Review of the Papers, Wednesday 20 June

Government

• One of London's most deprived boroughs has turned down a £2m offer from Goldman Sachs to build and run a state school. The US investment bank's failure to persuade council officials in Tower Hamlets to let it set up a city academy highlights the powers of councils to frustrate the government's plans to build 400 business-led academies by 2010. Only two of the Square Mile's leading financial institutions have successfully supported the government's academy programme - UBS, which has built a school in Hackney, and KPMG, which jointly sponsors a school in the same area with the City of London Corporation. Lord Adonis, the school's minister, expressed deep disappointment that Tower Hamlets had rejected the Goldman plan for a sixth-form academy but acknowledged he was powerless to force one on the council. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f6bbba94-1eca-11dc-bc22-000b5df10621.html 
• Holidaymakers were warned yesterday to expect summer holiday travel chaos as the first signs emerged that the Government's new border controls are causing significant delays at airports. The introduction of sophisticated scanning machinery by the newly-created Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) has doubled the time it takes to process passengers arriving back in the country. The new technology, which uses lasers to scan passports, has created havoc at Stansted airport and there have been reports of delays at Luton. Airlines fear that the problem will spread as the system is extended to other airports over the next few months. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=RNZ2UBNILJLI5QFIQMFCFGGAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/06/20/nairports120.xml
• MPs are likely to be allowed to bring BlackBerrys into the Commons chamber for the first time so that they can check and send e-mails as they wait to speak in debates. It comes after a revolt by MPs against Commons rules that require them to sit for up to six hours on the back benches before they are called to make a speech. Younger MPs, particularly the new generation of women elected in 2005, protested that their time spent waiting to speak in the chamber was wasted because of a convention barring MPs from using handheld devices. Michael Martin, the Speaker, instructed MPs in a note after the 2005 election that electronic devices should not be used in the chamber; they could be left in silent or vibrate mode, he ruled, but not used as an aide-mémoire or to receive messages when making speeches or asking questions. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1957638.ece
• Children are to be encouraged to moo like a cow, ee-aw like a donkey and to make banging noises with sticks and pots, under a revival of back-to-basics literacy teaching. Government guidance on the teaching of synthetic phonics published yesterday suggests that children learn to read and write best if they are taught first to distinguish between the 44 different phonemes or sounds of the English language before reading whole words. But the 208-page document, to be made available to all state primary schools in England, was described as insulting by Britain's biggest teaching union, which criticised it as another attempt to micro-manage classroom practice. The new guidance follows the Rose Review, conducted by Sir Jim Rose, a former director of inspection at Ofsted, which recommended that reading be taught through the use of synthetic phonics, which involves children learning individual letter sounds before blending them to form words. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article1958033.ece
• Fifty years after Britons were implored to "Go to work on an egg", an advertising watchdog has banned a revival of the campaign, saying that it breaches health guidelines. Plans to mark the anniversary by broadcasting the original television advertisements featuring Tony Hancock have had to be called off. The ban by the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre, which vets television advertisements, was condemned as ridiculous yesterday by the novelist Fay Weldon, who used to work in advertising and helped to create the campaign. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life-and-style/health/article1957593.ece

Conservatives

• Patients who stop smoking or lose weight will be ushered to the front of the queue for public services under Conservative proposals to improve public health. David Cameron is considering whether to accept the idea of an "NHS health miles card" to encourage people to take more responsibility for their own wellbeing. In addition to being given priority for treatment, those prepared to improve their lifestyle could be given discounted gym membership and even cheaper vegetables. The proposal is part of a report by the Public Services Improvement Policy Group, titled The NHS - Delivering our Commitment, which was published yesterday. Mr Cameron also plans to drop all central NHS targets. He is to assess how much of the report to adopt as party policy. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1957643.ece