George Osborne's attempts to solve our housing crisis are heading in the same direction as Parliament's attempts to hijack press freedom – destined for the pending tray, criticised on all sides as unhelpful and unworkable.

Of mice and violent Geordies

The many lives of a country house that spans the centuries

Outlook Forget for a few minutes whether you are extremely pro-new nuclear or utterly against it. Just look as objectively as possible over the negotiations between EDF and the Government on building the first civil nuclear plant since 1995 and the sole conclusion is that politics, not concerns over the environment or energy, will decide whether or not £14bn will be spent at Hinkley Point.

The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable will be performed in an abandoned building described as a 'bleak hinterland'

Countrywide got off to a lively start on the London Stock Exchange yesterday as shares in Britain's biggest estate agent raced up 13 per cent to 397p, valuing the business at £848m. The shares had already been priced at the top of the range at 350p and experts said the high first-day premium bodes well for the £1.3bn flotation of Esure at the end of this week. The insurer is expected to be priced at the top of a 275p to 310p range today in time for trading to start tomorrow.

The Government is to spend an extra £3bn on public sector infrastructure projects – but not until 2015 and at the expense of cuts to other areas of spending.

A council has been forced to scrap unisex loos at its new offices. Staff members were concerned to find mixed-sex lavatories when Rochdale Council moved part of its operations to £50m premises last week.

A British holidaymaker in India, injured after she jumped from a third-floor hotel balcony in the historic tourist town of Agra to escape what she feared would be a sexual assault by a group of men, is to return to Britain, it was reported today.

There's the Budget speech the Chancellor should make (as seen by Matthew Norman on Voices today) and then there's the one he's almost certainly going to make. Once you've resigned yourself to that grim reality, Budget Bingo seems the sensible way forward

George Osborne's fourth Budget will prolong squeeze on public-sector pay, risking conflict with trade unions

Few charities in Britain have a deeper or more beneficial impact on public policy than Shelter, which works with the homeless.

Japanese architect Toyo Ito has won the 2013 Pritzker Architecture Prize.