Last Sunday at a speaking engagement down in Bath I sat next to a Swiss guy who wrote trading algorithms and software for Geneva based hedge funds. It was that sort of dinner – a place where the mathematically gifted fund managers exchange ideas and theories with academics on how to predict market movements.

The ongoing crisis in the eurozone may appear to confirm the direst prognostications of the sceptical fringe; but pro-Europeans need look no further than the Ryder Cup for evidence of where Britain's interests really lie.

His theories are so unorthodox that the American DJ interviewing him thought he must be an eccentric “fake Lord” who had simply bought his title and had been “smoking crack”. But Lord Monckton is indeed a real peer – and he really does believe that Barack Obama faked his birth certificate to become US President.

Baroness Warsi, who may soon be the ex-chairman of the Conservative Party, picked up a curious but meaningless fact and gave it air time on live television.

Backbenchers urge PM to adopt more right-wing policies after failure at the polls

Labour was on course to make hundreds of gains from the Coalition parties early today amid signs the party's health is beginning to recover in the South.

The Government launched a new assault on euro-spending today as Brussels called for an inflation-busting budget for next year.

The plans for this Thames river pageant in July are old-fashioned and an embarrassment, says Jessica Duchen

The plans for the river pageant are an embarrassment

The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, drew comfort yesterday from the party's decisive victory in the Feltham and Heston by-election, calling it a "verdict on the Government's failed economic plan".

There was better news for embattled Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg today when Liberal Democrats captured a seat from their Tory coalition partners in the latest council by-elections.

New money-raising plans for the European Union could mean an extra 1% on VAT in Britain.

Nick Clegg is said to be furious about the appointment of Lord Ashcroft, that immensely generous contributor to Conservative Party funds, as the Government's new adviser on defence matters.

A senior member of the UK Independence Party, the MEP David Campbell Bannerman, has defected back to the Conservatives.