A former Conservative chief whip launched a brutal attack on David Cameron's leadership qualities yesterday as the recriminations intensified over the party's dismal local council election results.

Owners would rather spend less on themselves than let their cats go without

Cutesy covers of classic songs are marketing gold, says Rhodri Marsden

In Jacobean London, a city of just 200,000 people, there were eight theatres. By my calculation (a phrase that, it might be worth saying, is not an unimpeachable guarantee of mathematical accuracy), that would mean that we'd need more than 300 theatres today to match them, in per capita terms, for the eagerness of their theatre-going. Some qualifications are necessary, though. They obviously couldn't stay in and watch Scott & Bailey instead of heading off to the Globe for Shakespeare's latest. And if they wanted a commentary on contemporary events they couldn't turn to Newsnight. The players were, as Hamlet said but James Shapiro did not, "the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time". What James Shapiro did say in The King and the Playwright: a Jacobean History, the first of his series on the Shakespeare of James I's reign, was this: "Forgive the prop. It's visual shorthand for news." He waved the newspaper he'd been discovered reading at the camera, as if mildly testy at the theatricals to which the modern scholar-presenter has to submit himself.

This week's heavy rain has not alleviated the drought gripping swathes of the country, the Environment Agency said today.

The first time I encountered a book by Thomas Bernhard, the Austrian novelist and playwright, was in 1994. I was in Vienna. I was 20, staying in the apartment of a family friend named Susie. I was in love with her, but I felt she was tragically older than me, perhaps because she was so smart and cultured, and I was so naïve and impressionable. She was 24.

The Olympics will be a spectacular show with people travelling from all over the world to see the best of the best compete. There is no arguing that point.

This is no time to be a shrinking violet – knitwear for spring should be bright, patterned or printed

Determined Cumbrian was seen as an outsider for job but he has long been developing his teaching credentials

A bar that promised revellers the chance to party with "our very own Xmas midgets" acted offensively and irresponsibly, a watchdog has ruled.

The household I grew up in... was very male. I've got two brothers and there was a male dog and two male cats and every family we knew had three boys. Great for us, slightly less great for my mum.

Skylanders combines a video game with collectable toys. You may not have heard of it yet, but it's changing the way children play, its creators tell Will Dean

Tesco said its UK boss will step down later this year as the supermarket group bids to revive its domestic business following a disastrous winter.

Skylanders combines a video game with collectable toys.