US envoy opposes Afghan build-up new

Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, a former Army general who once commanded troops in Afghanistan, queries an increase in troops while corruption claims surround Hamid Karzai's administration.

Churchill said: 'We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills: we shall never surrender.' The computer marked him down for repetition

Fail him on the beaches

A computerised system is increasingly used to mark exam papers. It's a good job Churchill wasn't being examined...

The Rolling Stone who gathered no money

Jonathan Brown: Ronnie Wood divorced – but where's the fortune?

Steve McClaren: I survived ultimate failure. Now I fear nothing

Resistance is futile

Matthew Norman: Simon Cowell has no need to play God. On Greek mythological lines, he is a god

Cowell trumps Trump as best-paid man on US TV

Speaking out: Sara Payne, photographed in London this week

Parent power: An ordinary mother in Whitehall

Joanna Moorhead: Sara Payne's campaign for a sex offenders' register divided Britain. Now she is making waves again.

Nursing changing to graduate-only entry

Has Cameron done a deal?

Andy McSmith: Mandelson attack shines spotlight on Tory leader's links with Rupert Murdoch

Mandelson to become Government's 'TV face'

Unemployment may have peaked, figures suggest

Fall in jobless total raises hopes economy has turned a corner

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Prime Minister Gordon Brown attending an Armistice day memorial service at Westminster Abbey yesterday

Ex-ministers call for vote on war in Afghanistan

Pressure grows on Brown after claim that US was close to troop decision is rejected

The Kreutzer Sonata, Gate Theatre, London (Rated 4/ 5 )

The motion of a train loosens the tongue, confides Pozdnyshev, our companion in a railway carriage for the 85 minutes of this extraordinarily compelling stage adaptation of Tolstoy's great, warped novella The Kreutzer Sonata.

King: We face a long wait for signs of convincing recovery

Bank predicts tough 2010 before improvement in 2011

Schools are under pressure to get good results, says Greg Watson of OCR

Exam board chief warns of loss of public trust in system

The head of one of the country's biggest exam boards warned yesterday of a loss of public trust in exams.

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Undercurrent of doubt over electric motors

Greener power generation needed if electric vehicles are really to reduce emissions

Nepal emerges as 'poacher's paradise'

Home Secretary agrees protocol with advisers

The Home Secretary will write formally to his drugs advisers in future to explain any decision on classification that goes against their advice, it emerged yesterday.

Steve McClaren: I survived ultimate failure. Now I fear nothing

Two years since he left England under a raincloud, the former national manager is enjoying his day in the sun, topping the Dutch league with FC Twente. In an exclusive interview, he tells Sam Wallace how he rebuilt his life, and why he won't rush back to the Premier League.

Luella Bartley, described her clothes, popular with young celebrities such as Alexa Chung, as 'the kind you can get drunk and fall over in'

Luella Bartley is latest fashion victim of recession

Designer's eponymous label is forced to stop trading

Sky provokes backlash after iPhone viewing offer

BSkyB said last night it was not worried that its new Sky Mobile TV service for iPhones, where all Sky's sport content is now available for an all-time low price of £6 per month, will cannabilise sales of its core product – pay-TV sport – and damage its business model.

Gavin Hodge, on the day of his wedding to Jan Burdette at Chelsea Registry Office in 1975

Gavin Hodge: Celebrity hairdresser who scandalised Sixties society

Gavin Hodge was a hugely fashionable hairdresser who, beginning in the London of the swinging Sixties, packed into his life an inordinate amount of drink, drugs and sex.