Former Conservative cabinet minister Lord Tebbit has said there "may well" have been a political cover-up over child abuse taking place at Westminster in the 1980s.

A plot to assassinate the former British ambassador to Afghanistan was foiled, the UK’s current representative in Kabul has said.

A bomb blast killed three Nato troops in western Afghanistan today, a day after six service members died in a spate of attacks by insurgents in the east and south.

AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai urged citizens to vote in today’s parliamentary election, despite a Taliban threat warning people not to leave their homes and violence on the eve of the ballot.