The Prime Minister appealed to backbench MPs for unity yesterday as anger persisted over planned benefit cuts. Mr Blair promised to listen to their concerns but both he and Gordon Brown spent the day warning of `hard choices' ahead. Fran Abrams and Colin Brown report on Labour's tough pre-Christmas messages.

A new hybrid sentence, half custody, half community supervision, will be a key element of the Government's drive against youth crime, the Home Secretary announced yesterday.

Can't eat carrots, can't afford potatoes - and we all know about beef. Glenda Cooper on our changing eating habits

The British government has adopted a mixture of Continental "carrot" and American "stick" in its attempt to extract young people from the dole queue. Barrie Clement, Labour Editor, looks at the British approach to unemployment.

The benefits system repeatedly throws up obstacles to jobless claimants trying to find work, according to a report published today. The survey, by the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, said that for jobseekers on low incomes, the system "can resemble a game of snakes and ladders".

The Winners: HOW THE PROGRAMME WILL WORK

The Chancellor started to put flesh on the bones of Labour's manifesto promise to tilt the tax and benefit system towards incentives to work, but the measures announced yesterday fell short of a radical recasting of the welfare state.

Hong Kong's incoming administration is trying to avert demonstrations marring the start of Chinese sovereignty over the territory.

Only a broken TV set or an extended holiday recently would have prevented Norwich Union members from being aware of the fact that they have until next Tuesday, 10 June, to apply for further shares in the mutual insurance group's pounds 2.4bn cash raising. Just to make sure, the group is pitching the shares being sold to its existing members, who are already receiving free handouts worth at least pounds 1,500, at a 25p discount to the price other shareholders, including the big institutions, will have to pay. With a strike price estimated at between 240p and 290p, that means members are being offered a discount of around 10 per cent, a sizeable carrot.

The culinary equivalent of political correctness is about to bring about the disappearance of the baked potato and the micro-waved lasagne from the menus of many National Trust properties.

My "Eddie Must Stay" campaign designed to ensure that Eddie George is reappointed as Governor of the Bank of England when his term expires next year received a tremendous boost this week courtesy of fashion victim and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. His eminently sensible decision to strip the Bank of its supervisory role and bring it under the umbrella of a unified and revamped Securities and Investments Board has served to make it crystal clear that Mr George is a national asset who must be preserved.

"Urrrgh, it's sort of squishy," wailed Rosa, 9, "I don't like it". As she gingerly picked up a spoonful of chocolate-flavoured carrots, her classmates took up the chant: "Eat, eat, eat,eat."

UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

Cheese-and-onion flavoured cauliflower and prawn-cocktail flavoured carrots are to be marketed to children to try to overcome their aversion to vegetables and help protect them from cancer.