Fiddling expenses is a crime, as not a few MPs and several peers have discovered. Nor is it just the scale of the fraud that determines the existence of a crime, though it plays a role in setting the penalty. It is the principle: the claiming of money – in these cases, public money – to which someone is not entitled. Now Baroness Warsi, co-chairman of the Conservative Party and the country's first woman Muslim cabinet minister, finds herself in the frame.

I wanted to be a comedian or actor from as far back as i can remember When I was 21, I started putting my name down for open-mic nights and kept on bottling it. All I wanted to do was try it once because I didn't want to die without having done stand-up. Obviously, now I've died loads of times.

Pep Guardiola's glorious reign as Barcelona manager will end tonight with the Copa del Rey final against Athletic Bilbao at the Vicente Calderon Stadium in Madrid. Victory would mean Guardiola ending his four-year tenure at the Nou Camp with his 14th trophy – the perfect end to the best spell at a European club side for a generation. This date has been marked since, one month ago, the former Barça midfielder announced he would step down.

All aboard the Medes to hunt moldywarpes

Director Michel Gondry brings New York teenagers to a world they'd never seen

This is Sapphire's long-awaited follow up to her bestselling novel, Push, which was adapted into the film, Precious, in 2009 , and it maintains the tension between the social disadvantages that her characters face and their heroic struggles to survive against these indomitable forces.

Euro 2012 kicks-off in just a matter of weeks and in anticipation The Independent is running down the key factors and people to keep an eye on in Poland and Ukraine this summer.

Scotland to bring in 50p minimum price

Gay marriage not a priority – Hammond

Readers of 'Belle de Jour' often thought I was cold I think part of that is a scientific detachment that came through in my writing, which was influenced by my scientific education. When I was anonymous [writing her "Diary of a London Call Girl" blog] people identified this trait and made the accusation that I must be a man. But I also heard from lots of sex workers who said, "This is true to my experience."

Paradise lost: chronicle of one boy's life in a hippy commune

MP Alun Michael believes children as young as 14 should get the vote.

Official figures to measure how many vulnerable children go missing from care and are subjected to exploitation are confusing and meaningless, the government admitted today.

Fathers look set to be given additional rights to see their children after family break-up or divorce, as long as it is in the child's best interests, under reforms set out in the Queen's Speech.