IT STARTED in 1929, with a simple request for a penny-a-day allowance for the upkeep of a cat to control the Home Office's rodent population.

A WOMAN of 96 was unveiled yesterday as one of the new faces of an advertising campaign for toiletries

SCOTTISH football legend Jim Baxter, The Beatles guitarist George Harrison and the morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse have officially joined the ranks of the most influential Britons in history.

PRINCE William went fox hunting yesterday, just six weeks before the ban on hunting with hounds comes into effect in England and Wales.

A RAPID fall in house prices is the biggest threat to the UK economy this year, economists have warned.

A 27-YEAR-OLD man arrested over the murder of pregnant teenager Amy Williams was released without charge yesterday.

MINISTERS last night insisted they had no plans to introduce random drug tests for Scots pupils after an English school became the first in the UK to introduce the controversial measure.

THE founder of Waterstone's, the bookshop chain, has accused its managers of taking it down-market and said he may try to buy it back for a second time.

BRITAIN is suffering from an "epidemic" of alcohol-related problems and should think twice about relaxing licensing restrictions, the Royal College of Physicians warned yesterday.

EVER wondered where's the best place to sit to catch the morning sun at Lord's? Where the ticket touts will be drinking during the British Lions tour to New Zealand? Or did you know that your supermarket is probably the

THERE are a number of ways to donate money to help those affected by the disaster.

ALEXANDER McCall Smith, the author, has given his support to The Scotsman's donation to the tsunami disaster by offering to donate fees for his daily novel, 44 Scotland Street.

THE army secretly recorded all recruits with "Asiatic or Negroid features" as part of a policy of "quota restrictions" on non-whites that lasted for almost two decades, according to official files made public today.

A FATHER-of-two admitted yesterday that he sent a string of hoax e-mails to friends and relatives of people missing after the tsunami disaster in South-east Asia telling them their loved ones were dead.

THREE Britons were killed in a bomb blast in Baghdad yesterday, as militants launched a series of attacks across Iraq.

WOMEN will not have to pay more for car insurance, after the European Commission dropped a proposal aimed at ending sex discrimination.

PLATFORMRECENTLY, two former heads of the UK civil service, Lords Butler and Armstrong, expressed concern about the style of government in Britain today.

A MAIN plank of the Scottish Executive's fight against crime was discredited yesterday by an official report from the Home Office.

ONE-hundred-and-ninety-nine Britons, up to 20 of them children, are now believed to have perished in the Asian tsunami disaster, it was revealed yesterday.