General Motors has a 10pm deadline to respond to the improved offer for the Swedish firmShares in Spyker Cars, the Dutch car manufacturer, soared by more than 25% this morning after it made a new attempt to take control of Saab.Luxury vehicle-maker Spyker presented an improved offer for Saab yesterday, and gave parent company General Motors until 10pm GMT tonight to respond.Spyker shares jumped €0.47 to €2.18 (£1.93) this morning on the Netherlands stock market.Victor Muller, chief executive of Spyker, said last night the new offer addressed all the stumbling blocks that emerged last week in its earlier talks with GM."We have made every effort to resolve the issues that were preventing the conclusion of this matter and we have asked GM and all other involved parties to seriously...

ToryDiary: David Willetts wants students to rate their lecturers and courses on a website for university applicants Clive Aslet on Platform: Labour has done its best to ruin British agriculture - and by no means should we be relying on food imports from overseas Parliament: Michael Gove challenges Ed Balls over his appointment of new Children's Commissioner for England Nick Seaton in Local Government: The Cambridge Review of primary education is long-winded, ambiguous and too "progressive" even for Labour ministers CentreRight:Matthew Sinclair: The roads are key to keeping Britain moving David T Breaker: Will Klaus sign the Lisbon Treaty? WATCH: Andy McNab and Simon Weston feature among veterans in a new campaign video attacking the BNP for cynically exploiting the sacrifices of...

• MDC to consult public on whether to stay in cabinet• We want partners who are sincere, PM tells presidentMorgan Tsvangirai, the prime minister of Zimbabwe, took a new tough stance against President Robert Mugabe yesterday, warning: "You misjudge me at your peril." Tsvangirai said he would consult the public on whether the fraught unity government was still tenable.His hard line came as the first European Union delegation to visit Zimbabwe since 2002 said that targeted sanctions would not be lifted until the political rivals had resolved their differences.Tsvangirai, addressing a rally to mark the 10th anniversary of his party, the Movement for Democratic Change, insisted that he would no longer tolerate violations of the power sharing agreement by Mugabe's Zanu-PF party."I am not...

Sweden calls on the European Union to take the lead in fighting climate change despite facing the worst economic downturn since the...

Stephen Timms MP, Labour’s Financial Secretary to the Treasury, today pushed back against George Osborne’s criticism of the temporary VAT cut and claims of “bankrupting Britain”, saying: “Alongside countries around the world, we have injected a £20bn fiscal stimulus to help the economy. We are providing real help by cutting income tax, providing extra money for pensioners and children, helping businesses, cutting VAT and supporting people worried about repossession. “In contrast to the Do Nothing Tory Party who are still opposing any real help”. The war of words echoes the gulf between Labour and the Conservatives over the economic downturn which is widely seen to be the main reason the Conservatives have recently lost a 20-point lead in the...

Sunday*:The striking thing about Doctor Who's thirtieth season is that it's really worth a second view.After the series ended, I was somehow left with the impression that it had rather gone off the boil somewhere; distant memory said there was a terrific opening that just trailed away.Watching it again, all in a row, I discovered not just that that terrific opening really was amazingly terrific, but that the concluding stories build towards a (potentially) amazing climax.The only possible conclusion from this is that "Journey's End" wasn't as bad as I thought it was… it was worse: the crushing get-out-of-jail-free non-regeneration was such a huge let down, betrayal even, that it completely distorted my recollection of the preceding episodes.It can't be understated just how good are...

This August London is hosting the International Gay and Lesbian Football Association's World Championship. The final is to take place this Saturday at Leyton Orient FC in east London and the British team, Stonewall FC, which won the European Gay Football Championship last month, is strongly tipped to win. The world title event has the official backing of the Football Association.Forty teams from all over the world are competing (32 male and eight female); representing the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Uganda, Ireland, Iceland, Denmark, South Africa, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Japan and Australia.The qualifying matches are played in Regent's Park and the finals at Leyton Orient's league ground, the Matchroom Stadium, on Saturday 30 August.The Opening...

The New York Review of Books for February 14 2008 carries an article of more than 4,000 words by Tony Judt, adapted from a lecture he gave in Bremen last year on being awarded the Hannah Arendt prize. Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem is a work that no serious student of the fate of European Jewry under the Nazis can bypass, and it is therefore entirely appropriate that Judt should centre these reflections of his - 'The "Problem of Evil" in Postwar Europe' - on the ways in which the Shoah or Holocaust (I use the two expressions interchangeably) is remembered and written about today. The general tenor of what he has to say on the subject is regrettable, however. Because Tony Judt's is a name that is respected in the academic world and beyond, I take the space I need here to subject his essay...

I could comfortably fill at least a couple of SAS Radio podcasts just with bands feeling their way into the world via Labrador Records of Sweden, if providing three quarters of an hour of thoroughly enjoyable tunes was the only objective. Of course, to do so would make it difficult for me to explain that I wasn't in receipt of some kind of substantial kickback from the deep pockets of Labrador's executives; moreover, Labrador Records has a certain sound - a lovely one, it is true, but its boundaries are set relatively close together, making it an excellent place to visit rather than a place you'd always want to live.Self-confessedly twee, the bands on Labrador don't make much of a disguise of the fact that they've been listening to a lot of Smiths, Belle & Sebastian and probably...