To be a successful Whitehall mandarin you need to learn never to lose your cool or rise to provocation, and to make your point without exaggerating. Sir Jeremy Heywood, who has reached the very pinnacle of the civil service, as Cabinet Secretary, exhibited these qualities to the full when questioned by MPs yesterday about Steve Hilton, the recently departed Downing Street adviser and friend of David Cameron, whose farewell gesture was to suggest that 90 per cent of civil servants should be sacked. "The way Steve operates is to challenge, he is a very challenging person," said Sir Jeremy, in classic mandarin speak.

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Simon Hughes today hit out at Tory MPs - accusing them of acting as if they were "born to rule".

The disgraced former media magnate Conrad Black was heading to a home in Toronto, Canada, last night after being released from a prison in Florida where he had been serving time stemming from his 2007 convictions for defrauding investors in his now defunct newspaper conglomerate, Hollinger.

Former media mogul Conrad Black was released from a federal prison in Miami today after serving about three years for defrauding investors.

If you ask me...

Prime Minister David Cameron held the door open for a referendum on an elected House of Lords today, as a parliamentary committee said the public should be given a say.

What is the problem to which this is the solution? It's a question that all politicians should ask themselves before they embark on reform. David Cameron and Andrew Lansley should have asked it before turning the NHS upside down. Nick Clegg should be asking it now before putting the Coalition at risk for a piece of legislation that ranks at zero in voters' priorities.

Peer's paid role for tax haven may have broken parliamentary regulations

A former Conservative minister with close links to the Government is sitting as a peer in the House of Lords while simultaneously lobbying on behalf of a Caribbean tax haven.

It would be the greatest extension of executive power since Charles I dissolved Parliament

The Queen has vowed to serve as head of state, now and into the future, in a landmark speech to mark her Diamond Jubilee.

MPs are to hold an emergency debate on the coalition's NHS reforms tomorrow in a last-ditch Labour bid to keep them off the statute book.

MPs will struggle to cope with the impact of legal aid cuts as their constituency surgeries become inundated with requests for advice from people who have lost out on publicly-funded legal guidance, lawyers have warned.

Mary Ann Sieghart's negative article on Lords reform ("A fight that Nick Clegg will never win", 27 February) needs a response. Constitutional governance may be a boring subject but poor governance, if ignored, can have devastating results (such as the French Revolution).