In Today's Papers

Text-pest Ivan apologises for messages

Health Minister Ivan Lewis has issued a public apology after bombarding an aide with suggestive text messages.

Mr Lewis said he was sorry after word leaked of his embarrassing pursuit of 24-year-old Susie Mason, who worked in his private office in Whitehall.

The civil servant was so upset she complained to her managers and eventually quit working for the Government earlier this year.

Read more on this story in The Daily Mail

Night curfew on children brings anti-social behaviour down by 15 per cent

Campaigners have called for a night curfew for children to be extended across Britain after a trial scheme saw crime plunge by 15 per cent.

They said that since Operation Goodnight was introduced around a month ago, there has been a dramatic fall in anti-social behaviour in Redruth, Cornwall.

Read more on this story in The Daily Mail 

Reduce net immigration to zero, say MPs

Immigration to Britain would be dramatically scaled back under plans for a "one in, one out" policy published today.

Read more on this story in The Daily Telegraph

Social workers to get new guidance on conduct

Social workers are to be issued with clearer guidance on their conduct after the first breakdown of disciplinary actions by the profession's new regulator revealed a high number of cases involving allegations of inappropriate relationships with clients.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

£75m childcare boost for parents to find work

Families will get £205 a week to pay for childcare so parents can be trained to return to work.

The £75million programme announced last night will for three years help couples in England where one works and the other wants new skills to help them find a job.

Read more on this story in The Daily Mirror

Help families to cut their bills or else, energy giants warned

Ministers are holding the threat of a windfall tax over energy companies to win guarantees that the costs of new moves to cut household bills will not be passed on to consumers, The Times has learnt.

Gordon Brown will face calls for a one-off tax on the profits of the big companies when he meets union bosses behind closed doors at the TUC conference in Brighton tomorrow.

Read more on this story in The Times

Hunt begins for missing data on prison officers

A computer company delivering the national identity card scheme was frantically hunting yesterday for a lost computer drive containing 5,000 personnel files, including the private details of prison officers.

Read more on this story in The Times

Allow councils to run local jails, says Cherie Booth commission

The "hysterical rhetoric" of national politicians trying to satisfy the "public clamour for prison-based punitiveness" is criticised today by an inquiry chaired by Cherie Booth QC.

The interim report from the Commission on English Prisons Today says local prisons should be handed over to be run by local authorities as an alternative to the "government's current titanic course" of building new 2,500-bed prisons which will contribute little to public safety.

Read more on this story in The Guardian