Forensic examiner not allowed to practise for at least four months after botched postmortem delayed murder investigation The pathologist Dr Freddy Patel whose botched postmortem examination led to a delayed murder investigation has been suspended from the medical register for at least four months. The General Medical Council had pressed for him to be struck off but an independent fitness to practise panel in London determined that suspension for his misconduct and dishonesty would be “appropriate and proportionate”. The council said Patel, 63, had been reluctant to consider asphyxiation in the murder case, had falsified his CV and failed to redress previous shortcomings. But lawyers for the forensic examiner argued he had taken steps to improve his professional conduct, and the panel accepted that his dishonesty fell towards the “lower end” of the spectrum. Patel was suspended from the register for three months last September because of his performance in other cases. He has also been criticised for suggesting the newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson died of natural causes during the G20 protests in London in 2009. Earlier this month, the disciplinary panel found Patel’s 2002 reports on the death of Sally White – the first victim of the “Camden ripper” Anthony Hardy – were “irresponsible, not of the standard expected of a competent forensic pathologist and liable to bring the medical profession into disrepute”. Patel decided that White, a 31-year-old sex worker, had died of natural causes despite blood staining her clothing, bedding and a wall at Hardy’s flat. Patel said she had died of a heart attack during consensual sex. This discouraged a police investigation that might have saved two later victims of Hardy, an earlier hearing was told. Patel will not be allowed to practise until his case is reviewed and another panel is satisfied he has identified and remedied deficiencies, proven he has attended a course on medical ethics, shadowed other pathologists and provided a satisfactory plan that might allow a supervised return to practise. Dr Freddy Patel Crime Police G20 London Ian Tomlinson James Meikle guardian.co.uk
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Labour leader to launch party’s local election campaign with promise to be public’s ‘voice in tough times’ Labour will be the public’s “first line of defence” against the coalition government’s spending cuts, the party’s leader, Ed Miliband, will say. Miliband – who will vow to be the public’s “voice in tough times” – will seize on local government cuts forced by the tight funding settlement at the launch of Labour’s local election campaign later on Thursday to claim the coalition’s reductions would cost the average family with two children £182 this year. “Labour launches our election campaign with a clear pledge to people across the country – we will be your voice in tough times,” he will say. “Cuts designed by David Cameron and Nick Clegg are coming direct from Downing Street to your street. Families in every part of the country will be hit by these unfair cuts. “Areas with the greatest need are being asked to bear the greatest burden. The worst-off areas are being hit the hardest, while the average family will be hit much harder than people in David Cameron’s constituency. “Labour will be your community’s first line of defence against the damage being done by a Conservative-led government and their Liberal Democrat allies.” In an interview conducted prior to the launch, the Labour leader also underlined his support for “people power” by those demonstrating their opposition to government policies in street marches and rallies as “the kind of politics we need in this country”. The Labour leader has been mocked by Cameron and other critics for making a speech at the anti-cuts protest in London, organised by the TUC last weekend – notably for claiming that the march, attended by more than 250,000 people, followed the tradition of suffragettes, the civil rights movement in the US, and the anti-apartheid movement. Miliband told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme he was not trying to suggest that the government cuts were comparable to apartheid, but was making a point about the importance of the people exerting power. “The march on Saturday was about politics being practised by people making their voice heard in a peaceful way,” he said. “That tradition of politics not just being about what happens at Westminster, or in legislative chambers, but about people themselves making a difference is an important tradition … If politics is just practised by elites, and is just about you and me and people in Westminster, then actually I think many people will be alienated from that process.” He added: “Take the U-turn the government made on forests. That was people saying: ‘You’ve got to change,’ and I think that is the kind of politics we need in this country. Miliband will kick-start the election campaign with a speech and a question and answer session in the Midlands. Labour is claiming its councils charge less, on average, than Tory and Liberal Democrats authorities, to the tune of £207 and £40 respectively. Asked on Today if Labour councils should raise council tax to protect services, Miliband said the amount of money involved would not make a “huge difference”. He added that Labour was reviewing its policy on capping council tax rises. Referring to the local elections in May, he said his view on deficit reduction was underpinned by the three big challenges he has identified – ensuring everyone shares in rising prosperity, protecting the next generation’s chances and building strong communities. “My view about the deficit come out of my view about the big challenges that Britain faces,” he said. “If you look after what we did after 1945, when we also had big debt, we said: ‘What kind of country do we want to build, and then let’s make our decisions on the deficit.’ “So you see, the point about this deficit debate is that it’s got to be seen in this bigger context and that is what I’m going to be saying in this local election campaign launch today.” Pressed on the alternative to the government’s deficit plan, Miliband refused to be drawn on detail other than to reaffirm Labour’s commitment to halving the deficit in four years. He insisted the important element being ignored in the debate about spending cuts and tax rises was economic growth. “The level of growth we get will define how quickly we reduce the deficit and, importantly, what other difficult decisions we have to make on tax and spending,” he said. Ed Miliband Local elections Local government Local politics Elections 2011 Local elections 2011 Public sector cuts Public services policy Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk
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Seaton Meadows are dominated by the 82 spans of the Welland viaduct. Stretching a kilometre across the broad, shallow valley, the 18-metre-high, smoky black brickwork is a colossal Victorian engineering statement that screams of steam engines. Once these wet meadows were just a typical flowery idyll, now they are one of the last patches of unimproved flood meadow left in the county. A red kite glides overhead; just four or five metres up, its tail twists characteristically. Above the line where the gentle valley side blends into the floor is a long patch of wet flushes. Here water seeps around clumps of stiff, straight rushes. Furry, yellow dung flies skirt through the herbage, passing bedstraws and lady’s smock; it is mostly in bud, but a few fingernail-sized pink gowns are on show. Two snipe burst out of the rushy sward. The next flush is home to squat marsh marigolds adorned with rich, glossy yellow blossoms. A thin branch of the river Welland loops around the meadows. The water is slow, barely moving. Under the bark of a dead willow is a little cast of boldly marked spiders – each could sit comfortably on a penny. The toothed weaver ( Textrix denticulata ) is a deep dark brown, with a pale, coffee-coloured, irregular mark down its back and very stripy legs. The snake’s-back tube-weaver ( Segestria senoculata ) is more elongate, its fawn abdomen bearing a distinct black, wavy marking. The velvety bark sac spider ( Clubiona corticalis ) is perhaps the smartest; dark greyish-brown, with a tan flare over the top of the abdomen that highlights a central, backward-pointing, dark streak. A pair of curlew stalk through the grass, probing the ground with their long curved bills. The worms must be returning to the surface after the winter frosts and soon the curlews will be nesting. Rural affairs Matt Shardlow guardian.co.uk
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Trading in an original iPad could shave hundreds of pounds off the price of Apple’s latest tablet computer The launch of iPad 2 has led to a surge in the number of people selling the original iPad, as they seek to upgrade. According to Money4UrMobile.com , 50 times more requests to recycle tablet computers have been received in the three weeks to 25 March compared to the period 1 January to 2 March 2011. This week, Price check has researched the various options for consumers (looking at Wi-Fi only) for examples of recent pricing. Be aware that prices will fluctuate depending on the condition of your tablet. Prices for the iPad 2 start at about £399, and in some instances you could have paid as little as £125 by selling your 16Gb Wi-Fi original. If you’ve sold your iPad recently, please share the details in the comments section below. Auction sites It seems the phrase “Comes from a smoke-free home” has been usurped by “Only selling due to buying the iPad 2″ as the top line in the eBay listing description box. Auction sites let you trade directly with the consumer, and having monitored eBay for a few days, the prices achieved were the best of all those produced by all the different resale options. For instance a “used but great condition” 16GB iPad was selling for about £270, with the 32GB slightly more than £300 and the 64GB about £380. Obviously there is a risk your item won’t sell, and you may incur costs regardless. If you also use PayPal there will be further charges. Recycling sites There are numerous sites offering money in return for old iPads, and some companies will even take “non-working” units, but for the benefit of comparison we have kept to “fully working and in very good condition”. Price comparison sites such as SellYourMobile , which list prices offered by several recycling sites, but the prices are sometimes better if you go direct to the site. The best price we saw for a 16GB iPad was on SpeedSell . If you were happy to recommend them on Facebook you were offered a price of £215.34, otherwise it would have been £201.25. Gadget Xchange was best priced at £209 without the need to recommend them. The 32GB version was £258.35 on SpeedSell with the Facebook recommendation, and £242 with Gadget Xchange . The 64GB version was top priced on SpeedSell at £301.38 with the recommendation and £281.66 without. SpeedSell collect your iPad by courier for free and say you will receive a cheque or payment via your PayPal account within seven days of it receiving and approving your tablet. Gadget Xchange will send you a pre-paid envelope, but strongly recommends you send the item by recorded delivery with you funding the difference. It will be in email contact throughout the sale process. In both cases the offer is based on an inspection of the item, and depending on this the offer could go down. Retail outlets You can take an iPad irrespective of memory size to a Currys or PC World store and get £150 off the price of an iPad 2 . It needs to be in full working order and not have a damaged or broken screen. Consumer affairs Saving money iPad Apple Tablet computers Marc Lockley guardian.co.uk
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Consumer association Which? warns that self-test kits for conditions such as prostate cancer are hit and miss Home health kits could be a waste of time, effort and money, according to consumer association Which? The DIY kits for conditions including prostate cancer and stomach ulcers could cause false alarm or provide false reassurance, the consumer magazine found. “Self-test health kits could be a useful tool, but the lack of clear information about how to use them could do more harm than good,” Which? chief executive Peter Vicary-Smith said. “As your GP may well have to carry out their own tests to confirm a positive diagnosis anyway, you may be better off saving your money and going straight to your GP.” Which? experts examined six kits, available at chemists or online for between £4.99 and £15.99, and interviewed 64 members of the public about their use. The results were “hit and miss”, with some consumers saying the prostate test results could have led to them not seeking medical help. The research also found gaps in information which could lead to unnecessary worry. For example, a Boots blood glucose test kit marketed as helping “in the early detection of diabetes” failed to mention that glucose levels can be raised after a meal, Which? said. And a Boots bowel test kit did not provide dietary advice such as avoiding red meat for three days before the test. There were also examples of “baffling” language, with consumers in one case asked to draw blood from the “hillside” of the finger. Other potentially confusing terms included “separation membranes”, “desiccant” and “in-vitro diagnostic device”. The Selfcheck Health Test, which tests for an antigen (PSA) linked to prostate problems, did not explain that recent sexual activity, a urine infection or vigorous exercise, could raise PSA levels, the researchers said. And the Simplicity Stomach Ulcer Screening Test was misleadingly named, Which? said. It tests for a particular bacteria but only a minority of people with that bacteria are likely to develop a stomach ulcer. Which? experts and the Plain English Campaign will pass their findings to the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Products Agency (MHRA) and self-testing kit manufacturers to try to help improve the quality of information supplied. Health Prostate cancer Cancer NHS Health & wellbeing guardian.co.uk
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New Zealand’s chief coroner says some of those killed during earthquake may never be identified Some victims of Christchurch’s earthquake may never be identified and their remains may be buried in a mass grave, New Zealand’s chief coroner has said. Police have named 169 victims of the magnitude 6.3 earthquake that hit the city on 22 February, but say they have yet to identify partial remains of others and the final death toll may be 180. The chief coroner, Neil McLean, told National Radio on Thursday that in some cases the remains were so damaged or small that identification even by DNA analysis might not be possible. McLean said he would meet victims’ families and embassy staff representing international victims in Christchurch to discuss the progress of the identification effort and what should be done with remains that can not be identified. If identification by medical or scientific means was not possible, an inquest would be held for some victims. “We will hear what we call circumstantial evidence witnesses or CCTV coverage. All those things where we can get to a stage where we can say although we have not recovered anything identifiable, they died on this date and the likely cause of death is this,” McLean said. It was possible that some remains could be buried in a mass grave. All of the victims still to be identified were from the Canterbury Television building that completely collapsed in the quake. Students from Japan, China and other countries were among those buried in the building, which housed an English-language school. New Zealand Natural disasters and extreme weather guardian.co.uk
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• High levels of radiation detected outside current 20km zone • Prime minister plans to review nuclear energy policy • Concerns over water contaminated by reactor cooling operation Pressure is mounting on Japan to expand the evacuation zone around the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, as the prime minister says he plans to review the country’s nuclear energy policy. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Japanese authorities should consider expanding the zone beyond its current 20km (12-mile) radius after high levels of radiation were detected at a village about twice that distance from the plant. The government has so far resisted calls to evacuate more people from the area, but said its policy was under constant review, and that monitoring of radiation levels was being increased. More than 70,000 people living inside the 20km zone have been evacuated, but another 136,000 living between 20-30km away have been told to stay in their homes. The US has recommended that its citizens stay at least 80km away. Some have taken government advice to leave voluntarily, but many others have spent almost three weeks living in an area with few supplies and services, their plight compounded by rising radiation levels and speculation that stabilising Fukushima Daiichi could take months. Radiation fears have prevented authorities from collecting the bodies of as many as 1,000 people living in the evacuation zone who died in the 11 March earthquake and tsunami. Kyodo news agency cited police sources as saying the corpses had been exposed to high radiation levels and would probably have to be decontaminated before they could be collected and examined by doctors. Left as they were, the bodies could pose a health threat to relatives identifying them at morgues, the agency said. Cremating them could create radioactive smoke, while burying them could contaminate soil. The IAEA said measurements taken at Iitate, 40km from the plant, were above the level at which the United Nations body normally orders evacuations. Earlier this week, Greenpeace issued a similar warning after recording high levels of radiation in the village. “We have advised [Japanese officials] to carefully assess the situation, and they have indicated that it is already under assessment,” Denis Flory, a senior IAEA official, said in Vienna. “The highest values were found in a relatively small area in the north-west from the Fukushima power plant and the first assessment indicates that one of the IAEA operational criteria for evacuation is exceeded in Iitate village.” The agency said its latest readings were conducted over a wide area from 18-26 March, and that the samples contained radioactive iodine-131 and caesium-137. But the chief government spokesman, Yukio Edano, said the evacuation zone would stay unchanged for the time being. “At the moment, we have no reason to believe that the radiation will have an effect on people’s health,” he said. “We need to step up our monitoring, and if necessary take steps to deal with it.” Media reported that 140 members of a US military team specialising in radiation control would arrive soon to help deal with the crisis. Nuclear safety officials said rising contamination in the sea near the plant pointed to a constant leak of radiation. On Thursday, Japan’s nuclear and industrial safety agency said radioactive iodine near drains running from the plant was 4,385 times higher than the legal limit. Experts said workers at the plant, 240km north of Tokyo, faced the problematic task of cooling overheating reactors with seawater while ensuring that contaminated runoff does not end up in the surrounding sea and soil . “There’s definitely a conflict now between trying to keep the reactors cool and managing the contaminated waste water being generated by the operation,” said Ed Lyman, of the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists. The deepening of the crisis exposed a dispute between the government and the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power company about the plant’s future. The firm has said four of the six reactors are beyond repair, but that two could function again . The prime minister, Nato Kan, however, said the entire plant should be decommissioned. Kyodo reported that Kan is to order a review of plans to increase Japan’s dependence on nuclear energy from 30% to 50% by 2030. With public confidence in the industry severely dented by the Fukushima emergency, few communities are expected to grant approval for the construction of 14 atomic power plants over the next 20 years. Japan disaster Nuclear power Japan Natural disasters and extreme weather Energy Justin McCurry guardian.co.uk
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The sex-bias class action pitting millions of women against the embodiment of corporate America will have a huge impact In one of the most closely watched cases on the US supreme court docket, the court has heard oral argument in the largest American employment class action litigation ever. Betty Dukes , representing millions of Walmart female employees, filed suit in 2001 alleging that Walmart engaged in a discriminatory pay and promotion practices. The women sued for backpay and an injunction requiring the company to change its practices. The class includes between 500,000 and 1.5 million current and former female employees. How the justices resolve the case will have significant impact. The litigation pits millions of female employees alleging company-wide, gender-based discrimination against the country’s largest retail establishment. Whether the supreme court upholds this class certification is being closely watched by not only female employees, but by corporate America, which is concerned that if the class certification is upheld, almost every large American corporation would be vulnerable to sweeping allegations of employment discrimination based on generalised theories of discriminatory corporate culture and subjective local decisions. The class action device permits millions of allegedly injured people to “aggregate” their claims in one representative litigation. The American class action rule has been in existence since 1938, but the procedure took its modern form through a rule revision in 1966. If a court approves or certifies a class action – as the California courts did – only the individual class representatives’ claims (such as Dukes’s case) would be tried to a jury. In the Walmart case, there are only three women who are class representatives; a court would not individually adjudicate the millions of other women’s claims. In addition, the women’s attorney proposed that each woman’s damages could be determined through a mathematical formula, rather than by examining individual work records. American class action litigation has always been a controversial means for pursuing group relief. Indeed, most civil law countries have historically rejected it – the UK, for example, has a very limited means for aggregating claims, known as a “group action”. However, in recent years, the idea of an American-style class action has gained traction in some European countries. Advocates in favour of class action view it as a means to empower large number of injured victims whose claims have comparatively little value. Such victims most likely would not be able to hire a lawyer, because attorneys have little interest in representing individuals with small claims. In this vein, the Walmart women’s attorney argued that a class action was appropriate because each woman’s claim was probably worth no more than $1,100. Without a class action, millions of Walmart employees would not be able to recover on their discrimination claims. In contrast, large corporations that are sued view this as a means to coerce them into enormous settlements without providing fair trials on individual claims. Several prominent American appellate courts have suggested that when a court certifies a class action to proceed to trial, this decision amounts to “settlement blackmail”. Corporate defendants maintain it denies them their rights to examine, challenge and defend against the individual claims of class members. With over 3,400 stores, Walmart is America’s largest private employer. Women comprise over 80% of workers and hold only one-third of managerial store management jobs. Walmart has a company-wide policy that bars workplace discrimination based on sex. Notwithstanding this policy, individual Walmart store managers have substantial discretion in making salary and promotion decisions in each individual store. The women complained that they had been subjected to an array of discriminatory actions, including denial of management training, retaliation for initiating internal grievance procedures, failure to promote, harassment and denial of equal pay. The complaint alleged that Walmart “fosters or facilitates gender stereotyping and discrimination … and that this discrimination is common to all women who work or have worked in Walmart stores”. California federal courts granted and upheld class certification, which is a green light to proceed to trial. Walmart asked the supreme court for review, arguing that the litigation should not to go forward as a massive class action. It is important to understand what the supreme court will not be deciding. It will not address whether the women employees have legitimate claims, whether Walmart engaged in discrimination, or whether either side should win. Instead, the court will evaluate whether the proposed litigation satisfied the requirements to go forward as a large class action. In order for a court to permit this, the court must be satisfied that the Walmart female employees share common legal or factual questions about their claims. In addition, the women’s claims must be typical of all the women in the lawsuit, and they must be adequately represented. Walmart argued that lower courts’ liberal application of class certification requirements was inappropriate where hundreds of thousands of individualised employment decisions were involved. Therefore, the women’s claims did not share common facts and were not typical of each other. The company argued that the class action effectively denied the corporation’s right to present evidence concerning how individual women were treated with regard to promotion or pay decisions. In particular, it also objected it was unfair to determine possible backpay awards based on a mathematical formula. Women’s groups, on the other hand, are concerned that the court may seize the Walmart appeal as a platform for tightening class certification requirements in employment discrimination cases, thereby increasing the difficulty for female employees to seek recovery. Thus, if the court reverses class certification, the Walmart case could signal a significant regression in women’s rights in the workplace. Walmart Women Gender Retail industry United States Linda Mullenix guardian.co.uk
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Yes, it’s back on our screens! No, it’s not a new series but a run of repeats starting on BBC4 in the year 1976 . . . Age: 47. Appearance: The oldest swinger in town. Good old TOTP! Not just British TV’s longest-running chart show, but a reminder that there’s more to music than expensive videos. Such as? Such as embarrassed pop stars miming to their own recordings. Is the BBC still threatening to shut it down? Not any more. It’s been off air since 2006, if you don’t count Christmas specials. And I thought it had been buried on one of the digital channels. I’m devastated. On the other hand, I’m delighted. Because? Because if we’re talking about it now, it must be making a comeback. Got it in one. From next Thursday, TOTP will be on BBC Four in its old time slot of 7.30pm. So it’s about to be buried on one of the digital channels. Still, that’s prime time. Didn’t the show die because everyone stopped watching it? Pretty much. At its peak audiences were 15 million. By the end 14 million of them had vanished. How’s the BBC going to make it work this time? Can we look forward to a big-budget Doctor Who-style revival, ideally featuring Karen Gillan in an extremely short skirt? Only if she really can travel through time. The BBC’s not so much rebooting TOTP as repeating it – one episode a week, starting in 1976. A golden year for pop? More like a golden year for the Beeb not losing its recordings. No 1s in 1976 included Brotherhood of Man’s Save Your Kisses for Me, The Wurzels’ Combine Harvester and Showaddywaddy’s Under the Moon of Love. As for the show’s DJs . . . Or smug gits, as they were officially known . . . They were led by Jimmy Savile, Tony Blackburn and Dave Lee Travis. This suddenly sounds a lot less appealing. Especially since I’ve just realised it could drag on into the 2040s. Don’t worry. Punk will be along to shake everything up in 2012 – or, as we must now call it, 1977. Do say: “Now that’s what I call music!” Don’t say: “Now that’s what I call cheap TV!” Television guardian.co.uk
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It could be a political ploy, or maybe Ed Miliband has given into the pressures that assail unmarried parents When you have kids outside wedlock, and they stay outside wedlock, that looks like a decision. It might be a cynical one, it is most probably an atheistic one, and I cannot rule out the possibility that it speaks of insufficient commitment on the part of one partner or both. But at least it’s something they decided. When you have kids outside wedlock and then get married, it just makes you look really badly organised. That’s what I’d be worrying about if I were Ed Miliband . Not “Is this a vote-winner?” Not “Am I going to lose more single parents than I win right-thinking conservatives?” Not “Does my bum look politically motivated in this?” But rather, “What kind of man does this make of me, that I can’t even put the points in the right order on my personal life to-do list? Imagine me in government! I’d do everything in the wrong order, first I’d bomb somewhere, then I’d look for a diplomatic solution, then I’d check to see if I could afford it …” We have to assume that the forthcoming nuptials of Miliband and Justine Thornton are not politically motivated; the territory is too vexed for marriage to be a straightforward solution to anything. He might conceivably warm the cockles of middle England, but I suspect the people who care about this sort of thing care about other things more, and don’t care at all for a brave new imagining of leftwingery, married or not. On the other hand, Thornton could be doing it for her career. It is common for lawyers to think that parents who aren’t married – being unable to extract any protection from the law – are stupid. When you say to them, “But I don’t want to get married,” they say, “Well, that’s because you’re stupid.” They might even have rules that forbid you from ascending to QC if you are unmarried, on account of your huge stupidity. I’m going to go ahead, though, and write off career advancement as a motivation. It’s just too late, they’re strategic thinkers, and they could have leveraged more advantage out of this union at pretty much any time in the past six years than they’re getting now. So here are some other possibilities. Miliband is notoriously counter-suggestible. He only went to the march on Saturday because all his advisers told him not to. Come on, he was speaking fourth. In line-up terms, that makes him Mumford & Sons . At the precise moment that the pressure abates, and even the most rule-bound adviser is saying: “Well, you can’t get married now. It looks like an afterthought” – that’s when he wants to get married. Now he burns with a love like no other. Yesterday he could live with her. Today he can’t live without her. But really it’s the zeal of unbelievable stubbornness. I have a brother like this, most of us do, I’m sure. You just want to hope he’s not in the same field as you. On which note, let’s imagine that some commentators are right, and Ed’s entire life is one long David-Ed tournament, in which the prize is always a millimetre out of reach, since the true blank is no particular accolade, but the annihilation of one brother by the other. What has David got left that Ed doesn’t have? A number of improbable plans, some spare time in the evenings, and a wife. This theory will gain credence when Ed gets a hair transplant. Though both men’s hair is quite self-determining, David’s is much tuftier . It could all be an elaborate ploy to get the kids into a faith school. Qualifications vary wildly from faith to faith: Catholics have a points system, where the younger your baby was when it was christened the more weighting you get. (Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous in your life than a six-month-old being more religious than a one-year-old?) This is a wild stab in the dark, but might they be going for a Jewish education, in which case the heat is totally off the baby and all on Justine for an imminent conversion. But all religions like you to be married before they’ll educate your children. It keeps the riffraff out. Any idiot can get up early on a Sunday: only people with 20 grand can get hitched. I’ve heard people say that they were able to resist all pressure to marry until their own children started on them, and then their resolve evaporated. This is impossible at present, since their oldest is not yet two : but the day is not far away when both scions will be wondering why it’s fine to be on kids’ show Dramarama (Justine) and lead the opposition (Ed), and yet be way too shy to make a sound commitment to one another in a decent, unshowy Nottingham location. And at the outside (I am offering internet odds of 2/17), this is a gesture of self-abasement before the royals: you show the way, oh dyad of loveliness; we follow, squinting in your blazing light, inviting only 50 people and none of them with huge oil reserves in the Middle East, eschewing even a best man, because who could be finer than Prince Harry? No one will be knitting dolls of us, oh royal ones, though it’s not out of the question that we might generate an ironic commemorative plate. We are, your faithful servants, Ed’n’Justine. Or maybe he really does think there are votes in it. Congratulations, nevertheless, to everyone involved. Ed Miliband Weddings Faith schools Schools Zoe Williams guardian.co.uk
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