Climate Change Has Effect On UK Health

Hay fever sufferers could be facing an extra six weeks of the pollen season, according to a new report on the health effects of climate change on the UK.

Global warming will cause earlier flowering and enable new species to grow in the UK. Pollen is also getting more potent, packing more allergen into each grain.

The report, from the Health Protection Agency (HPA), analyses a wide range of risks including killer heatwaves, increased flooding, greater food poisoning and new infectious diseases carried by mosquitoes.

"There is no doubt that climate change poses a wide range of challenges to public health in the UK," said David Heymann, chairman of the HPA.

Consultation Launched On Divorce Laws

Divorce laws in England and Wales are so "incomplete and uninformative" that judges receive no guidance about the fairest way to divide a couple's property, the Law Commission has said.

Judges get no proper guidance on whether to divide a couple's assets equally or according to each partner's needs, and there are no proper rules on how to divide belongings accumulated before the marriage began, the organisation cautions.

There is also no legal definition of what constitutes the financial needs of a spouse or clarity about the extent to which divorcees must carry on supporting one another.

Highlighting fundamental flaws at the heart of the family courts system, the Law Commission is launching a consultation on Tuesday on the reforms necessary to improve outdated regulations.

Iannucci Calls On BBC To Fight Back Against Critics

The Thick Of It creator Armando Iannucci has called on the BBC to fight back against its critics in parliament and the press.

Iannucci, whose acclaimed Westminster satire returned to BBC2 last Saturday night, said British television felt "disarmed and confused" because of "consistent cack-handed interference by politicians goaded by the press".

Delivering the annual Bafta Lecture in London's Piccadilly, entitled "Fight, fight, fight", Iannucci railed against politicians and press barons trying to influence what we see on the small screen.

"Governments whether right or left have become commissioners in chief, nudging and cajoling networks into preferred business models without the slightest sensitivity or awareness of what the public wants or the TV industry is capable of," said Iannucci.