Osborne accused over sterling as Cameron calls on Letwin
George Osborne has been accused of lacking judgment in predicting a run on the pound. Labour aides and small businesses have accused him of talking down sterling, despite a convention that politicians do not predict currency collapses. And the Shadow Chancellor has suffered a second blow to his authority after Oliver Letwin was drafted in by David Cameron to draw up a package of spending cuts to be announced before Chancellor Alistair Darling gives his Pre-Budget Report. (Observer, Sunday Telegraph)
People: Osborne comes face to face with his nemesis Mandelson 
The Mole: Cameron urged to replace Osborne with Ken Clarke
Brown to give away billions
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has indicated that he will give away billions of pounds in tax cuts to lift Britain's recession-hit economy. Brown said the case for tax cuts was "unanswerable" and any fiscal stimulus will benefit mainly low-paid families through tax credits. Meanwhile, a YouGov poll for the Sunday Times shows that the Conservatives' lead over Labour has slumped to just five points, thanks largely to the Prime Minister's handling of the economic crisis. (Mail on Sunday, Sunday Times)
The Mole: will Brown be bounced into a spring election?
Was Baby P’s sister also abused?
A sister of Baby P, the 17-month-old boy who died at the hands of his mother, stepfather and a lodger while under the protection of Haringey social services, was allegedly seriously abused despite being on the council's 'at risk' register. An inquiry began last week into child protection in Haringey, but Sharon Shoesmith, head of children's services in the borough, says there is no need for resignations. Her job is in the balance, with Government ministers privately saying her position in untenable. (Sunday Times)
The Mole: Cameron gets bogged down in child abuse row
BBC fear licence fee ‘martyrs’
The BBC is failing to prosecute high-profile licence fee refuseniks for fear of creating a wave of 'martyrs'. Those who say they won't pay include television presenter Noel Edmonds, who objects to the "threatening" licence fee adverts and former Russian dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, who says the BBC's coverage of the European Union and Middle East is biased. Bukovsky claims not to have paid the licence fee since 2002 and has not been prosecuted. "It seems the BBC didn't want to walk into the trap and make me a martyr," he says. (Sunday Times)
Peregrine Worsthorne: Ross and Brand's humour isn't public service broadcasting
Ross and Brand saga brings out the loony in us
Let's have a better BBC
Medic hits out over donor plan
The Government's chief medical officer has hit out at the decision to ditch a reform to organ donation laws that would have meant doctors could use a dead patient's organs for transplants unless their family specifically objected. Professor Sir Liam Donaldson said the demand for organs would increase with an ageing population and advances in medical science allowing ovary and pancreatic transplants. (Observer)
Members of Prince Charles's inner circle are preparing the ground for him to break the monarch's traditional vow of silence when he is king. Jonathan Dimbleby, the prince's friend and biographer, says there are "discreet moves afoot" to allow Charles to speak out "on matters of national importance that at the moment would be unthinkable". (Sunday Times)
Prince Charles's egg-eating habits revealed
A Labour activist who stood as a parliamentary candidate has been revealed as a Czech spy. Cynthia Roberts worked for the country's communist government under the codename Agent Hammer, according to Czech security service documents. Roberts wrote a dossier on Margaret Thatcher and gave details of a British arms factory after moving to Prague in 1985. (Mail on Sunday)
The Litvinenko file
Boris Johnson (left), the mayor of London, is threatening legal action against the government if it approves the building of a third runway at Heathrow airport. The case would rest on the belief that the extra 220,000 flights a year it would allow would breach European Union laws on pollution. (Sunday Times)
Pros and Cons: A third runway at Heathrow
Huge waste mountains could be dumped in military bases under plans to protect Britain's recycling revolution from the economic downturn. Local authorities want to stockpile recyclable waste which cannot be sold in the current economic climate so that it can be sold when the market returns. (Observer)
The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is to outline plans this week to criminalise paying for sex with a woman "controlled for another's gain". The classification will cover the majority of Britain's 80,000 sex workers, including those who work for pimps. Smith also attacked the "bizarre" practice of City firms entertaining clients in lapdancing clubs. (Observer)
Sex and sleaze behind the facade
Pros and Cons: banning prostitution
In a landmark social development, the average earnings of black women in Britain now outstrip those of their white counterparts, according to government statistics. 'Black Caribbean' women earned an average £462 per week – six per cent more than white women – in the three months to October. (Sunday Times)
In pictures: black America's long journey
Wildfires have destroyed hundreds of homes in southern California, forcing thousands of people to escape to safety. Firemen reported street signs melting in the heat as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles after 111 homes were burnt down in the affluent Montecito community outside the city. (Observer)
In pictures: California burning - the 2007 wildfires
Barack Obama (left) is to endorse a peace plan for the Middle East, involving the recognition of Israel by Arab states in return for a withdrawal to the Jewish state's pre-1967 borders. The plan comes from a 2002 Saudi peace initiative and is backed by Tzipi Livni, the leader of Israel's ruling Kadima party. (Sunday Times)
Alexander Cockburn: what happened to the man of change?
Israeli army defends Palestinians from settlers
As Tibetans gather in Dharamsala, India this week for a six-day crisis meeting, the Dalai Lama is preparing to take a back seat role in the campaign to free Tibet from Chinese occupation. "He does not want to be a hindrance," said Tenzin Taklha, the Dalai Lama's spokesman, referring to the Tibetan leader's concern that China is trying to make the campaign for autonomy into "an issue about him". (Independent on Sunday)
In pictures: Tibetan protests
Barclays bosses will hold more meetings with shareholders this week in an effort to persuade them to support its proposal to raise £7bn from Middle Eastern investors. Shareholders complain the plans are too generous to the new investors, with the Association of British Insurers comparing the terms unfavourably with those offered to other banks by the UK Treasury. (Observer)
The First Post business pages
US private equity groups Oaktree Capital and Apax are vying with British venture capitalists 3i and Permira to take control, or a share, in ailing housebuilder Taylor Wimpey. The housing slump has left the company, which is worth £100m, struggling with £1.9bn in debts. (Observer)
America braced for the next mortgage crisis
More bad news for the Candy brothers
British carmakers are to make their first appeal for financial assistance from the government, asking for cheap loans to fund their finance arms and help restructure their manufacturing operations. Car sales fell 23 per cent in October, but car companies do not want to ask for subsidies and are keen not to be seen "holding out a begging bowl". (Sunday Telegraph)
A trillion reasons to be gloomy about the economy
Works of art worth thousands of pounds have gone missing from government collections in the past year. Five artworks, including prints by RB Kitaj, Michael Angelo Rooker and William Scott have 'disappeared' from British embassies and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London – although two are known to have been sold in error by the British embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan. (Sunday Telegraph)
The bubble bursts for the inflated art market
Sir Paul McCartney (left) has indicated he will release a 14-minute improvised track called Carnival of Light recorded by the Beatles at a London music festival in 1967. The piece, a cacophony of shrieks, psychedelic effects and strangled shouts from John Lennon, was described as too avant-garde by George Harrison. (Observer)
Book review: John Lennon, the life
People: McCartney gig prompts death threats
A campaign to raise £50m to save two Titian paintings from export risks preserving the "established" and praising the "gilded" at the expense of Britain's talented - but underfunded - art students, John Tusa, the chairman of the University of the Arts in London, and Nigel Carrington the university's new rector, have warned in a letter to the Observer. (Observer)
People: why is the duke selling his Titians?
Shadow Chancellor George Osborne (left) has had voice coaching lessons with a £100-an-hour Harley Street expert, in an effort to sound less posh and high-pitched. (Mail on Sunday)
Seventy-five guests, including actors Stephen Fry and Dame Judi Dench, attended an evening of comedy, organic food and music at Highgrove last night to celebrate Prince Charles's 60th birthday. (Sunday Times)
Vladimir Putin has promised Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber that he will vote for the British Eurovision Song Contest entry in next year's contest. (Sunday Telegraph)
A former estate manager at the British High Commission in Cape Town has accused Janet Boateng, wife of High Commissioner Paul Boateng, of falsely accusing her staff of stealing and calling South Africans "lazy workers who don't want to do their job". (Mail on Sunday)
Dame Helen Mirren (left) has suggested that female jealousy makes women jurors less likely to sympathise with rape victims and that lawyers defending men accused of rape prefer having female-dominated juries. (Sunday Times)
Sandra Howard, the wife of former Conservative leader Michael, has written a novel about a Muslim journalist who becomes a hero after a terrorist attack. She says she did all her research in bed during pillow talk with her husband. (Sunday Telegraph)
Sir David Manning, the foreign affairs adviser who helped Tony Blair prepare for war with Iraq, has become a non-executive director of Lockheed Martin, which supplied military hardware for the campaign. (Sunday Times)
Yitzhak Schochet, the rabbi of Lord Levy, has criticised the 'anti-Semitic' portrayal of the central character – said to be based on Levy - in David Hare's new play, Gethsemane.
(Sunday Telegraph)
Gethsemane - a footnote to Blair and Brown's legacy
Cabinet Office Minister Liam Byrne (left) has circulated a document to his staff, entitled 'Working with Liam Byrne', which details how they should treat him, down to the type of coffee he likes. (Sunday Times)
Harry Potter author JK Rowling has written a spin-off book called The Tales of Beedle the Bard. All profits from the book will go to her charity for eastern European orphans. (Mail on Sunday)
"I think Prince Harry would make a fantastic James Bond. He's suave and just a little bit dangerous… He's got everything it takes." - James Bond actor Daniel Craig. (Mail on Sunday)
"There's only one Bond and that's Sean Connery." – Prince Harry speaks to reporters on the red carpet at the premiere of Quantum of Solace. (Mail on Sunday)
Pippa Middleton (left), the younger sister of Kate, has split from Scottish aristocrat Billy More Nesbitt and is now going out diamond heir Simon Youngman. (Mail on Sunday)
A group of HBOS executives went on a drunken rampage at a luxury hotel
hosting their awards bash. One female staff member allowed coke to be
snorted from her belly-button before having sex with three colleagues.
The bankers also ruined a wedding party by banging on their bedroom
doors throughout the night.
(News of the World)
Sophie Anderton (left) has walked out on her millionaire lover, Ed Buxton, after discovering he was having a fling with their next-door neighbour, Antalya Nall-Cain, the daughter of Lord Brocket. The supermodel caught Buxton sneaking down the corridor of their apartment block to Nall-Cain's flat. (Sunday Mirror)
A man has accused I'm a Celebrity star Simon Webbe of leaving him homeless and on the brink of suicide after having an affair with his wife. Jill Demirel's husband discovered the affair when their five-year-old son pointed to a billboard picture of Webbe and said, "That's Mummy's friend, he gives her a cuddle."
(People)
Amy Winehouse launched into a rant over the intercom of her north London home when a fan rang the buzzer. She accused X-Factor judge Simon Cowell of being responsible for everything wrong in the world and asked of his fellow panellist Louis Walsh, "What's the shit that fool comes out with?" (News of the World)
Alexandra Burke has a secret half-brother after her father cheated on
her mother while she was pregnant with the X-Factor star. The
20-year-old, a favourite to win the talent show, refuses to talk about
or meet her brother. (News of the World)
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