LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s border force chief quit and launched an outspoken attack on Home Secretary Theresa May on Tuesday in a row over the easing of passport checks at ports and airports that has led to fears that national security may have been compromised.

The government suspended Brodie Clark and two of his senior staff last week after it discovered some passport controls had been abandoned.

LONDON (Reuters) – Calls for greater fiscal union to fix the euro zone financial crisis are crazy, London’s Mayor Boris Johnson said on Tuesday, contradicting the government’s official line, showing a widening rift within the Conservative party.

The intervention by the Conservative mayor distances him from the party leadership, which has joined others in saying the answer to the single currency area’s debt problems is some form of coordinated management of national budgets and taxes.

LONDON (Reuters) – An extradition treaty with the United States is not biased against British criminal suspects, a judge-led review said on Tuesday, dealing a blow to campaigners fighting to stop a computer hacker being sent to stand trial in America.

Britain launched the review in September following complaints the 2003 treaty made it easier to extradite people from Britain to the United States than vice versa.

LONDON (Reuters) – A mishandled reform of the health system has set doctors and health unions against the government over fears that plans to boost access for private companies will destabilise the cherished service.

The reforms include sacking thousands of health administrators and putting family doctors in charge of spending 60 billion pounds of the NHS budget in a turnaround so large that the service’s chief executive says it can be seen “from outer space.”

LONDON (Reuters) – Defence Secretary Liam Fox has asked his permanent secretary to investigate claims that his links with a friend and unofficial adviser might have threatened national security.

Fox has called the claims “baseless” but Labour MPs said the inquiry was a panic measure.

LONDON, Oct 6 (Reuters) – Britain’s phone-hacking scandal
cannot be blamed on competitive and commercial pressures,
newspaper editors said on Thursday at an inquiry set up
following a furore over mobile phone interception by Rupert
Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid.

“Those who suggest and imply that phone hacking has arisen
because of the pressures to deliver big stories are in my view
wrong,” said Phil Hall, the now-defunct paper’s editor between
1995 and 2000.

LONDON (Reuters) – Russian gangs and their Chinese associates are making billions of dollars from selling fake and unlicensed medicines over the Internet, putting thousands of people at risk, British police and medical regulators said on Thursday.

The criminals sell the potentially hazardous products through legitimate-looking pharmacy websites run from Russia with their IT infrastructure routed through China to try to evade detection, they said.

BIRMINGHAM, England (Reuters) – The government is not even discussing a retreat from its aggressive programme of budget austerity, Treasury Minister Danny Alexander said on Wednesday, dismissing reports some ministers are pushing for fiscal stimulus for the economy.

British media reported late on Tuesday that some ministers in the cabinet had raised the prospect of spending an extra 5 billion pounds on infrastructure to boost growth.

BIRMINGHAM, England (Reuters) – Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg underlined his Liberal Democrats’ commitment to coalition government with the Conservatives and their flagship austerity plan when he closed his party conference on Wednesday.

The state of the flagging economy overshadowed the five-day meeting, quietening restive grassroots delegates and keeping ministers firmly in line behind a four-year programme of spending cuts to eliminate a budget deficit.

BIRMINGHAM, England (Reuters) – Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will underscore his Liberal Democrats’ commitment to coalition government with the Conservatives and their flagship austerity plan when he closes his party conference on Wednesday.

Clegg will list the party’s achievements in government and paint a sunny picture for his party’s future, despite low poll ratings and dire assessments of the flagging economy in a speech to Lib Dem members in Birmingham.