Review of the papers, Tuesday 20th March

Gordon Brown has exhibited a "Stalinist ruthlessness" in government, belittling his cabinet colleagues whom the Treasury treats with "more or less complete contempt", according to the man who was Britain's top civil servant until two years ago.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/db4b60b8-d65c-11db-99b7-000b5df10621.html

 The prospect that the National Health Service might provide only core services, with patients forced to pay for any other treatment or meet it from private insurance, was raised by the government yesterday.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/7fd87a7c-d689-11db-99b7-000b5df10621.html

 Concerns are increasing ahead of the Budget that the quality of official data is being compromised by the loss of skilled staff at the Office for National Statistics as it relocates to Newport, south Wales.  About a third of the government department's London-based staff have resigned, retired early or taken redundancy in the first phase of the shift this year, and only about 40 of the 600 staff have thus far accepted the offer to move.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0aaf9064-d689-11db-99b7-000b5df10621.html

NHS hospitals were yesterday accused of exploiting the "most vulnerable" after they were found to have made more than £95 million in parking charges last year.  Patients attending for treatment and relatives or friends visiting people in hospital were charged up to £3.50 an hour despite paying to build car parks through their taxes.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/20/nhs20.xml

Gordon Brown pledged that he would extend Tony Blair's public service reforms if he became prime minister, including his flagship city academy schools. The Chancellor committed himself to bringing in more "personalised" state-funded services - including a greater role for private firms and voluntary groups in providing them. He said there would be "major announcements" on city academies in tomorrow's Budget. He is likely to reduce the burden of VAT, which deters academies from opening facilities to the public because they would face crippling bills.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2374396.ece

Britain's couch potato tendency is costing the NHS £1bn a year as diseases linked to physical inactivity rise, according to research published today.  Our sluggishness causes both disease and death, says the report by experts at Oxford University's department of public health. They estimate that in 2003-04 more than 35,000 deaths could have been avoided if Britons had enjoyed a more active lifestyle.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,2038021,00.html

Gordon Brown yesterday gave his full endorsement to the city academies programme and is expected to announce measures in the budget to ease their running costs.

http://education.guardian.co.uk/newschools/story/0,,2038060,00.html

Some of the UK's biggest train operators warned about falling standards of track maintenance months before the west coast line crash which killed one passenger and injured dozens of others.  Virgin Trains has confirmed that it contacted Network Rail -the company in charge of Britain's rail system - before last month's Grayrigg crash after noting a deterioration in performance on track repairs.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/transport/Story/0,,2038068,00.html

Troops will be given priority on National Health Service waiting lists under Tory plans to woo the armed forces vote, -The Times- has learnt. The pledge is likely to form the centrepiece of a "military manifesto", published separately from the Tories' main manifesto, to exploit high levels of disaffection among service families.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1539888.ece