1083

THE WEEKLY WORLD EDITION OF The Daily Telegraph AND The Sunday Telegraph

April 25 - May 1 2012 No. 1083

telegraph.co.uk/expat

The Telegraph

THERACEISONUnitedslip-upputstitlewithinreachofCity

SPORT PAGE 48

May under fire over Qatada appeal farce

Hire a hoodie Minister’s advice to solve youth jobs crisis :: NEWS PAGE 5

Happy returns Queen at the races as guns salute her 86th birthday :: NEWS PAGE 3

By Robert Winnett, Tim Ross and Christopher Hope BRITAIN is to provide another £10 billion to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) amid fears concerning the euro’s future — but MPs will be denied a vote on the decision, George Osborne said last Friday.

The Chancellor is braced for a political backlash against the move, which was condemned by some Conservative MPs, at a time of unprecedented public-spending cuts and a squeeze on family finances.

Hard on the heels of the IMF announcement, ministers were ordered to find another £16 billion of savings, again because of worries about the euro as well as the state of the economy.

Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, was due to announce on Monday that he was ordering departments to put aside 5 per cent of their current budgets, in addition to the spending cuts already set out.

Treasury officials are hoping that the move will reassure investors that the Coalition is keeping a tight grip on spending as economic uncertainty continues.

It is also intended to protect the Government’s reserve fund, which is kept to pay for unforeseen events such as a financial crisis, as the Labour government was forced to do three years ago.

This week, economic data will show whether Britain has entered recession for the second time in three years. Experts are predicting a fractional amount of growth at best. In a speech at the Institute for Fiscal Studies on Saturday, Mr Alexander warned that Britain’s large deficit remains a “clear and present danger to stability”.

“In an environment of economic uncertainty, with ongoing instability in the eurozone, the UK’s large deficit remains a crucial economic vulnerability. It remains a clear and present danger to stability,” he said.

Mr Osborne has repeatedly pledged not to use British money to bail out the euro. He is now facing accusations that the IMF loan is an indirect way of helping to prop up the beleaguered single currency.

Senior government sources said it

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MATTHEW

THE deportation of the radical cleric Abu Qatada descended into farce last week after a potential blunder by the Home Office allowed his lawyers to lodge a last-minute appeal that could extend his stay in Britain and derail attempts to remove him from the country.

Theresa May, the Home Secretary (above), ordered the rearrest and deportation of the extremist cleric on Tuesday morning last week,

believing that a time limit in which his lawyers could appeal against his removal had elapsed. But last Wednesday, to the surprise of the Government, officials at the European Court of Human Rights said the deadline was 24 hours later and that it had received an appeal application from Mr Qatada’s legal team with an hour to spare.

Full report: Page 3

Fraudster The rise and fall of a former Wickes cashier :: NEWS PAGE 13

‘I won’t have to eat a pasty, will I ?’ Tory ministerial aides threaten to quit over Lords reform

Report: Page 5