Whole Truth Coalition

A banker paid a basic annual wage of more than £1 million appeared to tell MPs that he had a relatively modest salary as he defended bonuses yesterday.

The chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group, which is 43 per cent-owned by the taxpayer, said that it would be a violation to refuse to pay the bonuses.

Eric Daniels was one of five bank chiefs questioned by the Treasury Select Committee. Another, Stephen Hester, the new chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, which is reported to want to spend £1 billion on bonuses, also defended the payments.

The bank chiefs were confronted by the committee’s chairman, John McFall, with a petition demanding that they scrap bonuses. However, Mr Daniels insisted that most Lloyds staff were on relatively modest pay, with an average salary of £17,000 and an average bonus of £1,000.

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The debate about the use of stop and search – be it protesters or young black and Asian men, be it in the case of stopping knife crime or deterring terrorism – is one that has (understandably, perhaps) been fixed on the police results rather than the times they get it wrong.

But it is in the cases where they get it wrong that attitudes towards police are sharpened and the rights we feel we have as citizens practically defined. So I offer this card for readers to download, print and carry. It warns police officers that if a stop and search is intrusive, unlawful or malicious, you will pursue the issue through the Independent Police Complaints Commission and, if necessary, to civil proceedings. You might want to offer this card to an officer before a search takes place. Enjoy.

Click here to download a pdf of the card. Then print, cut it out, fold it in half and carry it around with you.

‘The evidence is growing by the week that the Government is creating a surveillance state. It was confirmed yesterday that a database containing the international travel records of all citizens is being compiled; and Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, is drawing up plans to keep similar details of every phone call and email that is sent.

In addition, the records of all children are to be held on a system called ContactPoint, a national ID database is currently being developed, all health records currently held by GPs will be centrally available and a database of DNA profiles, ostensibly for criminals, is being built by stealth.

Meanwhile, the ubiquitous CCTV cameras in every public space make personal privacy increasingly hard to maintain. Even in the name of countering crime or combating terrorism, why should the state know where you are going, where you have been and whom you call while watching everyone’s movements on camera?’

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Every baby born a decade from now will have its genetic code mapped at birth, the head of the world’s leading genome sequencing company has predicted.

A complete DNA read-out for every newborn will be technically feasible and affordable in less than five years, promising a revolution in healthcare, says Jay Flatley, the chief executive of Illumina.

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‘A secret police intelligence unit has been set up to spy on Left-wing and Right-wing political groups.The Confidential Intelligence Unit has the power to operate across the UK and will mount surveillance and run informers on ‘domestic extremists’.

Its job is to build up a detailed picture of radical campaigners. Targets will include environmental groups involved in direct action such as Plane Stupid, whose supporters invaded the runway at Stansted Airport in December.

The unit also aims to identify the ring-leaders behind violent demonstrations such as the recent anti-Israel protests in London, and to infiltrate neo-Nazi groups, animal liberation groups and organisations behind unlawful industrial action such as secondary picketing.’

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His name is Avigdor Lieberman and he is widely expected to be the main surprise of the Israeli elections, slated to take place 10 February.

Many Israeli intellectuals dub Lieberman as the secular equivalent of Meir Kahana, the slain founder of the Kach terrorist group who advocated genocidal ethnic cleansing of non-Jews in Israel-Palestine. Kahana was assassinated in Manhattan, New York, in 1990 shortly after giving a speech in which he called for the annihilation and expulsion of Palestinians from “the Land of Israel”.

According to most opinion polls, Lieberman’s party, Yisrael Beiteinu, or “Israel is our Home”, is projected to win 16-17 Knesset seats out of 120 making up the Israeli parliament. This would allow Yisrael Beiteinu to overtake the Labour Party, led by Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, to become the third largest party in the Israeli political system, after the Likud and Kadima parties. Lieberman’s party will likely be a chief coalition partner in the next Israeli government.

Yisrael Beiteinu is not a party of marginal or pariah politicians. A few months ago, several high-profile politicians joined the party, including former Israeli Ambassador to the US Danny Ayalon and Uzi Landau, a former Israeli cabinet minister and prominent Likud figure for many years.

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Tony Blair is poised to become the first President of Europe after it was confirmed that French leader Nicolas Sarkozy is determined to help him win the post.

A senior aide to President Sarkozy told a private gathering of senior British and French politicians that he is to tell fellow EU leaders that Mr Blair is the only man who can help Europe stand up to the rest of the world.

The remark by Alain Minc, a key member of Mr Sarkozy’s inner circle, is the second French blow to Gordon Brown’s standing in two days, coming after Mr Sarkozy said Mr Brown’s decision to combat the recession by cutting VAT was a ‘mistake’.

Mr Minc, a political wheeler-dealer, entrepreneur and TV show host, was attending a meeting last month of the Franco British Colloque, a high-powered discussion group of British and French politicians, civil servants and opinion-formers.

Members are under orders not to reveal the confidential discussions, but The Mail on Sunday has established that Mr Minc used the meeting to win support for Mr Sarkozy’s campaign to ensure Mr Blair becomes the President of Europe.

The role is due to be created next year – but only if the EU’s controversial Lisbon Treaty is ratified in the autumn by Ireland and the Czech Republic, the two EU countries which have so far refused to do so.

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All the great conflicts of Europe have swept violently through this dark, beautiful and sinister city.

I first came here long ago at the suggestion of a retired Kremlin agent, who told me - correctly - that it was the last unspoiled city on the Continent, where the last fading traces of the pre-1939 world could still be glimpsed.

In the old Cold War days I was followed around its streets by secret policemen, and warned to ’shut up, you fool’ for idiotically talking politics on a tram. And I have marched here with students who were bravely challenging a tyranny they did not know was on the edge of collapse.

The Second World War can be said to have started here, with Hitler’s first occupation of a non-German capital, in March 1939. Many of the battles of the Cold War left blood on the cobblestones. The Thirty Years’ War began here in 1618 when two envoys of the Holy Roman Empire were hurled from a high window into a pile of horse manure.

Now another great struggle - between the European superstate and the very idea of national independence - is being fought in Prague.

You might call it the Battle Of The Flag. Look up at the majestic castle on its hill and you can just see it, proud on its solitary staff.

It is the personal standard of President Vaclav Klaus, a rather lovely piece of Continental blazonry with the fine motto ‘Truth Prevails’ inscribed upon it.

Every other official building in the city flies the dreary European Union dishcloth - but not the castle. Why ever not?

The Czech Republic currently holds the EU rotating presidency. The absence of the blue-and-yellow Brussels emblem from the city’s most commanding point is clearly not an accident.

The President (whose Christian name translates into English, by the way, as Wenceslas) is a veteran of battles against rigid foreign-imposed rule, and so is more than a little cool about the Lisbon Treaty, alias the European Constitution. In fact, he is cool about most of the European project.

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‘The government is building a secret database to track and hold the international travel records of all 60m Britons. The intelligence centre will store names, addresses, telephone numbers, seat reservations, travel itineraries and credit card details for all 250m passenger movements in and out of the UK each year.

The computerised pattern of every individual’s travel history will be stored for up to 10 years, the Home Office admits.

The government says the new database, to be housed in an industrial estate in Wythenshawe, near Manchester, is essential in the fight against crime, illegal immigration and terrorism. However, opposition MPs, privacy campaigners and some government officials fear it is a significant step towards a total surveillance society.’

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“British jobs for British workers” simply cannot happen while we’re still in the prison of nations that is the European Union. For we’ve signed away, without any consultation with the British people or, whisper it if you dare, any vote or referendum on the subject, our right as a country to decide who comes to this country or who works in this country.’

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