A £34 billion (€49.13bn) boost for schools, as British Chancellor Gordon Brown vowed to make “excellence in education” his priority, was one of the key planks of yesterday’s budget.

Australian MPs passed a number of tough new counter-terror laws today that opponents warned would sweep away civil liberties.

Swift co-ordinated action by the British government along with police and Muslim leaders avoided an anti-Muslim backlash after the deadly July London bombings, says a report published by the European Union’s anti-racism monitoring centre.

Leisure group Hilton sounded a confident note about its future today despite first-half profits at its hotels in the UK and Ireland falling by more than a fifth.