Alan Travis writes in The Guardian:
Jacqui Smith made history yesterday by becoming the first female home secretary and the second youngest person to hold the job since Winston Churchill nearly a century ago.
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The conventional wisdom at Westminster is that she is not close to Gordon Brown but that he likes her. As far as the [...]

Sophie Heawood writes in The Times about the chart-busting sound of London 2007: young, talented and friends with Lily Allen:
Something strange is happening in the pop charts. Though midweek positions may have changed by the official chart rundown on Sunday, the top three currently contains a debut single by a 19-year-old singer-songwriter called Kate Nash, [...]

Another letter about ContactPoint in The Guardian today, replying to a letter from Beverley Hughes:
Beverley Hughes cites Lord Laming’s report into the tragic death of Victoria Climbié as “the reason we are bringing this [ContactPoint] system in” (Letters, June 26). What she fails to point out is that her own department’s draft guidance for the [...]

The BBC previews a speech that Sir Menzies Campbell will give today:
In a speech to Lib Dem staff in Westminster, Sir Menzies will say: “We have consistently opposed the centralising and authoritarian tendencies of this Labour government.
“I am not prepared to trade our principled opposition for the sake of ministerial jobs.”
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Sir Menzies is expected to [...]

Jeremy Kirk writes in IT World:
The U.K. is delaying the start of the procurement process for the IT systems that will eventually issue ID cards for an estimated 50 million U.K. citizens over the next decade.
A “major” procurement process was set to begin, but “we’re not quite ready yet,” said James Hall, chief executive of [...]