Britons have been warned to brace themselves for an increase in food prices as plunging temperatures leave farmers unable to harvest vegetables and hauliers struggle to distribute fresh produce.
Gordon Brown, who will chair a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee early this week to discuss the freeze, was today forced to reassure the country that it would not run out of gas or grit for its roads during the coldest weather in 30 years.
Read more »Social networking sites like Facebook could be monitored by the UK government under proposals to make them keep details of users' contacts.
The Home Office said it was needed to tackle crime gangs and terrorists who might use the sites, but said it would not keep the content of conversations.
It is part of a plan to store details of all phone calls, e-mails and websites visited on a central database.
Civil liberties campaigners have called the proposals a "snoopers' charter".
Tens of millions of people use sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace to chat with friends, but ministers say they have no interest in the content of discussions - just who people have been talking to.
Overkill
Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake said the websites contained sensitive personal details and he was concerned information could leak from any government-controlled database.
Read more »Children will no longer have to study the Victorians or the second world war under proposals to overhaul the primary school curriculum, the Guardian has learned.
However, the draft plans will require children to master Twitter and Wikipedia and give teachers far more freedom to decide what youngsters should be concentrating on in classes.
The proposed curriculum, which would mark the biggest change to primary schooling in a decade, strips away hundreds of specifications about the scientific, geographical and historical knowledge pupils must accumulate before they are 11 to allow schools greater flexibility in what they teach.
It emphasises traditional areas of learning - including phonics, the chronology of history and mental arithmetic - but includes more modern media and web-based skills as well as a greater focus on environmental education.
Read more »From today, anyone taking a photograph of a police officer could be deemed to have committed a criminal offence.
That is because of a new law - Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act - which has come into force.
It permits the arrest of anyone found "eliciting, publishing or communicating information" relating to members of the armed forces, intelligence services and police officers, which is "likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism".
That means anyone taking a picture of one of those people could face a fine or a prison sentence of up to 10 years, if a link to terrorism is proved.
The law has angered photographers, both professional and amateur, who fear it could exacerbate the harassment they already sometimes face.
On Monday, a group is gathering outside New Scotland Yard for a "mass picture-taking session" in protest.
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