The Sun

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A £2,000 penalty was imposed by the Electoral Commission because the pro-Union campaign did not provide receipts or invoices for £57,000 of expenditure.

The fine has been paid and the commission said it accepted the omissions were not deliberate.

The law requires receipts or invoices for all expenditure of more than £200.

Better Together was a designated lead campaigner in the Scottish independence referendum, with more significant resources and a higher profile than other campaign groups.

The Electoral Commission said it took into account that the responsible person for the organisation made efforts to provide further supporting documentation after the deadline for the report had passed.

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Labour's shadow equality minister Kate Osamor has withdrawn an advert for an unpaid intern blaming a "misunderstanding" in her office.

The position, in her Edmonton constituency office, will now be re-advertised with a £9.40 an hour salary.

"Kate does not believe in paying anyone less than the London Living Wage," a spokeswoman said.

Ms Osamor, who was promoted to Labour's front bench in Jeremy Corbyn's reshuffle, campaigns against low pay.

The original advertisement, on the W4MP jobs board, for a constituency intern, listed responsibilities including "community-based projects relating to the constituency", gathering and evaluating data and "general administrative support".

It asked for degree-level qualifications, "enthusiasm" and "commitment to the full duration of the role". The salary was listed as "expenses" and it was described as a "voluntary role".

The advert was withdrawn after Ms Osamor, who entered Parliament in May's general election, was accused of "hypocrisy" by Tanya De Grunwald, a campaigner for fair internships and founder of careers website Graduate Fog.

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Select Committee
Parliament

Crispin Blunt says that there seems to have been a misunderstanding of the situation in Libya and says "I challenge the idea that you can come to a country with an international prescription and impose it except at a fearful price".

Lord Hague responds that the choice is either to let the Libyans sort things out on their own, or you choose a more prescriptive approach. 

He says that the "sorry state of Libya today" is due to the Libyans being left to deal with things on their own.

US and UK newspapers gave widespread coverage to the debate in Britain on whether to issue a travel ban against US presidential contender Donald Trump.

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Select Committee
Parliament

Labour MP Yasmin Qureshi says she voted against military action in Libya at the time "because I foresaw exactly what would happen".

Ms Qureshi says "we just don't understand the Middle East and we should not be intervening militarily in these countries".

Lord Hague says that there was a "good exchange of views" in government on this issue, and says "it would be wrong to think that governments take these decisions without advice about what could go wrong, but you still at the end of that have to make a judgement and a decision".

He says that whilst he respects the other viewpoint his point of view is that "if you think slaughter is about to take place and you have the capability to do something then you should".

Select Committee
Parliament

Labour MP Mark Hendrick repeats the question that he asked of Mr Fox on whether the UK has any responsibility for Libya being in the state that it is in now.

Lord Hague responds that he still believes the choice to make the intervention was the right one.

"The responsibility for the state of Libya today rests with Colonel Gaddafi - in power for 40 years, with hollowed out institutions and no proper system of government under a tyrannical dictatorship," he says.

"The longer that went on the longer there was going to be an explosion - if he was still there today then next year or the year after there would be a revolution."

Select Committee
Parliament

Crispin Blunt asks Lord Hague about the transition to democracy in Libya.

"Was it conceivable for a country with no democracy, no politicians, and no civil society to become a functioning democracy in nine months?" he asks.

"Was it not a terrible misappreciation that we thought this?"

Lord Hague says "if it was a misappreciation then it was one that was shared with the Libyan leaders". He says that from his recollection the push for democracy came from within Libya rather than from the West.

Select Committee
Parliament

Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski joins his colleagues in asking whether Lord Hague still thinks that Libya is "in a terrible state today" and asks him what went wrong.

Lord Hague responds by saying "we have to be careful not to think that this is another Iraq".

"Unlike Iraq we did not have the power to implement them afterwards. In Iraq we had the power to implement but had no plans, in Libya we had plenty of plans but no power," he says.

Select Committee
Parliament

As former foreign secretary Lord Hague began giving evidence to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Conservative MP John Baron asked whether regime change was discussed during negotiations for the UN Security Council resolution.

Lord Hague said a UN resolution that explicitly called for regime change would not have been successful.

He said both the UK and the United States had been in favour of a resolution that allowed "all measures necessary" to protect civilians in Libya.

Select Committee
Parliament

Foreign Affairs Committee chair Crispin Blunt asked Dr Fox at the end of his evidence session what advice he would give on future decisions of a similar nature.

Dr Fox said his general advice would be to ask four questions:

•  What does a good outcome look like?
•  Is such a good outcome possible?
•  Do we have to part of the engineering of the  outcome?
•  How much of the aftermath do you want to own?

Mr Blunt asked Dr Fox whether he had this attitude at the time, to which the former defence secretary responded: "Experience does add a great deal."

A planned 48-hour strike by doctors has been suspended, the British Medical Association has said.

The decision comes as mediation service Acas talks continue this week between the BMA and the government on the junior doctor contract.

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Labour MP Mark Hendrick asked Dr Fox to explain to the Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry whether the UK was responsible for Libya being "effectively a failed state".

Dr Fox said the conflict in Libya would have been avoidable if Gaddafi had not threatened his own civilians.

He said the UN Security Council resolution was passed because "nobody wanted to see another Srebrenica".

Mr Hendrick asked why there was no proper post-conflict planning, especially after the experience of Iraq.

Dr Fox responded that "the aim was for the people of Libya to decide their own future and the UK was willing to put at the Libyan government's disposal any expertise that we had to help them".

During the Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry, Mr Blunt pressed Dr Fox to explain the direct aim of the intervention in Libya.

Dr Fox answered: "The aim was not to produce a political outcome - regime change or otherwise, but rather to protect civilians.

"Regime change was never the objective but it became very clear that at every opportunity the Gaddafi regime would continue to target civilians."

Mr Blunt rejected this by saying that David Cameron, President Obama and President Sarkozy had stated before the fall of the regime that Gaddafi "had to go".

The committee chair asks Dr Fox: "You're telling us that it was a surprise when the Gaddafi regime collapsed and we had no plans to deal with that?"

Select Committee
Parliament

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Former Defence Secretary Liam Fox and former Foreign Secretary Lord Hague are giving evidence to the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry into UK policy in Libya. Here's a bit of background...  

In January 2011, violent protests broke out in Libya, leading to a civil war.

The UN Security Council authorised a no-fly zone and air strikes to protect civilians. MPs voted overwhelmingly to support UN-backed action in Libya in March 2011.

In August 2011, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi went into hiding after his fortress in Tripoli was surrounded.

In October 2011, Colonel Gaddafi was captured and killed by rebel fighters in his hometown of Sirte. Since the unrest that toppled Muammar Gaddafi, Libya has had no single government with authority over the whole country.

The elected and internationally-recognised government has only tenuous control over the eastern region of Cyrenaica.

The government is challenged by an Islamist-led administration installed by parliament in Tripoli. Some elements of the two rival groups have signed up to a power-sharing deal but others remain opposed.

Militia groups, both jihadist and non-jihadist, operate across the country.

In September 2012, the US ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed by Islamist militants.

Select Committee
Parliament

Foreign Affairs Committee chair Crispin Blunt kicked off the inquiry by asking former defence secretary Liam Fox to explain why he felt that intervention in Libya was in the UK national interest.

Dr Fox said the view was taken that the potential threat to civilians in Benghazi warranted UN intervention and that British input was required to help our allies.

He explained that the main momentum for the intervention came from Paris rather than from London or Washington.

The Ministry of Defence and the military were "less keen" about large scale military involvement in Libya, Dr Fox said. 

The former defence secretary said there was "no real appetite" and a "careful reticence" by the military to get involved in another conflict, as the UK was already involved in Iraq and Afghanistan at the time.

Three chances were missed to prosecute late peer Lord Janner over sex abuse claims, UK independent inquiry finds.

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House prices across the UK accelerated in the year to November, rising 7.7%, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

In the year to October, prices increased by 7%.

The East of England continued to see the sharpest increase, at 10.2%, with London and the South East seeing rises of 9.8%.

Prices in Scotland and the North East of England saw the slowest growth, at just 0.4%, the ONS said, external.

The average cost of a home rose to £288,000, a new record.

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Labour is not trusted on the economy or leadership - and will not win an election until it addresses those issues, ex-minister Ben Bradshaw has said.

The Exeter MP made the claims in the Beckett report - the party's internal inquiry into its 2015 election loss, carried out by former Labour Cabinet minister Dame Margaret Beckett.

Mr Bradshaw has also called on pollsters to adjust their results by six per cent in favour of the Conservatives until they are prepared to spend more on their surveys.

He said the inaccurate 2015 polls "shaped the election campaign in a scandalous way" by focusing debate on the prospect of a hung parliament rather than policy.

In future "there should be far fewer polls but more accurate polls", he said, adding that until the companies were prepared to spend more they should add three per cent to every Conservative poll and take three per cent away from every Labour poll.

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The UK's inflation rate rose to an 11-month high in December, with a sharp rise in air fares offsetting falling food and clothing prices.

The rate as measured by the Consumer Prices Index rose to 0.2%, from November's 0.1%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said., external

It is the first time in a year that the rate has exceeded 0.1%, and the rise is higher than economists had expected.

Air fares jumped 46% in December, the biggest rise for 13 years.

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