Monday

Police have started using supergrasses again in the fight against organised crime. The use of police informers was discredited in the 1980s after a series of convictions were quashed on appeal. One informant reportedly had his sentence cut from 60 years to four years recently after giving information that helped to convict several high-profile criminals.

The TaxPayers' Alliance claimed that Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) had spent £285,000 lobbying the main political parties last year. The money was spent on hotel rooms, events and staff expenses. The Alliance said: “RDAs were not created to buy wine and canapés for politicians.”

Tuesday

The Conservative Party has criticised the salaries paid to council chief executives. It suggested that under a Conservative government the chief executives would be paid less and more local authorities would share top management staff. The highest-paid chief executive was reported to be Joe Duckworth at the London Borough of Newham, who earns a basic salary of £240,000.

The equivalent of 15,000 teachers call in sick every school day, according to data collected by Michael Gove, the Shadow Children's Secretary. He said that the average number of days off sick taken per teacher in England had risen from 5.1 in 1999 to 5.4 last year.

Wednesday

Two ambulancemen were arrested after allegedly discussing whether a disabled man who had collapsed at home and later died was worth resuscitating. The pair were overheard by staff in the emergency control room after the patient collapsed while dialling 999.

Ben Bradshaw, the Health Minister, told a newspaper that he wanted to enable patients to rate their GPs' competence and bedside manner on bulletin boards on the NHS Choices website. GPs were unconvinced.

Thursday

John Harris, a professor of bioethics at the University of Manchester, has said that students should be able to take so-called smart drugs, such as Ritalin, to enhance their academic performance. He is urging the Government to make the drugs available without prescription.

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