The increasing likelihood of Leeds United's Jermaine Beckford seeing out the season at Elland Road has been greeted with dismay at non-League Wealdstone, alma mater of Stuart Pearce and Vinnie Jones. The Ryman League club, who sold him to Leeds for about £45,000 in 2006, are due to receive 20 per cent of any future transfer, and were rubbing their hands when Newcastle United recently offered £1.8m for the striker – one-fifth of which amounts to a cool £360,000. Leeds seem prepared to risk losing him for nothing when his contract expires in June, which means that the hard-up Stones will not receive a penny. "It would be heartbreaking for the club," a spokesman told Outside The Box. "That sort of money would ensure our mid-term future." One (very) small consolation is the raffle with which Wealdstone have sold off naming rights to their newly developed Vale Stadium, a home at last after almost 20 nomadic years of ground-sharing; that honour has been won for the next 15 months by St George's Shopping Centre, Harrow.

Chris Smalling's career has taken off in spectacular style. Last year, the centre half was playing for Maidstone in non-league football. Currently at Fulham, he has agreed terms with Manchester United and will join the Champions in the summer.

Too many state schools are cramming their pupils with “worthless qualifications” to boost their position in exam league tables, a leading independent school head said today.

You may not have realised, but those squidgy tubes of paint that artists use are a British invention. The collapsible, screw-cap tube mechanism seems an obvious way to store paint nowadays, but, when it was patented in 1842 by the Winsor & Newton company it was something of a revelation, a small contribution to the golden era of British inventiveness.

In Parliamentary terms Tony McNulty is an overweight bully with the mentality of a thug. Yes, yes, it takes one to know one.

Tony McNulty, former employment minister, had to make a humiliating apology in the Commons after claiming expenses on a property occupied rent-free by his parents.

Former minister Tony McNulty apologised today and promised to repay more than £13,000 in second home allowances which he claimed on a house where his parents live.

The organisers of an anti-Islam demonstration planned for September 11 today promised a peaceful protest, amid fears of violent clashes with anti-fascists.

An inquiry to find out how many parents are "playing the system" to get their children into a school of their choice was ordered yesterday by the Children's Secretary, Ed Balls.

A council has dropped its legal case against a mother accused of using a false address to get her son into a popular state primary school, it was confirmed today.

Riot Police were braced for further clashes with Tamil protesters in central London last night after forcibly breaking up another mass occupation of the roads around Parliament.