Subtract the three Union officials, the nine badge wearing local party members and the city's three Labour MPs - including former Home Secretary Alan Johnson – from the total at the John Prescott for Police and Crime Commissioner rally in Hull's Queen Victoria Square, and the is attendance figure is hovering around the zero mark.

Immigration rules that have been in operation for four years had to be rushed from the Home Office to the House of Lords yesterday, in the hope of saving the system from collapse.

Former Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon is swapping anarchy for current affairs to appear on Question Time.

The Independent's Dave Brown has been named political cartoonist of the year by the Cartoon Art Trust.

A police bodyguard was sacked last night following an investigation into claims he had an affair with the wife of the former Home Secretary, Alan Johnson.

Free of front-bench responsibility, the former home secretary is happy to catch up on his reading – and pass on some advice to his leader. John Rentoul meets Alan Johnson

Another memoir from a former member of Brown's government adds brushstroke detail and depth to his monster status

His Icarus-style descent isn't fair. One of the good guys, he doesn't deserve the unthinking demonisation in which too many of us have lazily indulged

Hundreds of the country's most experienced police officers who were forced to retire under a legal loophole are being encouraged to return to Britain's second largest force as unpaid special constables.

Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg last night made last-ditch pleas to the public to defy David Cameron and the pollsters by supporting a historic change to the voting system in tomorrow's referendum.

The Labour politican ran the NHS too, and he can spot a bad remedy

The week in books

A man was convicted today of the "brutal, cold and ruthless" murder of a medical student.

My, how he's grown. Isn't it remarkable how the trappings of the priestly caste make it look as though George Osborne knows what he's talking about? Just because he is able to say he will group questions; just because he has got his voice by the throat; just because people are beginning to get used to the idea that when someone says "Chancellor of the Exchequer" they mean him – just because of those things, he can play at student debating and make it look like serious politics.