effects found in the Professional and Standard editions (reviewed in our June issue - click here). While the effects may be significantly reduced in the Lite version, the available options includes all the same features found in the paid versions of PhotoTools 2. These include the ability to preview Photoshop action effects, combine multiple effects together in a layered stack and adjust the strength or opacity for each layer in a stack. Other options include the ability to save layer stacks as presets, batch process effects on multiple photos, apply effects with a layer mask and selectively apply effects with the masking brush.
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A review of the investigation into the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984 concluded two years ago that there was sufficient evidence to charge two suspects, according to a report last night.
The 2007 review, commissioned by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and sent to Sue Hemming, head of counter-terrorism at the organisation, said two men could be charged with conspiracy to cause death, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph.
Fletcher, 25, was killed by a gunshot fired from within the Libyan embassy in St James's Square in April 1984 as she helped to police a demonstration outside. No one has ever been charged with the killing. According to the Daily Telegraph, which reported it had seen a leaked copy of the CPS review, carried out by a senior prosecutor from a Commonwealth country, it was finished in April 2007, six weeks before Tony Blair travelled to Libya for talks with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, which brought a resumption in trade links.
The 150-page report said there was not enough evidence to charge anyone with murder, but two men who allegedly played central roles in it by issuing orders to the students who had assumed control of the embassy could be charged with conspiracy. Neither had diplomatic immunity and they are believed to have escaped from the embassy shortly before it was surrounded by police.
A CPS spokeswoman said: "The investigation into the death of Yvonne Fletcher is ongoing and there is still evidence to be gathered, so the CPS has yet to receive a file containing the admissible evidence from a completed investigation. It would only be at that point that we could give final advice on prosecution."
In 2007, she added, the Metropolitan police "sought further advice in relation to their ongoing investigation", which was given. This concluded that while a case could be mounted, it would be advisable to review some evidence and investigate other areas further, the spokeswoman said.
A Met spokeswoman said: "The murder investigation has always remained open and the Met remains committed to finding the people responsible. Detectives remains in regular contact with PC Fletcher's family and update them on developments."
Lloyds Banking Group announced this morning that it is selling its loss-making Halifax estate agencies business for £1, with the loss of 460 jobs.
The bank is selling the business, which operates 218 offices, including 93 franchise operations, to LSL Property Services. LSL is the parent company of estate agency brands Your Move, Reeds Rains and Intercounty.
As part of the deal, 121 Halifax banking counters located within the estate agent offices will close early in the New Year. The counter closures will result in up to 460 job losses, including 360 full-time roles. About 1,050 staff will transfer to LSL.
The Halifax brand is not included in the sale. The Halifax estate agency offices will be rebranded as Your Move, Reeds Rain or Intercounty.
Lloyds said the Halifax retail branch network is not affected by the deal, and reaffirmed its commitment to the Halifax brand - which it described as one of its key brands.
In other news, the Spanish-led consortium that had hoped to buy National Express has ditched its £765m takeover bid for the struggling rail and bus operator.
Meanwhile, Carphone Warehouse said its Virgin Mobile France venture had struck a deal to buy Tele2 Mobile France, with 385,000 customers, for €56m.
Medical testing company Axis-Shield has received the green light from US regulators for its arthritis test, clearing the way for it to be launched there later this month. The test looks for antibodies to cyclic citrullinated peptides, which can be found before the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis appear.
"Rheumatoid arthritis is a potentially debilitating disease and early disease diagnosis facilitates improved treatment options and offers substantial patient benefits," said chief executive Ian Gilham.
• Risk 'lies in parent taking drugs and alcohol'
• Academic sets record straight on major study
Parents who sleep with their baby in their bed are not risking a cot death unless they smoke, drink or take drugs, a leading academic said yesterday. Peter Fleming, professor of infant health and developmental physiology in Bristol, said he felt "quite uncomfortable" over reports of a study published this week that had misinterpreted the finding.
The study, by researchers at the Universities of Bristol and Warwick, was published online in the British Medical Journal. Some reports on the research this week took the line that bed sharing with a baby was dangerous in itself.
Fleming said that telling parents not to take their baby to bed was leading to some adults falling asleep with a child on the sofa, an act that carried a far higher risk.
"My view is, the positive message of this study is it says don't drink or take drugs and don't smoke, particularly breastfeeding mothers," he said. "We did not find any increased risk from bed sharing. It is a very different message from the one the media picked up."
The researchers had looked at all unexpected infant deaths, from birth to two years old, in south-west England from January 2003 to December 2006. Seventy-nine deaths qualified for the study. Parents were interviewed within hours of the deaths and for the first time the researchers obtained what they believed was real evidence of some parents drinking and taking drugs.
Half the cot deaths occurred while parents were sleeping with the baby â€" either in bed or on a sofa â€" but the other half occurred while the baby was in a cot.
Sleeping on a sofa with a baby was a large risk for cot death, but sleeping in a bed was not, unless the parent had drunk more than two units of alcohol or had taken drugs.
"This is the first study that has ever looked in detail at parental drug use. Drugs, alcohol and tobacco use were really important," Fleming added.
Yet most reports of the study, on Wednesday, hardly mentioned the alcohol and drugs factor and just took the line that bed sharing itself was dangerous.
The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (FSID), which partly funded the research, also played down the drink and drugs findings, taking the line it had agreed with the Department of Health that the safest place for a baby to sleep was "in its own cot".
The study's authors warn that this message also carries risks. "Any advice to discourage bed sharing may carry with it the danger of tired parents feeding their baby on a sofa, which carries a much greater risk than co-sleeping in the parents' bed."
George Haycock, a professor emeritus of paediatrics, who is FSID's scientific adviser, said previous studies had found a risk in bed sharing, though they had not specifically investigated drink and drugs. "You can't say there is no risk," he said.
Leader accuses company and government of 'cynical' plan to sideline union
The head of the postal workers' union today accused Royal Mail of having a "cynical" plan to sideline the industrial body in its protracted dispute over jobs and pay which has resulted in a planned national strike.
Billy Hayes, the general secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), also said he hoped Lord Mandelson was not seeking "revenge" for his failure as business secretary to part-privatise the company.
The emergence of an internal document suggested Royal Mail bosses had full government support for implementing modernisation plans with or without the agreement of the CWU. The document came to light after the CWU announced two 24-hour nationwide strikes next week.
The Royal Mail strongly denied that senior managers had seen the document and said it had no plans to "derecognise" the union.
But Hayes repeated today that he believed the document was genuine, adding it was "more worrying" that Lord Mandelson seemed to know what was in it.
"I hope Peter Mandelson is not sitting there, thinking: 'This is my revenge because I could not persuade my parliamentary colleagues to part-privatise the Royal Mail'," Hayes said on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
He said Lord Mandelson had ruled out the involvement of the industrial arbitration body Acas in trying to break the deadlock.
The union leader said it was "incredible" that the Royal Mail, and now the government, were not prepared to agree to the use of an independent conciliator.
"It seems like a cynical attempt to sideline the union."
A Royal Mail spokesman said of the document: "No member of the board or the senior management team at Royal Mail has seen, or is aware of any such presentation.
"Royal Mail's policy and strategy in relation to the current dispute with the CWU is to reach agreement so that the CWU calls off its damaging and irresponsible strikes.
"For the avoidance of any doubt, Royal Mail has never had any strategy to derecognise the CWU and nor would we seek to do so."
The first 24-hour strike will begin next Thursday, with mail centre staff and drivers walking out. Delivery and collection staff will strike the next day. Coming in the wake of a series of regional Royal Mail stoppages, the strikes will cause major delays to home and business deliveries.
Royal Mail's managing director, Mark Higson, said the CWU strike was an "appalling and unjustified attack" on customers and showed a "reckless disregard" for everyone who depended on the company.
Lord Mandelson branded the move "suicidal", adding: "I very much regret this decision by the CWU. Taking industrial action will not resolve this dispute. It will only serve to drive more customers away from Royal Mail. One thing this company cannot afford is strikes and industrial action.
"We are, of course, in frequent contact with both management and the union. Our message to them has been clear: put your customers first."
• Funds to help create new public home for the BFI
• Centre will be built close to Royal Festival Hall
The dream of a new National Film Centre on London's South Bank is to take a decisive step closer to reality when Gordon Brown confirms tomorrow that the government is to provide £45m in funding to realise it.
The prime minister is expected to say he believes the centre, with five digital screens, will be built by 2015.
There had been fears that the project, backed by the British Film Institute for many years, would be the victim of the spending squeeze hitting the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. But Brown will confirm that the money is to be found from the departmental budget this year.
The late film director and former BFI chairman, Anthony Minghella was one of the leading advocates for a new public home for the BFI so that a cultural centre for cinema in London could stand shoulder to shoulder with the National Theatre and the Royal Festival Hall.
It is expected the centre will be built on the site of a car park close to the London Eye on the South Bank, a few hundred yards from the Royal Festival Hall.
The London Mayor's office has already committed £5m to the project and it is thought the BFI would raise another £15m-£20m from the sale of their current Stephen Street offices in Waterloo. This would leave a further £80m to be raised from private sponsors.
The BFI has suggested the new building would contain five cinemas, with one large auditorium capable of hosting events currently hosted by the Odeon Leicester Square, such as the opening night of the London film festival and film premieres . It has been suggested that a large outside screen could be constructed. It would also show the BFI's huge archive of films. Such ambition could not be realised from within the confines of the current National Film Centre premises â€" also on the South Bank.
Brown said: "Britain has achieved worldwide respect for its innovative and vibrant film industry, exceptional arts and rich cultural heritage. This project creates a new home for British film right at the heart of London's cultural centre on the South Bank.
"These are challenging economic times, but with backing from the public and private sector, the new film centre demonstrates Britain's commitment to supporting the arts and our determination to invest in leading creative industries as part of our economic recovery."
The government has blown hot and cold about backing the centre ever since a green paper on the creative industries two years ago.
The Conservatives have said they will review the structure of the film industry, including the role of the BFI, if they come to power next year.
Brown, better known as a bibliophile but also an enthusiastic film goer, has given his personal backing to the project. His last cinema visit was to his local Odeon in Kirkcaldy when he went to see Slumdog Millionaire.
The law firm Carter-Ruck has made a fresh move that could stop an MPs' debate next week by claiming a controversial injunction it has obtained is "sub judice".
The move follows the revelation of the existence of a secret "super-injunction" obtained by the firm on behalf of the London-based oil traders Trafigura.
The injunction not only bans disclosure of a confidential report on Trafigura and toxic waste, but also banned disclosure of the injunction's very existence, until it was revealed by an MP this week under parliamentary privilege.
Carter-Ruck partner Adam Tudor today sent a letter to the Speaker, John Bercow, and also circulated it to every single MP and peer, saying they believed the case was "sub judice".
If correct, it would mean that, under Westminster rules to prevent clashes between parliament and the courts, a debate planned for next Wednesday could not go ahead.
Earlier this week, the Labour MP Paul Farrelly said Carter-Ruck might be in contempt of parliament for seeking to stop the Guardian reporting questions he had put down on the order paper revealing the existence of the "super-injunction".
The Conservative MP Peter Bottomley went on to tell Gordon Brown at prime minister's questions that he would report Carter-Ruck to the Law Society for obtaining an injunction that purported to ban parliamentary reporting.
Carter-Ruck said in a letter and press release that, although the Speaker had discretion over sub judice questions, "we believe the proceedings to have been and to remain 'active' within the definition of House Resolution ... of 15 November 2001 in that arrangements have been made for the hearing of an application before the Court".
Bercow had told MPs the previous day: "It is not sub judice under the house's rules ... There is no question of our own proceedings being in any way inhibited."
Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP who secured next week's debate, said: "I read with interest the letter from Carter-Ruck. I do not think that sub judice is involved here and I do not think that MPs will be deterred from discussing this case in the debate without a ruling from the Speaker, which he has not as yet indicated any likelihood of providing."
Farrelly said: "Carter-Ruck's manoeuvres this week, were it not so serious, would be tantamount to high farce. It is important MPs should not be prevented from going ahead with debates next week."
The prominent media lawyer Mark Stephens said: "This sort of assault on democratic privileges is what you would expect to see in a banana republic."
David Wilshire, the Tory MP for Spelthorne, announced last night that he will stand down at the next election after allegations that he had funnelled £100,000 in parliamentary expenses into a private company owned by himself and his partner.
Wilshire agreed to stand down after a meeting with the chief whip, Patrick McLoughlin, but Conservative sources said it was his own decision after discussions with his family and friends.
Earlier, Wilshire had submitted the allegations to the parliamentary commissioner for standards, John Lyon, but it was clear during the day that his efforts to defer the issue would not satisfy the Tory high command.
Wilshire, a former whip and a rightwing moralist, had insisted that his arrangement had been agreed with the fees office, but it is not clear if he had invoices to justify payments to the private company. He said in a statement: "I am very conscious that the allegations and investigation will cause great distress to my family and friends. These allegations also run the risk of harming my local party and our national party's chances of winning at the next general election. In the circumstances I have reluctantly concluded that it is sensible for me not to seek re-election next year."
It had been reported that Wilshire paid up to £3,250 a month in parliamentary office allowances to Moorlands Research Services between 2005 and 2008. Extra invoices were also submitted and the total paid to the firm â€" owned by him and his partner, Ann Palmer â€" was £105,500. Wilshire said the firm had closed last year, but before that had been included in his entry for the Register of Members' Interests.
In an attempt to show wider leadership to MPs during another gruesome week, the Speaker, John Bercow, yesterday urged MPs to accept the pain of paying back expenses, as demanded by Sir Thomas Legg.
His remarks came as more MPs vented their fury at Legg, describing his rulings as "an outrage". Legg was appointed by the prime minister to conduct an independent audit of all MPs' expenses claims since 2004.
Labour MPs continued to round on Brown for failing to provide a lead. One backbencher, David Drew, accused him of slamming goals into Labour's own net.
Harriet Harman, the leader of the Commons, joined criticism of Legg, admitting that some of his rulings were arbitrary.
But Bercow suggested the financial pain suffered by some MPs was worth paying. In an interview for BBC Radio 4's Week in Westminster on Saturday, he said: "If there is a choice of headlines between 'payback time' on the one hand and 'Westminster whitewash' on the other, I would much rather have the former than the latter." Bercow himself paid back an "accidental overclaim" of £978 for mortgage interest.David Drew, the MP for Stroud and a long-term critic of Brown's leadership, said: "It just seems schadenfreude that the very person who set this up gets handed with a £12,000 bill. It is almost hilarious, except it is deeply serious, to set up a review that was going to cause even more problems is an own goal.
"We are great for scoring goals now. The problem is we have got six in our own net this week." A Guardian survey of more than 200 MPs has shown so far that very few are so far owning up to the need to pay five-figure sums, but more than a third are still facing further questions from Sir Thomas.
Brighton's older residents still remember the IRA bomb. But 25 years on, it seems from another era
On the dressing table sits the blue folder of guest services. Amid instructions for internet connection, laundry and room service, it contains details of what to do in the event of an emergency: "On hearing a continuous bell ring," it states, "please leave immediately."
In the early hours of an October morning, 25 years ago, an emergency of almost unimaginable proportion occurred here at the Grand Hotel, on Brighton's seafront; an IRA bomb, timed for the middle of the Conservative party conference, tore through its floors, killing five and injuring 34, including then-trade and industry secretary Norman Tebbit and his wife Margaret. "It was such a mess," says Peter Brooke, 71. "I went down to take a look and there was dust everywhere, so much dust, masonry flung over the other side of the road and floating in the sea. I remember wondering how they'd ever clean it up."
Today the hotel has recovered its former grandeur: in the lobby, brass luggage trolleys wheel across opulent carpets, past stiff-backed armchairs, paintings of goosanders and fragrant displays of white lilies. Up its wrought-iron staircases, there is a flurry of linen-changing and vacuuming, and the bedrooms, still and quiet in the mid-morning sunshine, offer the luxury of trouser presses, bathrobes and balconies.
Outside the sky is blue. Warm weather has brought people to the beach and the promenade, sitting coatless on benches, wheeling by on bicycles, sprawling on the pebbles and playing guitar. A woman in a bathing suit stretches herself out on a promontory. Before them stands the foamy sea, behind them the steady chug of engines along the front, past the Odeon and the Brighton Centre and the Oceana club. In the distance, the old West Pier, destroyed by fire in 2003, crouches off the shore, a bundle of rust and vertebrae.
Once a health resort, Brighton became a popular destination after the arrival of the railway in 1841. It is famed for its Royal Pavilion, its marina, its electric railway and its Regency squares and terraces. It is the town where Abba won the Eurovision song contest, where Graham Greene set his novel Brighton Rock, and where, on the Whitsun weekend of 1964, mods and rockers famously clashed on its beach, throwing stones and hurling around deckchairs.
A quarter of a century has brought considerable change to Brighton. Today it is still known for its nightlife, and its streets are riddled with cocktail bars and coffee-shops, its famous Lanes playing host to endless boutiques and gift shops. "They just spring up!" says one resident. "And when they close another just springs up in its place! They're like molehills!"
The city is still one of Britain's most popular seaside destinations â€" 8 million people visit here every year. They come for the beach and the funfair, for the arts festival and the Great Escape and the Brighton Pride. They come for its two universities, for its medical school and its summer language schools. Sometimes they stay for ever, upping sticks to the town now affectionately known as "London-on-Sea".
On a day like today, Brighton seems so soft and mild-mannered, so perfectly placid that it is hard to imagine the events of that October day in 1984. The young girls rollerblading nearby, the boys playing basketball on the front, no one casts anything more than a cursory glance towards the Grand. The older residents remember the bomb, of course, but it seems far away now, something from another era, when Brighton was a different town altogether.
In the stamp shop near the station, Christine Chard, 47, casts her mind back. "I don't think I even realised how serious it was until I read about it in the papers," she admits, and looks out through the window, at the sun on the street and the people passing, still in summer clothes. "Was it really 25 years ago?" she wonders. "Time whizzes by."
Lord Mandelson is set to make history by becoming the first cabinet minister from the House of Lords in modern times to answer questions in the Commons.
John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, is planning to use his mandate as a moderniser to break centuries of tradition which have kept the Commons and Lords apart in an attempt to make ministers who sit in the upper house accountable to MPs.
As a first step, Bercow is aiming to change the rules to allow Mandelson, the business secretary, and Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, to answer questions in the mini-Commons chamber attached to the medieval Westminster Hall. This is currently used by MPs for adjournment debates in the morning.
The Speaker is hoping that the parliamentary authorities, which are wary of bringing Commons and Lords closer together, will allow the two ministers to appear at the bar of the house if the Westminster Hall sessions work.
The bar of the Commons is a white strip across the floor of the house that marks the start of the section where MPs sit and where members stand during busy debates when there is no free seating. It is also an area where MPs and members of the public can be sent for censure if they have broken parliamentary rules.
Mandelson and Adonis would appear at the bar when their departmental ministers in the Commons face the monthly business and transport questions from MPs. Bercow would eventually like to see the two peers sit alongside their ministerial colleagues on the Commons government frontbench to answer questions.
Bercow, who signalled his support for the change during his campaign for the Commons speakership in the summer, is strongly supported by Adonis and Mandelson. Adonis wrote to him to say: "I noted what you said about the possibility of secretaries of state in the Lords being subject to oral questions in the Commons. May I say that, should you and the house wish to establish a process for this to happen, I would be very willing to oblige."
Mandelson is enthusiastic about returning to the Commons, which he left in 2004 when he resigned as MP for Hartlepool to become Britain's European commissioner. "Peter is very much in favour of democratic accountability and reducing the distance between the two houses of parliament," a source at the business department said. "He is full of enthusiasm for this if others decide to go ahead with changes."
One source close to the negotiations with the parliamentary authorities said Bercow has a short window to act after being elected Speaker in June on a reforming ticket. "There will be real disappointment if we cannot, as a first step, change the rules by Christmas to allow Lords Mandelson and Adonis to answer questions from MPs in Westminster Hall. But there are a lot of people spluttering and saying this has never been done before. We only need two sessions to take place in Westminster Hall and the old guard will think this has happened for 200 years."
Reformers have called for Mandelson and Adonis to face questions in the Commons after Gordon Brown broke with recent convention to appoint two secretaries of state from the Lords.
The Oxford constitutional expert Professor Vernon Bogdanor last night described the plans to allow Mandelson and Adonis to appear at the bar of the Commons as a radical step.
"It is a radical innovation but it does make a lot of sense. Many MPs are worried that they cannot question two leading cabinet ministers in the House of Commons which is, after all, the elected chamber."
The veteran former Labour MP Tony Benn rejected the proposal. He said: "I am not in favour of giving peers who are not elected the sort of authority of being in the Commons."
MI5 had a duty to work with overseas agencies to counter 'imminent' al-Qaida threat, says Jonathan Evans
The head of MI5 broke cover last night to defend the service's foreign intelligence links with countries accused of torturing detainees, saying British lives had been saved as a direct result.
Speaking for the first time about charges of MI5 complicity in abuse, the director-general, Jonathan Evans, said Britain needed overseas help in the years following the 9/11 attacks in the United States because its knowledge and understanding of al-Qaida was inadequate at that time. Had Britain not done so, al-Qaida might have hit again "imminently", he said at a private event at Bristol University to mark MI5's centenary.
Evans said MI5 would have been "derelict in our duty" if it had not worked with foreign agencies in countering the threat from al-Qaida.
He acknowledged that contacts with agencies in countries with standards and practices "very far from our own" had posed "a real dilemma" for the service, but insisted he had "every confidence" in the way his officers dealt with them.
His comments come at a time when MI5 is facing a series of claims through civil courts that it colluded in the mistreatment of suspects held overseas, as well as an unprecedented investigation by the Metropolitan police.
Human rights groups have expressed concern about Britain's intelligence links with countries where detainees are at risk of torture or other abuse and apparently held in a secret US system of detention and transfers.
In one high-profile case, British secret agents were accused of colluding in the torture of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident released from Guantánamo Bay earlier this year after nearly seven years in detention in several countries, including Pakistan.
Evans said he could not comment directly on the allegations, but insisted it was "a very clear and long-established principle" that MI5 did not collude in torture or solicit others to torture on its behalf.
However he said events in the aftermath of 9/11 had to been seen in the context of the times, when the UK and other western countries faced a terrorist threat that was "indiscriminate, global and massive".
"Now, eight years on, we have a better understanding of the nature and scope of al-Qaida's capabilities but we did not have that understanding in the period immediately after 9/11," he said.
"We had seen nearly 3,000 people killed in the United States, 67 of them British. We were aware that 9/11 was not the summit of al-Qaida's ambitions. And there was a real possibility that similar attacks were being planned, possibly imminently.
"Our intelligence resources were not adequate to the situation we faced and the root of the terrorist problem was in parts of the world where the standards and practices of the local security apparatus were very far removed from our own."
The dilemma MI5 faced was whether to work with those security services which had experience of dealing with al-Qaida on their own territory, or risk cutting off a potentially vital source of information that could prevent attacks on the west.
"In my view we would have been derelict in our duty if we had not worked, circumspectly, with overseas liaisons who were in a position to provide intelligence that could safeguard this country from attack," Evans said.
He stressed that it was not "just a theoretical issue" as al-Qaida had actually laid plans for further terrorist outrages in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.
• Number of new diagnoses rises 50% in a week
• Postal strike may delay patients' access to vaccine
More than 100 people have died from swine flu and intensive care beds are filling up with victims, the government's chief medical officer revealed today.
A sharp rise in the proportion of hospital patients needing critical care is a matter "of some concern", Sir Liam Donaldson admitted as he unveiled the national vaccination programme due to start next week.
High-risk patients and frontline health workers in hospitals will be the first to be inoculated from 21 October. More than 4m doses of Pandemrix will be delivered to GP surgeries the following week so that patients in priority groups can be given protective injections.
A national postal strike could disrupt the process severely, Donaldson warned, saying it could prevent doctors from sending out letters to vulnerable patients to invite them in for vaccination.
"We are worried about the postal strike," the chief medical officer said. "GPs need to send letters out to patients. [A strike] would be an extremely unwelcome piece of timing. We need to get people into GPs' surgeries to give them this life-saving vaccine."
There were about 27,000 new cases of swine flu last week, an increase on the 18,000 new cases in the previous week. There have now been 106 deaths in the UK connected to the virus: 83 in England, 15 in Scotland, four in Wales and four in Northern Ireland.
Two of the latest people to die were pregnant women, a group emerging as a particularly at risk in the outbreak.
David Salisbury, director of immunisation at the Department of Health, dismissed fears that the "adjuvants" â€" material added to the vaccine to boost the body's immune response â€" would harm pregnant women.
The Pandemrix vaccine, he said, would provide virtually immediate immunity and guard against a broader spectrum of flu viruses.
Freshly issued advice from the World Health Organisation today confirmed that "the GSK [Pandemrix] vaccine has been licensed for use in pregnant women in Europe as of September 2009". Salisbury promised, however, to review the data.
There are 364 people in British hospitals with H1N1 swine flu, of whom 74 are in intensive care. "This is the highest proportion [of hospital patients] needing critical care since this all began," Donaldson said. "Most of the time it's been around 12% or 13%. Now it's up to 20%.
"We are seeing more serious cases than before but no sign of any change in the virus. This is giving me some concern. There's a school of thought that when a flu virus is operating in the summer it's milder than when it's operating in the flu season without a change in the virus.
"We don't understand why. We are doing a more detailed study of hospital patients," Donaldson said.
The Ministry of Defence announced that 15,000 doses of the vaccine would be delivered to the 9,000 UK troops serving in Afghanistan.
"We can't afford to have soldiers off with flu if we can prevent that," said an MoD spokesman.
No cases have yet been reported among servicemen there. The Department of Health is reviewing whether any other groups should be deemed high-risk categories and given early vaccinations against swine flu.
Among the latest deaths was a pregnant teenager from southern Scotland, whose unborn child also died. The 17-year-old was being treated in a hospital in the Borders region.
Her death was the latest in a series in Scotland: four deaths were reported in one 48-hour period earlier this week.
Health officials in Wales said that a pregnant woman, aged 21, from Monmouthshire, died in intensive care after a planned caesarean section. Three deaths were reported in Wales in 24 hours. Six pregnant women have now died from the virus in the UK.
Another pregnant woman who contracted the virus, Sharon Pentleton, has given birth to a son at Crosshouse hospital in Kilmarnock. In July, when she was six months pregnant, she was airlifted from Ayrshire for highly specialised treatment in Sweden which oxygenated her blood outside her body.
Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish health secretary, yesterday urged pregnant women to take the new H1N1 vaccine to ensure they had "maximum protection" for themselves and their babies.
• 21 October 415,000 doses of the vaccine Pandremix will be given to high-risk patients in hospitals and to frontline health workers.
• Week beginning 26 October 4.4 million doses of Pandremix to be delivered to GPs. Doctors will inoculate patients in priority groups â€" such as those with compromised immune systems and pregnant women.
• At the same time 236,500 doses of Pandremix and 49,200 doses of another vaccine, Celvapan, will be sent to NHS primary care trusts.
• The World Health Organisation has backed the use of Pandremix for pregnant women despite claims ingredients have not been sufficiently tested on expectant mothers-to-be
• Education 'narrower than in Victorian era'
• Labour accused of 'Stalinist' approach
• Scrap Sats and league tables says biggest study
Schoolchildren should not start formal lessons until they turn six, and Sats should be scrapped to relieve the damaging pressure England's young pupils face, the biggest inquiry into primary education for 40 years concludes today.
In a damning indictment of Labour's education record since 1997, the Cambridge University-led review accuses the government of introducing an educational diet "even narrower than that of the Victorian elementary schools".
It claims that successive Labour ministers have intervened in England's classrooms on an unprecedented scale, controlling every detail of how teachers teach in a system that has "Stalinist overtones". It says they have exaggerated progress, narrowed the curriculum by squeezing out space for history, music and arts, and left children stressed-out by the testing and league table system.
The review is the biggest independent inquiry into primary education in four decades, based on 28 research surveys, 1,052 written submissions and 250 focus groups. It was undertaken by 14 authors, 66 research consultants and a 20-strong advisory committee at Cambridge University, led by Professor Robin Alexander, one of the most experienced educational academics in the country.
Last night the review's conclusions were backed by every education union in England, but rejected by ministers, who were immediately accused of rejecting independent rigorous research.
The report sets out an analysis of the problems and recommends:
• Delaying formal lessons until after a child turns six, to allow them to focus on play-based learning, so those who struggle at the age of four or five are not put off for life. The government currently plans to bring forward the school starting age from five to four.
• Scrapping Sats and league tables and replacing them with teacher assessments in a wider range of subjects than just the 3Rs, to encourage primaries to focus on the broader curriculum.
• Reviewing the system of general primary teachers to introduce more specialist teachers in history, music and languages. Funding should be increased to match that spent in secondaries on extra staffing. Teachers should have two years post-graduate training, instead of one.
The researchers are highly critical of politician's decision-making processes, saying: "The report notes the questionable evidence on which some key educational policies have been based; the disenfranchising of local voice; the rise of unelected and unaccountable groups taking key decisions behind closed doors; the 'empty rituals' of consultations; the authoritarian mindset, and the use of myth and derision to underwrite exaggerated accounts of progress and discredit alternative views."
It accuses the Labour government of reaching ever deeper into the "recesses of professional action and thought". The government's standards agenda has not only been unpopular, but "less successful and more problematic than government is willing to admit", it says.
That standards agenda includes Labour's literacy and numeracy hours, which instruct how primaries teach the 3Rs, as well as the use of Sats to judge pupils' progress, rate schools in league tables and provide a verdict on the rate of improvements in the system.
Alexander said: "We do argue for a rolling back of the powers of the state and reversal of the centralisation of how teachers teach ... In respect to day-to-day teaching, government should step back."
The report says there is a growing "pervasive anxiety" about children's lives, with teachers and parents concerned about the pressures children face from Sats and the damaging effect of starting formal lessons at four on children, particularly boys, who are not ready to learn to read and write.
It notes that other countries do not start academic lessons until children are six or seven, and most overtake England in performance at some point as the children grow older.
Gillian Pugh, the chairwoman of the review, warns: "If you introduce a child to too formal a curriculum before they are ready for it, then you are not taking into account where children are in terms of their learning, and their capacity to develop.
"If they are already failing by the age of four and a half or five, it's going to be quite difficult to get them back into the system again."
But the review also stresses that fears about the decline in the state of childhood have been exaggerated in some cases â€" children report being happier than their parents think they are.
The biggest problem children face is the link between educational underachievement and poverty, it argues, concluding: "What is worrying is the persistence of a long tail of severely disadvantaged children whose early lives are unhappy, whose potential is unrealised and whose future is bleak."
Vernon Coaker, schools minister, said the government was already reforming the curriculum and testing, and accused Alexander's report of suggesting a "woolly" accountability system.
"It's disappointing that a review which purports to be so comprehensive is simply not up to speed on many major changes in primaries. The world has moved on since this review was started. If every child making progress and reaching their potential is what matters, then Professor Alexander's proposals are a backward step," he said.
The Conservative shadow schools minister, Nick Gibb, said: "We agree that the wave of bureaucracy over the past decade has been deeply damaging and we must trust teachers more.
"We agree that we need more specialist training for primary teachers, as we have been saying, and which the government unfortunately has opposed. However, we do not agree with all its proposals for changing the curriculum, or that politicians should end school for four to six year olds."
Exclusive: Reporters met with Starsuckers documentary maker to discuss buying private details
More Guardian coverage of the Starsuckers revelations
Three tabloid newspapers have been secretly filmed at meetings they thought were concerned with the possible purchase of private medical information about public figures who had undergone cosmetic surgery.
The Sunday Mirror, News of the World and People were caught in the sting after they were approached by an undercover documentary-maker. He claimed to have a contact working as an administrative nurse in what was in fact a fictitious cosmetic surgery clinic.
The newspapers were offered the chance to obtain confidential medical information about famous clients of the clinic, including actors Hugh Grant, Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans and Ricky Gervais. There is no evidence any of the celebrities received consultations for surgery, and the filmmaker, Chris Atkins, said he came up with the hoax to test "how far tabloid journalists are prepared to go" in pursuit of intrusive information.
The response of three tabloids, which sent journalists to meet the undercover documentary-maker, ranged from cautious expressions of interest to an offer of £3,000 for every story printed and a request for the nurse to obtain a "document on everything" held at the clinic.
A fourth Sunday tabloid, the Sunday Express, refused to meet Atkins, telling him his proposal breached the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) code, could be deemed illegal and constituted "a gross breach of ethics".
The documentary, Starsuckers, will open at the London Film Festival this month before going on show at independent cinemas across the country.
The Guardian is previewing undercover footage from the film, which includes clips of Atkins' cold-calls to the four Sunday newspapers. He claimed his ex-girlfriend was an administrative nurse at the clinic and had asked him to make "discreet enquiries" about whether she could make money releasing information about celebrities held by her employers.
The obtaining of private medical records without a person's consent is usually considered a breach of the Data Protection Act (DPA). Some breaches of the DPA could be justified by media organisations if they can prove obtaining the data was in the public interest.
The PCC also prohibits unjustified intrusions into privacy without a person's consent and states the restrictions are "particularly relevant to enquiries about individuals in hospitals or similar situations".
In April Paul Dacre, the chairman of the PCC's code of practice committee, told a parliamentary committee of MPs that medical records were deemed off-limits to journalists. "Absolute privacy granted, it is part of the PCC code," he said. "No question."
Atkins said: "We wanted to do a survey of the newspapers to see if they would rise to the bait." Although the Sunday Express declined his offer, the other three newspapers expressed an interest and attended meetings with Atkins in March.
The Sunday Mirror appeared the most willing to contemplate the purchase of medical records. Before meeting Atkins, a journalist who claimed to have the "eye and ear" of the editor told him over the phone that his proposal was "extremely sensitive" because of patient confidentiality.
However, during the meeting he asked: "Is there a document somewhere, is there a piece of paper, is there an email or something that would prove that [the celebrity] had [surgery]?". Later he said: "I've never had any cosmetic surgery, but I suspect there is a record in the clinic about the surgery taking place."
Stressing such decisions are "always up to the editor", the Sunday Mirror journalist went on to say he expected his newspaper could "get away" with stories about several celebrities who had visited the clinic. He offered £3,000 for every story published and even suggested running an article in that week's edition. He finished by encouraging Atkins to ask the nurse to "get a document on everything" kept by her employers.
The News of the World reporter was more hesitant, describing the purchase of medical data as a "grey area". Citing a story about TV presenter Fern Britton's use of a gastric band as an example, she said a public interest case could be made for running stories about cosmetic surgery undertaken by public figures.
"The kind of proof that we would need â€" I would have to obviously speak to [inaudible] and see exactly what we would need to get," she said. Atkins asked: "But you would need something?" She replied: "Yeah, we would need something, because obviously ..." She went on to say her newspaper would pay up to £80,000 for a celebrity exclusive that ran over a period of weeks.
The People reporter said stories about people's medical treatment was "very legally dodgy" and went on to suggest that documentation from the clinic would be required. She said her lawyers would give her guidance but she expected the newspaper would want "all the nitty gritty we could get and back-up documents if they were available".
She dismissed the threat of sanctions imposed by the PCC for invasions of privacy as something newspapers "brush aside". "All it means is a little apology somewhere in the paper, you get a slap on the wrists, you get recorded on the PCC, but there is no money [fine]," she said.
Atkins stopped communicating with the journalists after the first meeting and no money was exchanged.
In a statement, the News of the World said its reporter made clear throughout her discussions with Atkins that any story would have to be justified by a public interest. "As it was not in this case, we did not pursue the matter and no information was purchased or story published. We are confident our reporter followed the correct procedure and abided by the PCC code of practice."
Trinity Mirror PLC, which owns the People and Sunday Mirror, declined to comment.
