Do you have a question you would like to ask Chancellor Alistair Darling? Now is your chance.

At 1:30pm British time on Wednesday, October 21, Reuters is hosting an exclusive Web 2.0 interview with Darling and we want you to send us your questions to put to the top man from the Treasury.

From the crippling global recession to the debate over bankers' bonuses, it has been a tumultuous year at Number 11 Downing Street. You may want to quiz the Chancellor on one of these topics, ask him about the government's plans to prevent another downturn or how Labour plan to defy the polls and win the upcoming general election.

During the interview we will put as many of your questions as possible to the Chancellor and will be running a liveblog of the event, much like we did during this social media interview with Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.

Leave your question in the comments box below or via Twitter (using #askdarling) and join us on Wednesday for our Web 2.0 interview with the Chancellor.

When in Rome . . .

As I watched the snow fall gently from London skies on Sunday night, I asked an acquaintance if I would have to go to work the next day.

My Canadian “snow radar” — fine-tuned from living in the snowy cities of Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax — was telling me that there wasn’t going to be much accumulation, but given the regular daily London transit delays in fair weather during the rush hour, I had a gleeful feeling a “snow day” might be in store.

“If the snow is 3-feet deep you might get away with it,” said my acquaintance, who commutes in and out of London from the Southwest each day.

I awoke the next day to discover that he was wrong.

Almost the entire Tube system was shut, buses cancelled and within a few hours Heathrow, the world’s busiest international airport, had closed, although there was nowhere near 3 feet of snow.

The heaviest snow fell in southern England. Epsom, Surrey, had depths of 31 centimetres (12 inches), south London had 28 cm and the North Downs in Kent got 25 cm.

Where I live in southwest London, it looked like the snow was about 15 cm deep.

(Can you tell I am trying not to smirk as I write?)

That amount of snow would be noticed in a Canadian city - but barely. It would take much more than that to put the brakes on the engines of capitalism.

Some years ago in Toronto, so much snow accumulated so quickly that former Mayor Mel Lastman called in the army to help dig out in a frantic effort to keep the city operating. This action left Toronto open to the ridicule of the rest of the country, which in general sees much more annual snowfall.

I lived in Washington, D.C., for four years and witnessed that city shut down due to a few inches of snow several times. President Obama, who moved there from Chicago in January, mocked the city last week for its panic over a day and night of snow and freezing rain, which led to school closures.

The storm in London this week cost the UK economy up to 3.5 billion pounds ($5 billion) according to Britain’s Federation of Small Businesses.

Even my British relations expressed disgust at the transit closures.

An aunt near Maidstone, Kent, said: “It’s typically British.”

A cousin in Paignton, Devon, said: “I’m sorry, I just don’t believe it.”

Their attitude seemed to be that people were just looking for an excuse to take the day off.

And why not? Given that it was the worst snow here in almost 20 years, I think it does call for a holiday. I certainly enjoyed my two days working from my studio flat.

“What are you doing at home? You are used to worse than this,” a Canadian colleague asked. I’ve never had a day off work due to snow in Canada.

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” I replied.

Looking forward to the possibility of more snow . . .

Is the Labour Party going to regret not hosting a Spring Party Conference this year?

Yes, it is going to save them a lot of cash, and Prime Minister Gordon Brown has enough to worry about ahead of the G20 financial crisis summit in Britain in April.

But as Britain braces for a nightmare year for the economy, public support for Brown and his Labour Party is starting to slip.

Polls are indicating once again that the Conservatives are looking like red hot favourites to win the next election due by May 2010.

A weekend get together at the start of the year would have given Brown the chance to rally the Labour troops and reassure them about the tough road — and inevitable difficult election — ahead.

Instead, the party will have to wait until September for that morale-boosting pep talk.

Will it be too late for Labour by then?

Saturday: A worker changes a sign in the window of the Woolworths store in Ashby de la Zouch in central England on December 27, 2008. Woolworths collapsed into administration in November and its administrators said earlier in December that all its stores would close by Jan. 5, with the loss of 27,000 jobs, unless a last-minute buyer could be found. REUTERS/Darren Staples

Sunday: A pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a muddy boot during a protest near the Israeli Embassy in London on December 28, 2008, against the Israeli strikes on Gaza. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor

Monday: A busker warms his hands outside a shop offering price discounts in Loughborough, central England on December 29, 2008. As many as 600,000 people could lose their jobs in Britain next year, making 2009 the worst year for unemployment since 1991, personnel experts warned on Monday. REUTERS/Darren Staples

Tuesday: Aston Villa’s Ashley Young (L) crosses the ball which led to a Hull City own goal during their Premier League soccer match in Hull on December 30, 2008. REUTERS/Nigel Roddis . (No online/Internet usage of this picture without a license from the Football Data Co Ltd. For licence enquiries please ring 0 207 864 9000.)

Wednesday: A woman walks through Victoria Park during heavy fog in Leicester in central England on December 31, 2008. REUTERS/Darren Staples

Thursday: Fireworks explode behind Big Ben on the Houses of Parliament in London during a pyrotechnic show to celebrate the New Year on January 1, 2009.  REUTERS/Stephen Hird

Friday: People view properties advertised for sale in the window of an estate agent in west London January 2, 2009. House prices in Britain fell by a bigger-than expected 2.2 percent in December for an annual drop of 16.2 percent, the country’s biggest mortgage lender Halifax said on Friday. REUTERS/Stephen Hird

Gordon Brown has unveiled an energy package designed to give some relief to householders struggling with ever-rising gas and electricity bills.

The six major energy suppliers will contribute to a one billion pound, three-year energy-saving initiative — but will not face a windfall tax on their profits.

Pensioners and people on low incomes or benefits will receive free loft and cavity wall insulation, while others will receive a 50 percent discount. The government says 12 million elderly households will benefit from the plan this Winter. 

Other measures include:

* A freeze on this year’s bills for 500,000 poor customers

* Partial reversal of the cut to the warm front programme giving free central heating to poorest pensioners

* Cold weather payments to go up from £8.50 a week to £25 a week for pensioners, the disabled and families with children under five - if temperatures drop below zero for seven consecutive days

Do you think it is enough? Would a windfall tax have been better? 
 

As MPs prepare to vote on cutting the time limit for abortions, the Daily Mail says the current system “shames our nation”.

Foetuses are being aborted at a late stage in their development when they would have had a good chance of survival outside the womb, the Mail says in an editorial.

“An attack on women? Utter nonsense. The campaign to cut the time-limit is an attack on an everyday practice that shames our nation,” it says.

Rubbish, says Times columnist David Aaronovitch.

There is no significant evidence to support the claim that the foetus is more viable at up to 24 weeks than in 1967 or 1990 when the law was last changed.

“If viability isn’t the test - as it was claimed to be back in 1990 when the limit was reduced from 28 weeks - then the judgment must be that some folk simply don’t like abortions and wish to restrict them as much as possible,” he writes.

There is little doubt that the “temperature of the debate about abortion” has changed in recent times, says the Independent.

“The introduction of 4-D ultrasound techniques, showing foetuses of just 12 weeks with apparent facial expressions, has dramatised the debate,” it says in an editorial. “So have couples coming back from hospital and proudly showing off photos of their baby at its 12-week scan.”

But there is an even more pressing matter than the upper time limit for abortions, according to a Daily Telegraph editorial.

It says that only a small number of terminations take place at more than 22 weeks. However, there are 200,000 abortions in Britain each year at 12 weeks or less.

“Governments routinely launch campaigns telling us not to drink, smoke, take drugs or eat to excess; yet there is no sense of a similar effort being expended on advising women about the medical and psychological trauma of abortion,” the paper says.

Guardian columnist Jackie Ashley says the debates over abortion and research on embryos highlight a wider divide between the two main political parties.

She argues that there is a real difference between a progressive, pro-science Labour government and a backward-looking, “finger-wagging” Conservative opposition.

“If the reactionary arguments are successful, throwing out vital medical advances and criminalising frightened, often young, women, then it will mark a real turning point,” she writes.

“Whatever you think of the New Labour years, it has been a decade of social liberalism, when racism, homophobia and anti-science voodoo became steadily less respectable.”

 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.

Story here

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.

Story here

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.

Story here

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.

Story here

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