Review of the Papers, Thursday 21 June

Government  

• Prime Minister-in-waiting Gordon Brown offered former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown the Cabinet post of Northern Ireland secretary, the BBC has learned. Lord Ashdown said the offer was made on Wednesday - after Lib Dem Leader Sir Menzies Campbell said no member of his party would join Mr Brown's government. The peer said he could not have considered taking a Cabinet post without Sir Menzies' approval. And he said that he would not have been in favour of the proposal anyway. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk-politics/6224862.stm
• Pupils should be given lessons in good manners and schools should "raise the bar" on minimum standards of acceptable behaviour in the classroom, Gordon Brown said last night. The incoming Prime Minister laid out his manifesto for education in a speech at Mansion House that backed Tony Blair's reforms but promised more focus on what schools did and less on what shape they took. Mr Brown, who said that education was his "passion" when he launched his campaign to become Labour leader, moved to counter claims by the Conservatives that he was preparing to abandon his predecessor's reforms. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life-and-style/education/article1963983.ece
• Infants in Scotland could be taught in classes as low as 18 while thousands of young children south of the border remain in groups of 30. In an announcement that triggered fresh accusations of an educational "apartheid" between the two countries, the Scottish Parliament yesterday paved the way for classes to be cut to a record low in the first three years of primary school. Fiona Hyslop, Scotland's education minister, said £25 million would be spent recruiting more teachers to give young children "the time and attention to flourish". The announcement came as it emerged that in England 23,250 pupils aged five to seven remain in classes which exceed the legal limit of 30. The majority are taught in classes of more than 25. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/21/nschools121.xml
• Rural communities should be free to raise their own taxes, elect new leaders, and plan their own futures if they are not to fall into poverty and neglect, say development experts who have visited hundreds of villages across the UK, Ireland and beyond, taking evidence from thousands of people. The 20 members of the Carnegie trust commission said they found many rural people beset by an array of problems which successive governments had either failed to see or neglected to address. These included xenophobia, racism, pockets of extreme poverty, an ageing population, lack of affordable housing, depressed local economies, religious intolerance and the flight from rural communities of young people. http://environment.guardian.co.uk/conservation/story/0,,2107792,00.html
• Smokers will be prevented from fostering children under the age of 5 once the smoking ban comes into force on July 1. The Fostering Network, which oversees Britain's 42,000 foster carers, is to change its guidance to local authorities and agencies because of the risk of legal action by children in care whose health may be damaged by smoke. The network said it was imperative to protect children in foster homes from the risk of lung cancer and asthma. Research suggests that young children are particularly at risk. There are fears, however, that the ban will aggravate a shortage of foster families, which is currently estimated at 10,000. The shortfall means vulnerable children are frequently uprooted and sent to foster families miles from their home and separated from siblings. http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life-and-style/women/families/article1964081.ece
• David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, launched a carbon calculator yesterday. He said the calculator was designed to help individuals and families to work out how much carbon they were responsible for producing. The calculator is intended to show individuals where they are wasteful and how they can change their behaviour to reduce their impact on climate change. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article1963894.ece

**Conservatives **

• David Cameron will pledge today that one of his first acts as Prime Minister would protect in law a "comprehensive, universal" NHS funded by the taxpayer. The Conservative leader will also promise a legally-binding commitment that patients will not be allowed to opt-out and use NHS money to help subsidise private treatment. His comments are an uncompromising rejection of calls from the Right of his party for the leadership to look at new ways of funding the health service, including adopting Continental-style social insurance schemes. They also sound the death-knell for any hopes that the party could return to the Patient Passport policy it unveiled at the last election, which would allow people to take money from the NHS and top it up to get an operation in the private sector. Mr Cameron's words are also designed to demolish Labour claims that the Conservatives are still intent on breaking up the NHS. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/21/ntory121.xml