No Asians work in Whitehall's four most elite grades and ethnic minorities are under-represented at all levels of the civil service, according to a report out tomorrow.

What they read

A delegation of former employees and creditors of the collapsed Bank of Credit and Commerce International staged a demonstration outside the bank's liquidators, Touche Ross, yesterday - six years and a day after the BCCI collapse.

Ten years ago today, a small electoral earthquake shook the House of Commons as four black MPs squeezed into Parliament. Since then another five have joined the original group, but the new Labour government is unlikely to make much of the anniversary.

I don't quite know how to tell you this, but - after years of rather self-righteousness resistance - I now carry a mobile phone. Worse, I sometimes use it on trains. And I curse (usually inwardly) at being cut off when the train runs into an area without the signal.

One said he had not been spoken to like that since he was 14. Another said it was the worst moment of his political career.

Abbas Kasimili Gokal, the world's biggest fraudster, yesterday received the longest sentence ever handed down by a British court for fraud. Gokal, the man at the centre of the collapse of the Bank of Credit & Commerce International, was jailed for 14 years at the Old Bailey. The defendant, who had fought his case on legal aid, was also ordered to pay a record pounds 2.94m from his personal assets within two years or face three more years in prison.

Tony Blair suffered his first ministerial resignation yesterday, just four days after coming into office.

The story of the "defector who wasn't" should have been good news for Brian Mawhinney yesterday. Instead, the Tory chairman found himself fleeing into the conference centre pursued by journalists.

A leading countryside group attacked Labour after its front- bench spokesman, Keith Vaz, said the party was more in favour of out-of- town shopping developments than the Government. The Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) criticised a speech by Mr Vaz at a planning conference in Canary Wharf, east London, saying its tone was "disturbing". He told planners, politicians and developers that out-of-town supermarkets were innovative, exciting and ``the best in the world"; Whitehall should not stand in the way of "this retail revolution''. Neil Sinden, of the CPRE, promised the council would fight ``tooth and nail'' any attempt by a Labour government to relax restrictions on new out-of-town retail developments.

The Government signalled the possible end of the development of new out- of-town shopping complexes yesterday when it unveiled a stringent set of planning guidelines designed to protect Britain's town centres.

Labour is considering a relaxation of the Government's ban on new out-of-town shopping centres.

DONALD MACINTYRE

RAT SCABIES, drummer with The Damned: We came back from a tour, went to get our money, and when we got to our new manager's office, there was nothing - no furniture, no manager, no money. He went with everything - it would have been thousands.