The Tote, the Dartford crossing, the student loan book, the Channel Tunnel rail link and the Government’s stake in Urenco, which enriches uranium for nuclear power stations worldwide, will all be offered to private bidders in the next two years, in an attempt to raise £3bn.

That’s the news from the Daily Mail today, which reports that a scientist — not identified by name — who works in “the lab that houses the Swiss Large Hadron Collider” — the device that’s been built to simulate the “Big Bang” and otherwise terrify humanity, has been arrested by French police on suspicion of having links to al Qaeda:

The U.S. president wants to establish a top table of powerful countries called the Group of Four to take key economic decisions for the world - but Britain would not be invited to attend.

It would see this country’s influence in the world diminish yet further.

And it would be a huge embarrassment for Gordon Brown, who has claimed his actions have helped bring countries out of recession following the financial crisis.

Keir Starmer QC outlined new guidelines to make it easier for those helping someone commit assisted suicide to know if they will face prosecution.

The move comes after the law lords ruled earlier this year that Debbie Purdy, who has multiple sclerosis, had the right to know whether her husband, Omar Puente, would be prosecuted if he helped her travel abroad to die, backing her call for a clear policy statement on the risk of prosecution.

But whether Luang Phu Supha is really the world’s oldest man remains open to debate.

The Buddhist monk claims to be celebrating his 115th birthday today at a temple in Phuket, Thailand.

“Who said the British and the Americans should rule over others? That’s why we say down with you. We have not invited these bloody whites. They want to poke their nose into our own affairs. Refuse that,” he said.

“We have stood stood firm and we have refused to let go. Zimbabwe, sanctions or no sanctions, Zimbabwe remains ours,” he told a gathering of his party’s youth wing.

Mugabe spoke ahead of the first EU high-level visit in seven years led by aid chief Karel De Gucht.

In Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, preparations are under way to mark the Georgian attack on the city last year and the tiny statelet is preparing its forces for the possibility of renewed conflict.

“We are ready to fight, and we’re better prepared than last year,” said Igor Algorov, a commander in the South Ossetian Army, who was directing a training exercise yesterday. “We don’t want war again but we can’t exclude that there will be revanchist feelings among the Georgians and so we have to be ready at all times.”

Much of the surge took place in January when there were more than nine incidents in the UK every day.

The Conservatives romped home yesterday in the first test of public opinion since the scandal over MPs’ expenses, snatching the previously safe Labour seat of Norwich North.

Though Labour had anticipated defeat, the scale of the loss led MPs to warn that it was clear the party was increasingly unelectable in England under Mr Brown.