For the first time since he became mayor of London on May 2, Boris Johnson has overtaken Conservative leader David Cameron in “favourability”, according to an opinion tracker published on www.politicshome.com.

Johnson scored a rating of 3, up from -7 at the end of April, while Cameron got rated 1, up from -5.

The PHI5000 tracker is based on replies from a politically balanced group of 5000 voters across the UK, who answer a survey every day for the site, which was launched in April and is powered by opinion pollsters YouGov.

The panel are asked daily questions on a rotation system, covering their attitudes to the whole political landscape. As part of this, politicshome tracks a wide range of political personalities, including Cameron’s and Johnson’s favourability ratings.

Because of the consistency of the sample and questionnaire of the tracker, the site is able to track subtle changes in public opinion, it says.

How much should MPs be allowed to keep confidential?

The High Court has ruled that Members of Parliament must disclose details of expenses claimed for second homes and the location of those properties.

House of Commons authorities had sought to block the publication of second-home expense claims for 14 current and former MPs — including Tony Blair and Gordon Brown — requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

It had been argued on behalf of the politicians that publication of the addresses of second homes would pose a security risk and could inhibit what politicians would be
prepared to say publicly.

But Mr Justice Igor Judge disagreed, saying it was in the public interest to have a detailed breakdown of second-home allowances and that anyone determined enough could find an MP’s address anyway.

Under the so-called “John Lewis list” MPs can claim items up to 23,000 pounds a year for second homes, they need to be near their constituents. The details are here. They include for example 10,000 pounds for a new kitchen and over 6,000 pounds for a new bathroom.

Some critics have said the secret system allowed MPs effectively to “write their own cheques” but others say the war on MPs’ expenses has gone far enough — that they are public servants who devote a huge amount of their time to their jobs as MPs, often during antisocial hours and far from their homes and that they deserve some help if we are to have an effective national parliament.

What do you think?

I’m always amazed that anyone buys anything from the teams on “The Apprentice” - let alone the single most important purchase a woman may buy in her life.

People have bought lollipops, cars and even a wheelchair on the show in the past - but a wedding dress?

Yet daughters and their mothers paid up to 2,500 pounds at a Birmingham bridal fayre.

Admittedly, they bought more flip flops and thongs but, even so, they forked out the money encouraged by sales patter that included comments such as ”that looks gorgeous”and “that suits your colouring”.

The shop from where I bought my wedding dress had a principle of not commenting at all.

It was a bit disconcerting at first, but it ensured the decision was mine and there could be no regrets or recriminations.

The series has reached the stage when we should be able to choose our favourite to become the Apprentice, but I’m finding it easier to say who I don’t want to win.

Helene, who botched up this week’s task yet still managed to get rid of her second scapegoat Sara, has to be among those for her poor tactics and man management.

But ahead of her must be the self-professed “good Jewish boy” Michael who turns out to be only half-Jewish and mixes kosher with halal.

This week he told a bride-to-be that her chosen traditional wedding cake was dull. Nice one.

And Alex the pretty boy must go surely - the man who manages to merge into the background when things begin to go pear-shaped.

 Who’s your favourite - to be hired, or fired.

 THE GUARDIAN: Recession alert as Brown fights back

Gordon Brown’s drive to recapture the political agenda with a programme of new laws to create “an opportunity-rich Britain” was badly shaken yesterday by King’s warning.

“The nice decade is behind us,” Mervyn King declared in funereal tones, warning that the economy was “travelling along a bumpy road” as he predicted rising prices would put a squeeze on take-home pay for millions of workers.

Full story here

FINANCIAL TIMES: No rate cuts before 2010

Britons should not expect another cut in interest rates for at least two years, the Bank of England indicated yesterday as it warned that inflation would rise far above its previous forecasts and persist at levels well above the government’s target until early 2010.

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DAILY TELEGRAPH: Recession danger is real, says Bank governor

The British economy faces the real risk of falling into recession, the Governor of the Bank of England has admitted.

Mervyn King warned families to brace themselves for a further “squeeze” on household finances as energy bills and food prices continue to rise.

Story here

THE TIMES: The “nice decade” is over, says Bank chief

Britain faces two years of economic pain and could sink into recession, the Governor of the Bank of England has said in a stark warning to the nation.

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THE INDEPENDENT: Meningitis: Defeated at last?

The annual scourge of deaths and severe illness caused by meningitis could be consigned to the history books after scientists announced startling results from trials of a potential vaccine.

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DAILY MAIL: Death of the ‘nice’ decade

The good times are gone and there is now a real risk of recession, the Bank of England warned yesterday.

Families face a five-pronged assault on their finances, the BoE’s Mervyn King said in his bleakest assessment yet of the state of the country.

Story here

DAILY EXPRESS: New bin tax bombshell

Ministers are pushing ahead with plans for pay-as-you-throw bin taxes – just days after Gordon Brown signalled they would be axed.

Five pilot schemes are being rolled out across the country which could slap up to £1,000 a year on every family that fails to recycle enough.

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THE SUN: Crackers
Amy Winehouse will not be prosecuted for smoking crack.

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DAILY MIRROR: Help him

He’s just two days out of rehab - but as troubled Paul Gascoigne staggers along a road at 8am yesterday, it’s clear he is still urgently in need of help.

The ex-England star, 40, looked dazed as he tottered along in Gateshead with a towel flung over one shoulder.

Story here

DAILY STAR: Cellar boy: My Story

Cellar monster Josef Fritzl’s freed dungeon kids have spelled out their simple dreams for a happy life.

Felix, 6, says all he really wants is a ride in a car - and to run across a meadow playing with other normal kids.

Story here

The Labour Party knew Tony Blair had to go when he became an electoral liability.

Less than a year into the job, where does Gordon Brown stand in terms of this all-important marker?

Well, don’t expect any answers from Labour’s candidate in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election.

Tamsin Dunwoody refused to come up with a straight answer in when she was asked the question repeatedly by a reporter. You can see the interview in the You Tube clip below.

“Gordon Brown is our prime minister” and a number of variations on that theme was her reply.

The Conservatives, whose leader David Cameron is back on the campaign trail in Crewe and Nantwich on Thursday, are gleefully circulating the clip of her interview, complete with an awkward-looking John Denham (minister for universities and skills) standing by.

Brown has been noticeably absent from the northern constituency in the run-up to next week’s by-election, which opinion polls show his party could lose to the Tories, despite it being regarded as a safe Labour seat.

Barely a week goes by now without news that another teenager has died on Britain’s streets, their killers armed with guns or knives.

Sometimes the victim was targeted because of gang rivalry. Often it was an argument that simply got out of hand. Or, as in the case of 16-year-old Jimmy Mizen, murdered in a London Baker’s shop, it was simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“We really, really, have to do something about carrying weapons on the streets of London,” said Assistant Commissioner Tim Godwin, who is in charge of territorial policing in the capital. “This is the time to say enough is enough.”

Godwin is planning to crack down on those carrying knives, with widespread use of stop and search powers targeted at areas where suspects are thought to be carrying weapons. He said it would be “in your face policing”.

Since the issue of youth violence became prominent last year, following the fatal shooting of 11-year-old schoolboy Rhys Jones, there have been many promises of action from polticians. But, if anything, the situation seems to be getting worse.

More police, tougher sentencing, better facilities for young people, and targeting vulnerable families have all been suggested as remedies.

What do you think is needed to stop the bloodshed?

“Come on!” the man yells through the megaphone. “Your children need to see you taking part. They need to see you running”.

That dreaded time has come. The School Sports Day season is upon us —  and with it comes the mother of all challanges — the Mums’ Race.

When I say challenge, it’s not so much the distance, or speed, but the ludicrous array of dilemmas it throws up.

Should you do it at all? Are you setting a bad example by racing against others, or does the lesson of taking part override any question about the morality of trying to beat fellow human beings to the finish line?

Or should you politely ignore Megaphone Man’s  invitation, despite having enjoyed watching your own and other people’s children gamefully and un-selfconsciously crawling through tunnels, racing around cones and leaping over obstacles for the past two hours.

Should you win, and embarrass yourself and your child? Or should you lose, and embarrass yourself and your child? 

Should you run in sandals, a strappy top and a floaty skirt, and risk what Janet Jackson once described as a “wardrobe malfunction”, or slip on the running spikes and lycra and shrug off the sneers of those less well-prepared?

Well, it’s summer, and the children are only young. So the best strategy is probably to go barefoot, in the middle of the pack, balancing a bean bag on your head and laughing all the way.

The Daily Mirror is alone among the papers in giving unqualified praise to Chancellor Alistair Darling’s 2.7 billion pound solution to the damaging 10p tax row.

“Once critical Labour MPs hailed it as a masterstroke,” the paper said. “Hopefully it signals the start of a concerted fightback by a prime minister who has been on the ropes for months.”

The Daily Mail says the original decision to scrap the starting 10p rate of tax was “A mistake, yes… but fatal? Hardly.” It says Darling and Prime Minister Gordon Brown “deserve credit for choosing the right means to help those who suffered,” by raising the tax threshhold.

But the Chancellor might want to avoid the rest of the dailies, especially the one printed on pink paper. Darling’s tax announcement “ has shattered any residual idea that Mr Brown’s administration can run an orderly fiscal policy,” says the Financial Times.

The paper concedes that “in policy terms, the plan to put up personal allowances makes sense.” However, it adds that the political cost is heavy — the government will no longer now be able to attack the Conservatives over unfunded promises of tax cuts. “This is a significant weakening of the election campaign armoury,” it says.

The Daily Telegraph, somewhat grudgingly, saying that the Chancellor “deserves congratulations” for doing precisely what the paper had urged last Friday. But it adds that Darling’s statement was “a purely political damage-limitation exercise”, timed “to save Labour’s bacon” in next week’s Crewe and Nantwich by-election.

On a similar theme, the Times suggests that the late MP Gwyneth Dunwoody’s final service to the Labour Party has been in death rather than life. “It’s hard to believe that Alistair Darling would have made the statement he did on the 10p tax rate yesterday if it were not for fear of a massive defeat” in Crewe next week, Dunwoody’s former seat.

The paper calculates that the 2.7 billion pound price is the approximate equivalent of cutting the basic rate of income tax by 1p in the pound.

The Guardian notes that Darling effectively announced an emergency budget that “gave more money away than any real budget since 2001.”

The Independent says the 10p tax saga has been “an object lesson in bad government“. “What began as a cynical attempt to curry favour with the middle-classes has backfired in the most explosive manner,” it says. The Daily Express agrees it is “no way to run a country“.

The Sun asks who will be picking up the tab for the change. Unless Darling raises the money elsewhere, it draws the inevitable conclusion –”We will all pay more tax“.

We’ve all been there — or at least some of us have, according to the UFO report — you’re sitting there at night quietly fishing, minding your own business, when all Hell breaks loose, bright lights flashing everywhere and down comes the flying saucer again. No chance of getting a nibble now.

But the little men in green overalls seem quite friendly and after all the “take me to your leader” stuff is over, they seem to want to chat.

Scientists from the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence project believe any aliens who manage to make contact will be far more advanced than us so you might need to be a bit careful about what you tell E.T.

SETI says we’ve been a bit idealistic so far, sending up all sorts of positive messages about mankind in the first Voyager spacecraft in 1977 and that perhaps a bit more of the dark side like war and global warming wouldn’t go amiss.

Do you believe flying saucers could exist — and what would YOU say to an alien?

The papers are nearly all agreed that Chancellor Alistair Darling’s 2.7 billion pound fix for the 10p tax row is the day’s main story.

“Darling seeks end to 10p tax backlash” reports the Financial Times, noting that the move will still leave 1.1 million poorer households worse off following the abolition of the lowest tax band in last year’s budget.

For the Daily Mail the tax giveaway is a “2.7 billion pound gamble” to appease fury on the Labour backbenches over the scrapping of the 10p starting rate.

But the papers also find room for other stories: Drivers face a 185 pound tax to park at work, says the Daily Telegraph of a government push to cut traffic congestion. The paper reports that Nottingham city council will be the first to introduce the “workplace parking levy as an alternative to road pricing.

The Sun reports that Yorkshire ripper Peter Sutcliffe is making a legal bid for freedom from the secure Broadmoor hospital, claiming his human rights have been breached. It says Sutcliffe, jailed in 1981 for killing 13 women, wants to be declared sane and given a release date.

The Independent opts for an analytic lead, suggesting that “Britain could once again be haunted by the spectre of stagflation“. It says a combination of stagnant output and high inflation not seen for decades will dog policymakers for months if not years to come.

By contrast the Daily Express says there is “Now a race to cut prices“, reporting that supermarkets Asda and Tesco and mortgage lender Nationwide have all unveiled plans for a host of cost-cutting deals to help “Britain’s hard-pressed families.”

The Times publishes a revealing photo of Housing Minster Caroline Flint — exposing her briefing notes on the state of the housing market as she walked to a cabinet meeting. “Safe as houses? Not this minister’s private papers” runs the headline over the picture. You can see a magnified image of the notes themselves on the front of the Telegraph.

The Guardian reports that Spain is being forced to ship drinking water to Barcelona to cope with the effects of the worst drought in the country since records began 60 years ago.

The Daily Mirror leads with the arrest of a 19-year-old man over the weekend murder of 16-year-old Jimmy Mizen in a southeast London bakers, while the Daily Star says police are following a reported sighting of missing Madeleine McCann on a flight to Sao Paulo in Brazil.