You’d like to think that a newspaper such as The Sun would be an irrelevance by new, with its diet of tits and ass – but somehow it still manages to sell just over 3.1 million copies a day – a pretty big irrelevance.

Conservative Party Chairman Eric Pickles said the party’s head of communications, Andy Coulson, had brought him the “good news” on Tuesday evening. BBC.

Coulson is a former editor of The Sun’s Sunday newspaper the News of The World – I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Personally I’d be glad not to receive the endorsement of The Sun.

Adverts are annoying and generally designed to sell us something we probably don’t need – sometimes you just have to admire their ingenuity Johnson Koh a graphic designer from Singapore selects his 50 Extraordinary and Attractive Billboards which is a bit over the top – I like this advert for Nationwide.

Nationwide advert in Columbus, Ohio

There’s even a video of it being made

Hat Tip: Very Short List.

Roman Polanski

For 31 years he lived as the world’s most celebrated fugitive, feted by his peers in the film industry while on the run from American police after admitting having sex with a child.

But, it was revealed today, the past has finally caught up with Roman Polanski. The film director was arrested in Switzerland on Saturday on a decades-old warrant relating to the rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977.

The director had travelled to Switzerland to accept a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich film festival, the organisers of which expressed “great consternation and shock” at his detention. Esther Addley and Kate Connolly in Berlin, The Guardian.

Not “great consternation and shock” that a confessed paedophile has been a fugitive for 31-years – actually fugitive my ass – he’s been happily living in Paris – not any longer hopefully – although he’s some powerful friends.

France’s culture minister Frédéric Mitterand said he was “dumbfounded” at the arrest, adding that he “strongly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already experienced so many of them”. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, “is following the case with great attention and shares the minister’s hope that the situation can be quickly resolved”, the minister said.

A statement from the Swiss Association of Directors called it a “grotesque judicial farce and a monstrous cultural scandal”, while the country’s Association of Film Directors and Script Writers called the move “a slap in the face for the entire cultural community in Switzerland”. Esther Addley and Kate Connolly in Berlin, The Guardian.

Still I don’t expect they’d feel the same if Polanski had raped and buggered their 13-year-old daughter – even after 31 years.

Guardian columnist Pamela Stephenson advised a man hooked on prostitutes to ask for sex tips on his next visit, Anderson defends her advice here, meanwhile Julie Bindel shows why Anderson is speaking nonsense.

In her reply to a man who wrote in asking for advice on his “addiction” to brothel sex, Pamela Stephenson Connolly failed to challenge any of his beliefs about prostitution or the sex industry. Her reply gave the impression that paying for sex is as unproblematic as buying a car or eating in a restaurant. She did not question his obvious belief that sex is a right – something that all men are automatically entitled to. She did not challenge him on his use of the word “hooked” as a justification for his continued use of women in prostitution, even though it looks to me very much like a choice rather than an addiction (he says he is “unlikely to give it up because [he has] great sex”).

Stephenson could have mentioned the grim realities of the sex trade. Instead, she portrayed it as a job like any other, when she wrote, “Many sex workers are very good at their job.” The reality is that more often than not the women would rather do any job than give blowjobs for money. Aside from a few exceptions, those involved in prostitution are treated as disposable, often coming from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds involving sexual abuse and social exclusion. Normalisation of prostitution results in a general view that men can’t help what they do and somehow “need” sex.

In giving such advice, Stephenson Connolly has betrayed the women in prostitution. I am not sure whether she would identify as a feminist but she surely realises that prostitution is both the cause and consequence of inequality between men and women. As long as men can buy women’s bodies we can never be equal. Instead she perpetuates the view of prostitution as a service industry by writing, “Some like to engage in a financial contract rather than negotiate via ‘dinner’ or ‘a movie’.”

Prostitutes are routinely seen as different from other women and Stephenson did not challenge this prejudice. A punter told me when I asked him why he paid for sex, rather than finding a girlfriend: “They are girls no one else wants to marry. So they work for sex. No one wants their wife to be a prostitute.” Charming.

Surely readers find the sex industry’s terrible treatment of its “workers” and the fact that women in brothels are marketed like any other merchandise abhorrent? Those of us who believe in social equality need to ask why so many of us defend prostitution and the rights of individual men to pay for sex.

One argument increasingly used by pimps and sex industry apologists is that a number of punters are disabled and unable to have sex the usual way. TLC Trust, a pro-sex industry campaigning organisation, is demanding one wheelchair-accessible brothel in every city “to meet the demand”, and that hospice wards should have provision for visiting sex workers. TLC even uses the example of wounded soldiers to call for an “NHS” approach to the sex industry. “It would be a sad injustice,” its website reads, “if service personnel such as soldiers badly wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were banned from the help they receive from sex workers.” When one punter told me he believed, “If men could get it [prostitution] on the NHS, if they are disabled, it would prevent them from raping,” I found myself wondering how on earth men such as him came to believe that all men are potential rapists, when it was supposed to be radical feminists such as myself who propagate this? The majority of men do not pay for sex. And it’s offensive to people with disabilities to assume they cannot find a partner. Those who do pay for sex need to be educated about the harm it is causing the women, and society in general.

“Next time you’re with a sex worker, ask her for some pointers,” concludes Stephenson Connolly. Does she really think women having to service punters for a living concern themselves with teaching men how to give pleasure to women? They want to get it over with as quickly as possible and learn how to fake enjoyment rather than actually achieving it. Prostitution is a nasty business. Julie Bindel, The Guardian.

Not all eco-lightbulbs are the same here’s Alok Jha recommended lightbulbs.

LED spotlight – Philips Econic, 3W

Unlike CFLs, this switches to full brightness immediately and runs cooler. Identical size to halogen spotlights and very similar colour light, though less sparkly. Quite a tightly focused light, however, so you will need a few around your room. Also relatively expensive, but then it will last for 15 years.

CFL stick – Philips Genie, 8W

Has near-instantaneous start-up, getting up to full brightness with a warm, yellowy-white colour in less than 10 seconds. Good for general use in lounges, hallways and bedrooms.

LED candle – Philips Novallure, 10W

Same advantages as the Econic in terms of cool running and instant switch-on, but this is meant for chandeliers. The LED light is made to sparkle slightly, thanks to a glass light-guide inside the bulb.

CFL dimmable – Sylvania Mini-Lynx Step, 20W

For anyone with dimmer switches, this will allow you to adjust your lighting levels to your heart’s content. Still a relatively new technology for CFLs, so expect to pay marginally more – but the costs will come down.

CFL small globe – Megaman GA607, 7W

For lamps or light fittings with several small bulbs. Robust (like all Megaman bulbs) and available in four shades of white, from warm to daylight. Each one is rated to last 10,000 hours. Source: The Guardian.

Employers will still be able to force workers to retire at 65 after a high court judge today turned down campaigners’ attempts to have the UK’s default retirement age (DRA) scrapped.

Mr Justice Blake said the rule, introduced in October 2006 as part of age discrimination laws, did not breach EU regulations and that it was “legitimate and proportionate” for the government to bring it in. Hilary Osborne, The Guardian.

Personally I’m going to hate having to work past 65, put the way things are panning-out I’m not going to have a choice not just to work past retirement but on until I drop dead – if I don’t starve.

I don’t know what Mr Justice Blake sees as “legitimate and proportionate”, you’d hope it wasn’t abject poverty – sadly Blake has just put many pensioners at risk of a having a very meagre retirement. Of course it would be preferable that pensioners didn’t need to work – unfortunately for most of us that’s a luxury we can’t afford.

The government has demanded immediate reform of the Football Association, insisting it implements recommendations made by Lord Burns four years ago in full or face a £25m cut in grassroots funding and the withdrawal of political support. Owen Gibson, The Guardian.

Why on earth are we giving the FA £25million – I don’t care what it’s for – there is so much money in football, £25million is only just over a quarter of the fee Man United received for selling Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid – if the FA wants to develop grass roots football I suggest it passes the hat round it’s wealthy clubs and leaves the tax payer alone.

So the Liberal Democrats are having their Party Conference in Bournemouth and what’s been the overriding impression? Savage cuts.

How have we got to a point where all the major parties try to win votes by boasting who’s going to take most things away? Nick Clegg brags that the Liberals’ cuts will be “savage”, as if he’s taken lessons from Ray Winstone on coming over hard, and his conference speech went: “Now watch my boat race and listen. If I see anyfing that can be cut – I’m ‘aving it. Know what this is? It’s a dialysis machine. I’ve gone down the hospice, seen this ol’ geyser, bop bop bop bop, done ‘im, out with the ol’ plug and wallop. Now it’s out the national debt, ‘cos I’m Savage Clegg.” Mark Steel.

If the liberal’s are different what’s stopping them pointing out

That in the period in which this vast debt was created, while some layers of society got a bit worse off and some got a bit better off, it was the richest one per cent whose wealth grew to an unprecedentedly colossal scale. Mark Steel.

And shouldn’t we be making the richest one percent pay something back – because it’s the only solution that makes any sense – still Clegg doesn’t believe there are any votes in that view – I don’t see why. Still I’ve never liked the Lid Dems they are too much of franchising operation, buy which I mean the party will locally appear to be Tory like or Labour like depending on which will get them the most votes.

Cover Pricing is where firms secretly agreed the prices they would submit during a tender process. Firms that do not want to win the contract submit prices that are much too high. This gives the client the impression that they are getting a good deal – the reality is they are paying well over the odds. It isn’t uncommon for the firms putting in cover bids to be rewarded with a secret payment.

Some of the UK’s leading building companies have been handed big fines by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) for rigging bids for contracts.

The OFT has fined a total of 103 firms £129.5m for colluding with competitors on building contracts.

It said the firms colluded among themselves during the bidding process, leading to customers, such as local authorities, having to pay too much.

The ruling comes at the end of a five-year investigation by the OFT. BBC.

Big fat pigs with their snouts deep in the taxpayer’s trough. Still you have to love their reasoning.

The UK Construction Group, which represents 29 contractors, called the decision to penalise the firms “unfair”.

“Everybody knows – including the OFT – that cover pricing was widespread in the industry in the past,” said the body’s director Stephen Ratcliffe.

“It is perverse and unfair to impose such disproportionate penalties on a small number of contractors selected by geographical sampling.”

Adam Aldred, competition partner at law firm Addleshaw Goddard, which represents five of the firms investigated, said the OFT was the first competition authority in Europe to rule against building firms for the practice of cover pricing. BBC.

Perverse and unfair – not as perverse as their stealing money destined to build hospitals – and let’s hope this is the first of many rulings against cover pricing. Don’t ever forget they’ll do anything for a profit.

Whatever you think about Ken he’s often worth a read – here’s his leader from the New Statesman.

The two greatest challenges for every country in the world today are the global economic crisis and the approaching reality of catastrophic climate change.

We are still passing through the worst economic crisis since 1929. There is no pain-free way out of this. The historic failure to invest and the supremacy of banking within the economy leave Britain in a weaker position than France or Germany in the global financial crisis.

However, the TUC’s leader, Brendan Barber, was right to warn on 14 September about the negative impact of spending cuts on the chances of economic recovery. Public debt repayments can be spread over decades but we need economic recovery now.

This is where the Tories are simply wrong. David Cameron’s media puff for his pinprick plans to increase prices in Westminster canteens showed that he has no serious vision to take us forward.

The Tories have abandoned the cuddly image that Cameron had nurtured in favour of a doctrine of immediate and savage cuts in public spending – which we can be sure will hit the poorest hardest. Cameron would have spent £5bn less than Labour in this year alone. At the same time, he guarantees an inheritance tax cut worth £200,000 each to 3,000 millionaires.

Cameron’s approach is no surprise. Should the Tories win the election, the MPs who would fill his benches would be from the same political mould as Thatcher. While Cameron emotes for TV and offers up Ken Clarke like a security blanket, assembled behind him is a group of hard-faced young men and women who, to paraphrase Mr Baldwin, did very well out of the boom.

Opinion surveys of incoming Tory MPs show over 90 per cent are Eurosceptic Atlanticists. They would like to turn Britain into a mini-America with more for the wealthy, meaning an even bigger underclass. A Tory government could permanently recast the economic and social structures of Britain along these lines. Any who doubt this should look at the scorched-earth policies of Tory London boroughs such as Hammersmith and Fulham or Barnet.

For all its many faults, Labour’s record shows it is different from, and better than, the Conservatives. A minimum wage, peace in Ireland, devolution and the expansion of public services are all examples of where Labour has delivered.

The Labour government remains a superior option to the Tories, but Labour must change to regain support. That means the government must exercise real control over the part of the banking system it owns to provide the lending without which companies cannot survive and families cannot buy homes.

Public spending that benefits the population and aids economic recovery must be sustained through more progressive taxation and cuts to spending of no public benefit: cancelling ID cards and the Trident replacement, and reducing military spending to the same share of our economy as Germany. This last step would cover the cost of servicing the debt from the bailout. Areas of the economy in near-total collapse, notably house building, need direct state intervention to restore investment. Labour should never have maintained Thatcher’s ban on local authorities building houses. And the government needs a courageous approach to climate change and the environment. We need taxes and incentives to cut traffic pollution and congestion, tough targets to cut emissions by the whole country and the vigorous promotion of energy saving (such as home insulation).

Part of that economic and green agenda must be a reorientation of Britain in the world, away from being the poodle of the US to a new relationship with the rising economies of Asia and Latin America.

Labour must change to survive, and that means credible policies to meet the huge challenges of the world. Ken Livingstone, New Statesman.

Hat Tip: Hagley Road to Ladywood.