Ian Hannam joined the special forces when he was 17 as a member of the part-time Territorial unit the Artists Rifles.

Greater love hath no man than this, as Jeremy Thorpe so nearly put it of Harold Macmillan: that he lay down his classmates for his life. The pressure on David Cameron to take the long knives to a few toffs becomes irresistible, and the time to ignite reshuffle fever is upon us.

George Osborne's judgement was that it was 'now or never' to cut the top rate

Liam Fox, the former defence secretary, was the subject of a phone-hacking operation by a private detective who had worked for the News of the World, Scotland Yard has discovered.

Two weeks ago, the Daily Mail ran an editorial praising the "impressive Tory backbencher" Dominic Raab, the MP for Esher and Walton, and in April it reported with obvious approval his views on a European Court decision to withhold the names of judges who had ruled against the British Government on the issue of prisoners' rights. "It adds insult to injury – the lack of transparency only compounds the lack of accountability," Mr Raab, pictured, complained.

As Margaret Thatcher's handbag fetches £25,000 at auction, we take a look at other barmy buys of recent years.

In Mark Steel's column 'Unseasonal apocalypse forecast' (22 December 2010) we ascribed a quote to Julian Brazier describing him as 'The Transport Minister'. He has told us that while he was the transport spokesperson in opposition, he is not the Transport Minister and he did not comment as quoted or at all. We apologise to him for our error.

A Deputy Commons Speaker has come out as gay ahead of today's launch of a support group for homosexual MPs and parliamentary staff.

MPs are investigate whether there is too much debt at professional clubs as part of a new inquiry into the running of football.

Michael Foot, who has died today, was a brilliant man and a cannier politician than his later self-caricature as a bumbling anachronism.

It takes courage for an elected politician to challenge the notion that the great merry go-round of property speculation is a sustainable route to national prosperity

Before I had children, I was bothered that politicians today have an unhealthy interest in lecturing people about how they conduct their personal lives – what they eat, how much they drink, whether they take enough exercise, and so on.