Australian Labor Party edges closer to victory

Prime Minister Julia Gillard edged closer to retaining power in Australia yesterday when an independent lawmaker said he would support her centre-left Labor Party to form Australia's first minority government in almost seven decades.

A bloc of three independent kingmakers will now decide whether Labor will govern for a second three-year term or whether a conservative Liberal Party-led coalition will form the next administration, after 21 August elections failed to give any party a majority.

The conservative coalition now needs the backing of all three remaining uncommitted independents to reach a 76-seat majority in the 150-seat House of Representatives, while Labor needs only two.

Independent Andrew Wilkie announced his decision to back Labor after meetings with Ms Gillard and Liberal leader Tony Abbott.

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Why do men cheat?

John and Marilyn. Bill and Monica. Charles and Camilla. Ashley and Whatshername. The extramarital affair has a long and if not quite distinguished, then at least high-profile, history. More often than not it is the men who occupy that central, adulterous role; difficult as infidelity statistics are to gauge, men repeatedly own up to committing the lion's share of affairs, outnumbering women by at least two-to-one. But why?

That question, age-old as it may be, is not terribly difficult to answer – at least not according to Peadar de Burca – and he should know, having just interviewed almost 300 candidates on the subject.

A playwright, director and comedian, de Burca has spent the best part of six months travelling England and Ireland, interviewing men who have cheated and the women that they have cheated on.

He has spoken to over 250 adulterous husbands, not to mention several dozen of their wives, attempting in each case to identify the motivations, mindsets, and moralities of the unfaithful.

The results have been turned into a two-man comedy show, Why Men Cheat, in which de Burca and his co-star Briane O'Gibne re-enact the tales they have been told, from the small-town soldier falling head-over heels for the leggy women he met on tour, to the big-city banker who got his kicks by setting up swinging sessions around the country.

It's a unusual way to spend time – particularly given that de Burca has not been married that long himself. This, though, was part of his inspiration. "It had been on my mind a lot because there was a history of the males in my family straying," he explains. "I suppose I was a little bit worried about what I might do."

Odd though his subject matter was, it wasn't particularly difficult to delve into. De Burca began with friends and family and worked his way out. Before he knew it, he was booking train tickets left, right and centre, visiting casinos, nightclubs and swingers' groups, and listening to the stories of jilted wives and regretful husbands. "I thought I would maybe talk to 10 or 12 people about it. I would go and hang around with them and get them beers and win their confidence; suddenly they opened up and just started blowing out all these stories. I couldn't stop them."

It wasn't long before a pattern emerged. Throughout his research, de Burca encountered just one instance of what could properly be termed a "love affair". Unlike any other interviewees, the pair in question ended up leaving their spouses and marrying one another. The woman was older, too – more than a decade older than her new husband. It's the exception which, he says, proves the rule. "The men would go for a kind of wife-lite, as it were. The women they would sleep with would look like their wives but be more ... on display."

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Briers and Hicks help Wolves rise to the Challenge

What was supposed to be a classic Wembley final turned out to be one of the most one-sided, with Warrington entirely convincing in retaining the Challenge Cup.

Chris Hicks claimed a rare Wembley hat-trick, the first since the Leeds Rhinos wing Leroy Rivett grabbed four in the last final at the old Wembley. Ryan Atkins – one of the players they have added since last year's triumph over Huddersfield – got two and Louis Anderson scored the last.

But it was the craft of the stand-off Lee Briers that won him the Lance Todd Trophy as man of the match in a landslide vote. He had an influential role in four of those six tries and generally bossed the show in midfield to set the stage for the Wolves to dominate.
Leeds, desperate for their first Challenge Cup this millennium, made too many mistakes and missed too many tackles – Warrington are not going to be beaten at Wembley by a team that does that. They failed to respond to the atmosphere generated by a sell-out crowd and it is no exaggeration to say that they could have lost by more.

The absence of the injured Jamie Peacock, a player who could conceivably have lifted the team, was all too obvious. Compared with Warrington's decision to leave out Richie Myler, Leeds' choice of the 20-year-old novice, Chris Clarkson, to start in the second row was not exactly cataclysmic. It was, though, a huge vote of confidence in a player who was completely unknown this time last year. Carl Ablett was on the bench after his three match suspension and, as expected, Ali Lauitiiti was the Rhinos forward to miss out.

Both sides committed an early blunder, Danny Buderus fumbling Briers' kick-off and Atkins squandering that possession by being forced into touch on the first tackle.

Leeds then had a period of pressure which could have brought them an opening try, but which only saw Ryan Bailey held up over the line. The strain was only eased by another handling error from the vastly experienced Buderus – and then it was time for a short, sharp masterclass from Briers.

It was his kick across field after 13 minutes that found Atkins (below) in acres of space between Brett Delaney and Kevin Sinfield. The centre made the cleanest of catches and Warrington were on their way.

Almost immediately, Briers pinned Leeds back with a 40-20 kick and then through the long pass that released Matt King on the right wing. Hicks had the acumen to scissor inside him and although Ben Westwood failed with a second conversion by hitting a post Warrington were already in a commanding position.

Leeds threatened twice through Ryan Hall but once he was magnificently tackled into touch by Westwood and once was brought back for Brent Webb's forward pass.

The Rhinos, however, were about to turn attack into hapless defence. From Danny McGuire's high kick Chris Riley picked up and counterattacked. When he was stopped, Atkins found a scandalous gap between Hall and Ian Kirke to go the rest of the way, with Westwood adding the simple goal.

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The strike that shook the Kremlin

Thirty years ago, ordinary people challenged an armed dictatorship, and won.

On 31 August 1980, the strikers in the Lenin Shipyard at Gdansk forced the Communist authorities in Poland to sign an agreement. It promised them – among many other lesser things – a free and independent trade union, the liberation of political prisoners, plural and uncensored media and the right to strike.

Within days, other strike committees all over Poland were winning the same sort of terms from their Party bosses. Soon all the local agreements ran together into a single movement covering the whole nation, which recruited 9 million members by the end of the year. Its leader was a fast- talking, pious, slightly rascally electrician called Lech Walesa. The name of the movement was "the Independent Self-Managing Trade Union Solidarity".
Everyone who was in that shipyard during the strike came out changed: wiser and perhaps with more faith in humanity. This was an occupation strike, asking strikers to forsake their homes and families for the sake of the common cause. The yard gates, almost hidden behind well- wishers' flowers and pictures of the Pope, were locked, and the workers forbade themselves to come out until they had won.

Inside, thousands of men in grey denim overalls lay on the grass listening to the Tannoy, as it broadcast the interminable negotiations in the Health and Safety hall. Outside the gate, women and children waited through long, hot August days. Sometimes they threw bread, salami and apples over the fence to their husbands, fathers and sons. There was paper and duplicator ink for smudgy bulletins in the yard, but not much to eat. Vodka was banned. In one of Europe's most cigarette-addicted nations, they banned indoor smoking too.

The stakes were very high. The workers inside and the families outside thought about the ZOMO riot police, itching to batter them with clubs. The foreign journalists in the yard thought more about the Soviet armoured divisions that had moved up to the Polish frontier. If they invaded, we assumed that the Poles would fight and there would be what the regime's euphemism called "a national tragedy". But that was a possibility the strikers refused to discuss. It was an extra fear they did not need.

The strikes spread and the government, riven by panicky arguments, finally gave way. On 31 August, Lech Walesa – enjoying every moment of it – took a silly monster pen, a souvenir from the Pope's visit the year before, and signed the Gdansk Accord. Deputy Prime Minister Mieczyslaw Jagielski, equally clearly hating every moment, signed too.

That was not the end of the story. In the months that followed, the regime tried to block, delay or otherwise cheat on all the main points of the agreements, repeatedly driving Solidarity into confrontation. Sometimes Poland seemed close to civil war. The disastrous economy fell apart; people slept on the pavements to keep their places in food queues. Solidarity itself grew divided, some blaming Walesa for not using the ultimate weapon of an all-out general strike. Finally, in December 1981, General Jaruzelski carried out a military coup, dissolving Solidarity, arresting thousands of its leading members and imposing martial law. But that wasn't the end of the story either. Solidarity became an underground resistance movement.

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GCSE results: Rise in numbers taking exams a year early

GCSE results are contemplated by pupils at Washwood Heath Technology College in Birmingham. Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA/Wire

Thousands more teenagers are sitting GCSEs at least one year early, today's results reveal, sparking accusations that the exams are now too easy for many 16-year-olds.

This summer, 11% of maths GCSE entries were taken 12 months or more early – 83,179 students took the exam before year 11, official figures from the Joint Council for Qualifications show. Last year, 60,712 students sat the exam early.

The pattern was similar for English GCSE. About 9.5% of English GCSE entries were taken before year 11,with 66,909 candidates taking the exam early, compared with 42,150 last year.

The proportion of pupils taking GCSEs early who obtained A or A* grades rose by 0.4 percentage points for English and 0.8 percentage points for maths to 16% for both subjects.

Clara Kenyon, acting chief executive of the OCR exam board, said teenagers were starting GCSE courses early as ministers had scrapped compulsory exams for 14-year-olds.

Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham, said the rise in the number of pupils taking the exams early suggested GCSEs were now too easy. "There is now a case for recalibrating the exams and putting in harder questions to distinguish between candidates," he said.

He said schools may also be "hot-housing" pupils, where those who are on the borderline between a C and a D grade may be submitted early for exams so that they are given several attempts at achieving a C grade. "Schools may believe that the more practice a pupil who is borderline has, the better," he said.

"If they take the exam several times, they may make the magic C grade. But these retakes will be on the pupils' records and won't look good when they apply to university or for apprenticeships."

The overall pass rate at grades A* to C rose for the 23rd year in a row to 69.1%.

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Yotam Ottolenghi's cakes, cookies and tart recipes

A long time ago, when I was taking my first steps on the road to chefdom and devouring cookbooks like there was no tomorrow, I came across a charming little book on a charming little subject: Little Cafe Cakes, by Julie Le Clerc, featured miniature versions of cakes and other small sweet delights. The idea appealed to me for some reason. Why do the Japanese love bonsai? Why do some people collect model cars? Maybe they give us a sense of greatness, reducing an object that is usually too large to hold in one hand or, in the cake's case, swallow in a mouthful or two. Is it some kind of ego boost, or is it that small things are more aesthetically pleasing? The most convincing explanation to me is that mini versions mean you can have many more of them than you'd otherwise dream of.

Whatever the reason, as a now mature proprietor of a business that prides itself on its cakes, I can tell you that bonsai cakes and other one-to-three-bite items are taking over. Gone are the days when you went to a cake shop for a slice of this or a chunk of that. Today, everyone wants small, compact, cute: cupcakes, muffins, tartlets and cookies; truffles, bars, brittles and bites. These cutesie little sweets have obvious advantages and appeal. They're convenient both to sell and to carry (they're ideal for picnics), they look good, they don't dry out as a cake does when you cut off a slice, and they prove that you actually can have your cake and eat it – or at the very least another one just like it.

Blackberry and star anise friands

Un-iced, these baby cakes are made for the cookie tin – they keep well and are ideal for grabbing on a whim. Iced, they would not look out of place in the poshest of afternoon tea selections. Makes 10.

340g egg whites (10 egg whites)
100g plain flour
300g icing sugar
180g ground almonds
2 tsp star anise, finely ground
⅓ tsp salt
Grated zest of ½ lemon
220g unsalted butter, melted and left to cool, plus extra for greasing
150g blackberries
For the icing (optional)
70g blackberries, plus 10 extra, to garnish
2 tbsp water
300g icing sugar, plus extra to dust

Heat the oven to 170C/335F/gas mark 3. Use melted butter to brush the bottoms and sides of 10 mini loaf tins (4.5cm high x 9.5cm long x 6.5cm wide), or similar small baking tins, and chill. Put the egg whites in a large bowl and whisk to froth them up a bit; don't whip them completely. Sift the flour, icing sugar, ground almonds, star anise and salt, add to the egg whites and stir until incorporated. Add the lemon zest and melted butter, and mix just until the batter is smooth and uniform.

Pour into the baking tins, filling them two-thirds of the way up. Halve the blackberries and drop into the batter. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven, leave to cool a little, take out of the tins and leave until completely cool.

To ice the cakes, put the berries and water in a small bowl and use a fork to smash the fruit in the water. Pass through a fine sieve, pressing the pulp against the sides. Pour three-quarters of the purple juice over the icing sugar and whisk vigorously to a uniformly light-purple, runny paste. It should be just thick enough to allow you to brush it over the tops of the cakes, and will set as a thin, almost see-through coating on top with some icing dripping down the sides. (If not, add more juice.) Place a blackberry on each friand and dust with icing sugar.

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Osborne's Budget may have breached equality law

The coalition Government faces the embarrassing prospect of being rebuked by the equalities watchdog over whether its planned spending cuts are "unfair" on groups such as women, the disabled and ethnic minorities.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission may take action against the Treasury for not meeting its obligations under the Equality Act 2010 to consider the impact on specific groups before announcing its plans in the emergency Budget in June.

Commission officials are in negotiations with the Treasury but have not yet been satisfied that it complied with the Act, pioneered by Harriet Harman, the former Equalities Minister.
Privately, ministers fear the Act could turn into a "poison pill" left behind by Labour. They have not promised to repeal it, which would be highly controversial and unacceptable to the Liberal Democrats.

The Commission is investigating whether ministers considered properly the impact of curbs announced by the Chancellor, George Osborne, on Disability Living Allowance.

It is looking into complaints that a Treasury website asking the public to suggest where cuts should be made has attracted racist comments. It is also considering the wider impact on women of the proposed cuts. Under the Act, the Commission has power to take "enforcement action", which could range from encouraging a change of practice to starting a formal inquiry – a move which could delay some of the proposed cuts.

The Commission's intervention is the second blow in two days to the Government's public spending strategy, after the Institute For Fiscal Studies warned that the poorest families with children would be the biggest losers from proposals announced in the Budget.

Mark Hoban, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, was ambushed when he answered the IFS criticism on BBC Radio 4's Today programme in what was seen by his ministerial "colleagues" as the worst media car crash since the Coalition Government was formed in May.

Justin Webb, the presenter, asked Mr Hoban whether the Treasury had conducted an assessment of how the Budget would affect specific groups, as required under the Act.

The Treasury minister appeared not to know the answer. Mr Hoban stuck rigidly to his brief, insisting: "We went through a very detailed distributional analysis at the time of the Budget, it was the most extensive piece of work anyone has done."

Mr Webb smelt blood and asked the same question six times. Eventually, Mr Hoban tried a different answer, accusing Mr Webb of "looking at detail rather than actually at recognising the fact we had to take some difficult decisions in the Budget".

Later, the Government fielded Nick Clegg to respond to the IFS criticism. He said the IFS report was a "single snapshot" which did not provide the full picture of the Government's agenda.

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Everton expect Pienaar to stay

Steven Pienaar will remain at Everton this season, according to assistant manager Steve Round.

The South Africa winger, who is out of contract in the summer, has been linked with a swap deal with Tottenham's Peter Crouch.

Round responded: "The manager (David Moyes) has said all along he wants Steven to stay.

"He is under contract and as far as we are concerned he will be an Everton player this season.

"There is no truth in the speculation. Steven has been a terrific player for us and is a terrific asset."

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For this year's students, the financial lessons are only just beginning

The scramble is on for university places. Thousands of A-level students will be sitting nervously this week waiting to see where and what they will be studying over the next three or four years. But among the confirming of offers of places made and the merry-go-round of clearing, students should not take their eye off who will they will be banking with at university and beyond. With the cost of tuition set to soar and graduate debt frequently breaking the £20,000 mark, now is more important than ever for university students to select the right bank account.

Financial experts and graduates alike are in agreement that the basic necessities, rather than the bells and whistles, are what count with a student account. Free iPods and music vouchers may be appealing in the short term but if funds begin to dry up, the size of an interest-free overdraft will make all the difference.

While most students will be eligible for a student loan during university, the rising cost of living, and of education, means an interest-free overdraft can often become a lifeline unless additional funding from parents or relatives is guaranteed. Having a pot to dip into for rent, living costs or tuition fees can be immensely helpful, but it is important to look at the charges for authorised and unauthorised withdrawals as well.

At the moment, the largest interest-free overdraft on offer for a student bank account stands at £3,000 and is available from both the Bank of Scotland's and Halifax's student current accounts. For withdrawals authorised above this amount, both banks charge 7.2 per cent EAR and for unauthorised withdrawals significantly more at 24.2 per cent EAR.

By contrast, the HSBC and Santander student accounts provide overdrafts of £1,000 in the first year of university, which rises incrementally to £2,000 by the fifth year, if the course runs that long. However, neither charges interest on authorised withdrawals. For unauthorised withdrawals, HSBC charges a typical 3.5 per cent EAR and Santander charges 28.7 per cent.

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Supermarkets lose heart in green war on plastic carrier bags

Britain's biggest supermarket chains will come under fire this week for handing out tens of millions more carrier bags than last year, derailing attempts to reduce the environmental impact from billions of disposable bags.

New figures will show that the industry missed its target of halving the number of plastic bags used in 2006 for the second consecutive year. The setback will propel carrier bags back on to the green agenda, despite hopes of moving the environmental debate on to tackle bigger issues, such as food waste and water usage.

Campaigners criticised the increase and said it was time for the Government to step in. Mike Webster at Waste Watch said: "The rise suggests retailers should be given an extra nudge from legislation." The Welsh Assembly plans to introduce a 7p charge for carrier bags in the principality from next spring in an attempt to cut the number of bags dumped in landfill.

Retailers defended the figures, which were compiled in May, pointing out that they failed to account for the industry's growth. Paul Kelly, Asda's corporate affairs director, said: "At a total level, the increase is not surprising because more stores are opening. The picture would probably look better on a like-for-like basis."

Four years ago, seven of the UK's leading supermarket chains, including Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda, pledged to slash the number of disposable carrier bags used by 50 per cent by 2009. Last year the industry just missed its target, cutting the number by 48 per cent to about 5.6 billion for the whole year.

The latest report, which the Government's waste watchdog Wrap will release on Wednesday, is expected to say that the overall trend has improved, despite the increase in May. Last year, the sector handed out 450 million single-use carrier bags in May 2009; the total number for May 2010 is likely to exceed 500 million. Experts were unable to explain why supermarkets handed out more bags that month. Paul Bettison, former chairman of the Local Government Association's environment board, said: "I am really surprised. I can't see retailers pushing up plastic bag use specifically, and I can't see why this is."

It is unclear which supermarket chains are to blame for the increase. All of the retailers contacted by The Independent on Sunday yesterday claimed to have cut their carrier bag usage in line with Wrap's original target, although only two chains – Marks & Spencer and Waitrose – disclosed the total number of bags used. M&S, which has charged its food customers 5p for every bag handed out since May 2008, said it used 240 million bags in the year to April 2010, including 89 million in its food halls, an 80 per cent drop since 2006. Waitrose gave customers 21 per cent fewer bags than the previous 12 months at 199 million in the year to May 2010.

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