I was left £50 when I was ten by a fairly distant cousin, which my father invested in GEC shares on my behalf. I became interested in the market and was given some more shares by my father, which is when I began looking to see how the shares were performing and learning how to read company reports, balance sheets, and so on in order to gauge that."

The appetite of the British people for a long-term involvement in another Middle Eastern conflict could not be weaker. There is no wish to have any further long-term obligations of a military kind that do not affect the most direct national interest.

It is of considerable importance that politicians stick to their commitments or do not make such commitments in the first place.

A poor worker is taxed heavily to receive his own money back with a modest supplement. Surely it would be more efficient just to pay the supplement and take him out of direct tax altogether.