JACK McConnell was thrown back on the defensive in the Kirsty Wark holiday row last night after a survey by The Scotsman cast doubt on his claims over the true cost of the New Year break.

GEOFF Hoon, the Defence Secretary, yesterday came under fire after announcing that another of the Scots regiments he plans to scrap is being sent to Iraq.

AS we grow ever richer we are not declaring ourselves happier, causing economists to look at new ways of gauging progress, writes Bill Jamieson.

WHEN a £57,500-a-year salary is on the line, it is amazing how many MPs can turn on both men in their party. Yesterday in the lobby, where all MPs are granted anonymity, their frankness was startling.

JACK McConnell last night turned on Lord Fraser, the Tory peer in charge of the Holyrood Inquiry, as the bitter row over the so-called Villagate controversy escalated.

KIRSTY Wark's production company was awarded an £80,000 contract by the Scottish Executive in the same month that Jack McConnell and Wark first went on holiday together, it emerged last night.

BENJAMIN HOLIDAY, 23, faced magistrates in Hull yesterday accused of the murder of pregnant mother-of -five Tina Stevenson, 31, on 5 January.

BRITISH Airways was yesterday accused of being "family unfriendly" by one of its pilots after the firm refused her a part-time contract following the birth of her child.

A SEX attacker who targeted a nursing student as she went to read her Bible at a quiet beauty spot was informed on by his former girlfriend after a TV appeal to catch the assailant.

CREMATORIA have been ordered to halve the amount of toxic mercury released into the atmosphere from tooth fillings.

MORE than 450 Britons are now thought to have been killed by the Indian Ocean tsunami, Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said yesterday as he unveiled plans to boost aid to flood-ravaged countries by 50 per cent.

LOYALIST terrorist Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair was released from prison in Northern Ireland yesterday and immediately flown to the north of England by military helicopter.

PUNTERS appear to have come out on top for once, according to bookmakers who claim they missed out on millions of pounds last year because of a massive run of winning bets.

THE number of cleaners in the NHS has almost halved over the past 20 years, playing a part in the rise of hospital superbugs, the government conceded yesterday.

A CONMAN is facing jail after admitting tricking his way into Windsor Castle by posing as a senior police officer accompanying close friends of Princes William and Harry.

TONY Blair will this week tie Gordon Brown to a radical New Labour reform agenda - while imposing silence on the Chancellor as he attempts to raise his own profile during a tour of Africa.