LABOUR faces yet another embarrassing backbench revolt if the Government proceeds with plans to sell off air traffic control. More than 100 MPs are deeply concerned about the safety implications, which have been brought into sharp focus by recent air accidents and the Paddington rail tragedy.

Peter Salsbury seems like a nice guy. A conscientious company man, hard working and intelligent, who worked his way up the incredibly greasy pole that is Marks and Spencer, until he found himself on the board and in the court of the volatile Sir Richard Greenbury.

RAIL INDUSTRY Anger over infrastructure firm's growing revenue and its refusal to spend more cash on safety investment

RAIL INDUSTRY Anger over infrastructure firm's growing revenue and its refusal to spend more cash on safety investment

Sir: Mark Steel's impressive piece (Comment, 26 October) on the Paddington accident inspires this regular user of that ill-fated service to respond.

FACED WITH a crisis of confidence and a barrage of hostile publicity, most chief executives would be desperately searching for ways of artificially inflating their profits. Not so Railtrack, which by Gerald Corbett's own admission is now one of the most hated companies in the land. In fact, it has become so unpopular following the Paddington crash that the board meeting to sign off yesterday's interim results spent time wondering whether it wouldn't be better to freeze the dividend and massage the profits down.

STAGECOACH, THE bus and rail operator, struggled yesterday to convince the City of its ambitious US expansion plans as its share price slipped in the wake of a pounds 389m share issue.

OPEN FESTIVE season has officially been declared, not with the official launch of Pokemon, this year's toy anointed as Most Certain To Induce a Christmas Shopping Frenzy, but with Early Learning Centre's declaration that it will not be stocking the range because it is "violent". Success is now entirely guaranteed, since no toy craze is complete without a blaze of manufactured controversy.

THE PARTNERS of gays and lesbians who are killed in accidents should be allowed to claim compensation for bereavement in the same way that heterosexuals can, a report published today recommends.

THE FORMER managing direc-tor of Great Western Trains broke down in tears yesterday at the Southall rail crash inquiry as he recalled his own experience as a passenger on the train when seven people died and 150 others were injured.

Plenty of foreign tourists will be homing in on the British Isles in the coming week to see the Rugby Union World Cup. The tournament kicks off on 1 October at the new Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, and a month long festival of world rugby in grounds throughout the British Isles is set to follow, culminating in the final, also to be held in Cardiff, on 6 November.

A NEW train safety system backed by the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott would have failed to prevent the 1997 Southall rail disaster, the public inquiry heard yesterday.

MORE RAIL disasters are "inevitable" unless the privatised train companies radically improve their safety procedures, the inquiry into the Southall crash in which seven people died will be told.

DAMNING EVIDENCE has emerged that Great Western Trains routinely ignored safety rules, which led to the Southall rail disaster in which seven people were killed and 150 injured.