Mr Gordon Brown is prepared to campaign actively for Mr Tony Blair, whom he replaced as Prime Minister, to be the first permanent president of the European Council of the European Union, Downing Street said. Mr David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, had said earlier that Mr Blair would be a good candidate because ‘we need someone who, when he or she lands in Beijing or Washington or Moscow, the traffic does need to stop’. Sir Christopher Kelly, the Chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, told party leaders the outline of his report on MPs’ expenses, to be published next week, and shortly afterwards there was a leak of his recommendations that MPs should no longer be able to claim for mortgage payments on second homes or to employ spouses as secretaries. The Communication Workers Union pondered more strikes after talks with the Royal Mail at the Trades Union Congress headquarters near the British Museum.
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