On top of that many of the port towns have declined

“On top of that, many of the port towns have declined.”He said some coastal centres have actually lost direct rail links to London since 1913 – such as Barrow and Blackpool – while cities such as Plymouth had lost a coastal shipping route. One city, Middlesbrough, even lost both.Sir Peter said the rise of the inland suburban and country town was the most notable feature of the way the urban landscape had changed. “If you take middle-sized towns of about 150,000 people, they have done well in the south but badly in the north,” he said. He added that those cities that had established themselves as diverse industrial bases by the turn of the century, such as Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham, had been able to adapt to the shift from a manufacturing to a services economy. “For example, Leeds was already as focused on servicing as it was on manufacturing by the start of World War One,” he said.He said the real losers were those smaller industrial towns in the North that were unable to adapt.

“The question for the North is whether these minor industrial towns manage to find new roles as residential places,” he said. “Maybe they will have a role as commuter towns.”Sir Peter said there was now a premier league of 28 cities. They are Birmingham, Bradford, Brighton, Cambridge, Cardiff, Coventry, Derby, Exeter, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Northampton, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Plymouth, Reading, Sheffield, Southampton, York, Swansea, Stoke, Swindon and York.Evidence that this pattern is continuing has come from a separate survey published today indicating that the North was the only region to suffer an increase in the number of businesses going to the wall in the past year. Business Strategies, an independent consultancy, found that the annual tally of firms going bust in Britain had dropped this year by more than 2,500, or almost 6 per cent. In London the casualty rate dropped by more than a fifth – more than twice the rate of any other regions – to its lowest level for 10 years.Philip Mellor, senior analyst at Dun & Bradstreet, said: “The split between North and South must be a cause for concern, particularly if the economic climate begins to slow down.”. Do-it-yourself paternity testing kits are to face a clamp down by ministers with a new code of practice aimed at stopping cowboy DNA testing companies operating over the internet.

Do-it-yourself paternity testing kits are to face a clamp down by ministers with a new code of practice aimed at stopping cowboy DNA testing companies operating over the internet.
Ministers are expected to draw up plans for new government standards to outlaw DNA testing by fathers using samples from mothers and children which are not verifiable or gained with consent.Home DNA testing kits are now widely available on the internet for up to $300 and offer testing of paternity using cheek swabs or DNA tests using strands of hair.Most laboratory tests on DNA samples involve blood samples of the mother, child and alleged father. But do-it-yourself kits enable fathers to examine whether the child has their DNA in the living room using a kit sent in the post.But Ministers are concerned that people are being exploited and that “the interests of the child” are not being considered.There has been a sharp rise in the use of DNA testing to resolve disputes over paternity in the UK since the Child Support Agency began intervening to make absent fathers contribute financially to their children’s upbringing.The Department of Health is planning to instruct the Child Support Agency, which often uses DNA testing to confirm the identity of the father, to outlaw the use of paternity kits which do not meet the government’s new standards.A government source said: “There are some unscrupulous internet companies who are flogging paternity tests at inflated prices. The Department of Health wants to issue a new code on paternity testing to protect children from unscrupulous companies.”The move follows calls from MPs, including David Hinchliffe, chairman of the House of Commons Health select committee, for a ban on all home-testing kits.Mr Hinchliffe has questioned whether the test results from the kits are reliable. The kits compare the DNA of father and child, and sometimes the mother, to determine whether there is a genetic match.The Government’s code of practice will fall short of a complete ban on tests bought over the internet but is likely to outlaw results which use cheek and hair samples obtained without permission.The Government code is expected to ensure that a proper “chain of custody” of the DNA can be determined and that the results are verified or witnessed by an independent person. Ministers will also ensure that the DNA samples can be independently confirmed as genuine.. William Hague has launched an attack on high taxation and political correctness in a new year message which has set out a tax-cutting Tory agenda for the next election.

William Hague has launched an attack on high taxation and political correctness in a new year message which has set out a tax-cutting Tory agenda for the next election.
The Conservative leader put his party activists on standby for an election “only months away” and said a Tory government would introduce targeted tax cuts for “hard-pressed” families and small businesses.Mr Hague accused Labour of deciding to “fight the next election on its old high tax agenda”. By contrast, he said, the Tories would reduce tax for small businesses and “for the family struggling to cope with Labour’s stealth taxes”.”We will.. reform welfare and reduce bureaucracy,” he said “Tony Blair is promising more tax and more waste. This is a platform on which the Labour party has already fought and lost four elections.”Defeating political correctness and giving “support and dignity to pensioners” would also be key election issues for the Tories, he said. Mr Hague pledged that the Conservatives would stand up for marriage and protect the countryside and rural way of life.”The issues at stake at the next election could not be more important: the prosperity of hard-working families, the safety of our streets, the improvement of our schools and hospitals, the survival of our countryside, the future of our currency, and the independence of our nation,” he said.Mr Hague urged Conservative activists to “go out and win” the next general election. He said a general election in 2001 would offer a “real opportunity” for voters to elect a Tory government.But Charles Kennedy, leader of the Liberal Democrats, attacked the Conservatives and Labour for “endless point-scoring and yah-booing” in the run-up to an election which he said left the country “absolutely cold”. In his new year message, Mr Kennedy said Mr Hague would be a “disaster” for Britain, and that Tony Blair’s record as Prime Minister had been “disappointing”..

The people of Belgrade are preparing to spend New Year’s Eve in darkness. The new governments of Yugoslavia and Serbia are grappling with the latest legacy of the Milosevic era, the country’s worst energy crisis. The people of Belgrade are preparing to spend New Year’s Eve in darkness. The new governments of Yugoslavia and Serbia are grappling with the latest legacy of the Milosevic era, the country’s worst energy crisis.
In some areas, power cuts last 10 hours or more.