As 16 million people digest the news that their gas bills are going up 35 percent, courtesy of British Gas, blame for the staggering rise is flying thick and fast.

Centrica, the British Gas parent company, says it is unable to resist the sharp rises on world oil and gas markets and that any attempt to impose windfall taxes would crimp its investment programme.

Energy watchdogs question how the company can be allowed to impose such steep rises at the same time as it makes healthy profits for its shareholders.

Opposition political parties say the government has not built sufficient gas storage facilities and has failed to negotiate an open market across the European energy sector.

What do you think? Are you going to feel the pinch this Winter?

Conservative Swindon council is planning to pull the plug on the 400,000-pound annual grant it makes towards running its speed cameras, saying the money could be better spent on other traffic-calming measures.

Its head of highways, Councillor Peter Greenhalgh, is widely quoted in newspapers as saying cameras are “a blatant tax on motorists.”

Local councils can no longer keep the fines the cameras bring in, which may explain why they may feel less enthusiastic about them than before, but there are plenty of other bodies like the AA which have always felt cameras are over-used and no substitute for active policing.

The Department for Transport says some 1,745 deaths and serious injuries are prevented every year by the cameras.

Would you be happy to see other councils follow Swindon’s example or do you believe that speed cameras are a necessary evil to improve road safety?

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To nobody’s great surprise, David Davis swept home at the “liberties” by-election in his Yorkshire seat that he himself had engineered by resigning.

With neither of the other main parties standing, he was left to romp home in a field devoid of any serious rivals.

Davis says his stand was a shot across the bows of a government that he believes is crushing civil liberties by, among other things, trying to get the right to hold terrorist suspects for up to six weeks without charge.

Conservative leader David Cameron has been cool towards his gesture, Gordon Brown has called it a gimmick and several ratepayers in frugal Yorkshire have grumbled that the whole thing was a waste of public money.

What is your view. Bold stand or ego-trip?

The Archbishop of York’s graphic quote refers to the problems of knife crime and other pastoral priorities that he and many others believe are being sidelined as the Church of England squabbles over internal politics.

After much soul-searching in York, the General Synod has voted to allow women bishops, 16 years after it approved women priests.

But now the 10-yearly Lambeth Conference looms and, with it, the prospect of another damaging row, this time over gay clergy. Several senior clergy have already said they will boycott the meeting later this month because they believe it has been compromised by the inclusion of American leaders who consecrated the Anglican communion’s first gay bishop.

Do you believe the Church’s internal divisions are causing it lasting damage in the wider world or are these vitally important issues that need dealing with once and for all?

Just a year ago, Stuart Rose’s stock was riding high as the man who turned round Marks and Spencer but now he faces shareholder anger over controversial management changes, a big profit warning and a proposal to make him executive chairman as well as chief executive.

M&S shares lost 33 percent of their value last week after the warning.

Rose upset some analysts last week by announcing that head of food Steven Esom, who had been tipped as a potential successor, was leaving after only about a year in the job, following a sharply weaker performance at the food business.

Critics have accused the all-important M&S food section of failing to sniff the recessionary wind and keeping prices too high. It showed Rose was losing his sure touch, some said.

Others believe his refusal to trim his sails and cut the dividend to shareholders is another mistake.

What’s your opinion? Could M&S have acted quicker to adapt to the current hard times on the High Street?

Leaders of the G8 and the world’s developing nations have agreed a “shared vision” on fighting climate change — but long-standing differences have prevented them agreeing on any specific targets.

The G8 on its own favours a halving of harmful emissions by 2050 but industrialising nations like China and India will not sign up to that goal, arguing that their primary commitment is to improve the living standards of their people.

Without them on board, the U.S. will not ratify any agreement to cut its own emissions.

The “vision” declaration has been hailed by G8 leaders as a useful step ahead of 2009 when they will return to the issue and when America will have a new president with a greater mandate to take action.

But green groups are scornful. The WWF’s Global Climate Initiative calls it “pretty pathetic.”

Should world leaders be trying harder, or have fears of climate change have been overstated?

What’s your view?

FIA motorsport head Max Mosley is suing the News of the World in the wake of its revelations that he held sado-masochistic spanking sessions with prostitutes.

He is not alleging libel but breach of privacy, saying that although he had practised what he called his “unfortunate interest” for some 45 years, it was his business and his alone and had no bearing on his professional position.

He is asking for exemplary damages — which are meant not to compensate the claimant but to punish the offender.

One of the planks of the News of the World’s defence is that his high-profile job meant he had a responsibility to behave himself and that exposing him was in the public interest.

The Independent says the case is the “frontline in a legal battle for freedom of expression.”

What’s your view?

Gordon Brown is asking us to stop wasting so much food and suggests that if we threw less away, demand would fall and then so too would food prices.

He says we’re throwing away around eight pounds worth of food a week, adding something like 420 pounds to the average family’s shopping bill.

But agricultural prices have increased some 40 percent over the past year and oil prices have doubled — is it really going to make much difference if we start paying less attention to sell-by dates?

Christian pub landlords John and Krista Fleming have been sacked after their attempts to ban swearing and gambling on horse races drove customers away in such large numbers that takings plummeted.

Regulars at the King’s Head in Islington, north London, complained that they were excessive in their Christian zeal. “They should have had pews in there, not chairs,” said one.

The Flemings however said all they were trying to do was to stop people swearing at the top of their voices at the bar and intimidating other customers. Arsenal supporters were among the main culprits apparently (!).

What do you think? Now that smoking is banned in pubs, was it a step too far to try and push the “F” word out of the door as well?

Or was this a brave — if hopeless — stand against the bellowing yobs who seem to be a permanent feature at the bar of so many of our pubs?

(Updates February’s entry when Chambers was trying to represent Britain at the world indoor championships)

Dwain Chambers’ lawyers have asked a London court to outlaw the British Olympic Association’s (BOA) policy of lifetime bans for drugs cheats.

Chambers, who served a two-year ban for steroid use, says he wants to compete in Beijing and has easily achieved the BOA’s qualifying standard. His lawyers call the BOA ban an unreasonable restraint of trade.

Trials take place in Birmingham over the weekend of July 11-13 and Chambers, who ran 10.05 seconds in Sofia in June, is favourite to win the 100 metres, a victory that would normally guarantee Olympic selection.

He says he’s paid his debt and told the Sun in February: “I’m being made to feel like a leper. A terrible stigma has been attached to me but people need to know I’m clean.”

What do you think? Should there be any way back for him?