A £38 billion black hole in the UK's defence budget has been eliminated, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond confirmed today.

The crushing primary defeat of Indiana’s veteran Republican senator Richard Lugar not only shows the Tea Party movement is alive and well. It is also a pointer that the next Congress will be even more partisan and less inclined to compromise than ever.

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.

Australia's minority Labour government was embroiled in a crisis last night after the Speaker of the Federal Parliament agreed to step aside, pending an investigation into allegations he sexually harassed a male member of his staff and misused travel entitlements.

Rupert Murdoch's media empire was yesterday labelled a "toxic shadow state" as it was accused of launching a campaign of intimidation to blunt MPs' investigations into its alleged law breaking.

Mitt Romney tightened his grip on the Republican presidential nomination last night, sweeping primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington DC, and shifted his focus to the general election with a sharp attack on President Barack Obama.

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

Exasperated with a primary process as protracted as it has been vicious, Republican Party grandees are looking to see if Mitt Romney can at last regain an aura of inevitability in tomorrow's "Super Tuesday" contests across 10 states.

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).

Bitter, divisive battle for leadership of Labor Party sees PM win out – for the time being

Pension money should not go to reduce taxes

The decision to subject military personnel to compulsory redundancies is " unnecessary, grotesquely unfair" and may lead to problems of shortages in key areas, a committee of MPs said yesterday.

Cash is pouting into the Newt Gingrich campaign for the Republican presidential nomination after the stunning surge and upset victory over Mitt Romney.