Norfolk Shooting: Councillor And Wife Dead

A man and a woman found dead outside their Norfolk home were council leader Keith Johnson and his wife Andrea, according to reports.

Mr Johnson, 58, was a Conservative councillor for North Norfolk District Council and was a familiar face in the local area.

The couple were both found with gunshot wounds near their home in Compit Hills in Roughton, near Cromer, on Sunday.

They have not yet been formally identified.

Police were called to a bungalow at 2.50pm on Sunday after reports of gunshots.

A spokesman from Norfolk Constabulary said they found the body of a woman in her early 40s, in the front garden, and the body of a man in his late 50s, in a nearby back garden.

Detectives are not looking for anybody else in connection with the incident.

North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb said he was "deeply shocked" by the news.

"I've known Keith for some years through his work on the council and we both attended the wedding of a mutual friend a few years ago," he said.

"We've always been on very good terms despite the fact I'm Lib Dem and he was a Conservative.

"I didn't know Andrea beyond seeing them both at civic events but she was always good for a friendly chat.

"I share the community's sense of disbelief and my heart goes out to all of their family and friends."

The couple have been described by their local newspaper as "prominent and much-loved" figures in their community.

Mr Johnson was also a former Cromer mayor and a long-serving member of both the district and town council.

He was elected as council leader earlier this year, had helped organise the town's Christmas market, launched at the weekend as part of a series of festive events.

On Friday he attended the opening of a Waitrose store in nearby North Walsham.

Mr Johnson's close friend, Benji Cabbell-Manners told the Eastern Daily Press of his "terrible shock" at hearing the news.

Detective Superintendent Peter Hornby, who is leading the inquiry into the deaths, said: "Whilst I understand this is a very shocking incident for the neighbours of the two people involved, I can reassure them that, at this stage, we are not looking for anyone else in connection with it."

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M1 Crash: Two Men Killed And Motorway Closed

Two men have been killed in a crash on the M1 which forced the closure of a section of the motorway.

The collision between two black BMW cars happened shortly before 2.40am on the southbound carriageway between junctions four and five, near Watford in Hertfordshire.

One of the drivers and his front seat passenger were killed, while another two men travelling in the same car were taken to St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, central London, with "serious injuries", a Hertfordshire Police spokeswoman said.

Two men who were in the other BMW are being treated in Watford General Hospital, although their injuries are not thought to be life-threatening, she added.

An investigation is now under way to determine the cause of the crash, which resulted in the closure of five junctions of the motorway in both directions.

The northbound carriageway has since reopened but southbound between junctions four and five - Edgware to Watford - is expected to remain closed until at least mid-morning.

Drivers have been advised to use the A1, A40 or M40.

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EastEnders' Rita Simons Accused Over Deaf Op

An EastEnders star who wants her deaf six-year-old daughter to have an operation to help her hear says she has been accused of abusing the child.

Rita Simons, who plays Roxy Mitchell in the BBC soap, said she and her husband, Theo Silveston, have encountered "extraordinary" hostility making the decision.

Their daughter Maiya, who has a twin sister Jaimee with perfect hearing, will undergo a cochlear implant operation to give her hearing in both ears.

Simons told Hello! magazine the hostility "comes mainly from people who firmly believe that deafness should be embraced rather than treated as a physical deficiency that should be corrected".

EastEnder Rita Simons speaks out in the latest edition of Hello! magazine

She said: "I totally respect their point of view. But when a 19-year-old girl told me that I was an 'abuser' to let my child have a cochlear implant, I was horrified and deeply hurt.

"I would throw myself in front of a bus for my girls, and yet I was being judged by someone who didn't know me or understand my emotional stance at all."

Simons said she wanted to treat Maiya, who featured with her in a BBC documentary about deafness, the same way as Jaimee.

She told the magazine: "We've brought Maiya up as a hearing child, and she attends the same mainstream school as her twin sister.

"She was born with some hearing; when that goes completely it will leave a void in her life and she will miss it.

"All we want to do is give her back what she has lost and help to expand her life.

"If you've got the opportunity to give your child the gift of sound, why would you not do that?"

Simons added: "We know it's not a miracle cure and her hearing won't be perfect.

"But, in time her brain will process what it is hearing and compensate, making sounds more familiar to her."

:: Read the full interview in Hello! Magazine out now.

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Hospitals 'Full' And Putting Patients At Risk

By Tom Parmenter, Sky News Correspondent

Hospitals in England are "full to bursting" and putting patients at risk, a review by a health watchdog has said.

The Dr Foster Hospital Guide 2012 found emergency admissions are rising and inefficient hospitals are struggling to cope.

The recommended bed occupancy level for hospitals is 85% but the analysis suggests most trusts operate closer to 90% for the vast majority of the year.

The report points out that quiet times of the year such as weekends and bank holidays distort the true strain on services.

Roger Taylor, co-founder of Dr Foster, told Sky News: "A large number of hospitals in the UK for quite a lot of the time are operating at levels of occupancy between 95-100%.

"These are levels where it is really really difficult to give patients the quality of care you would like to."

Almost a third of hospital beds, Dr Foster found, were occupied by patients who didn't really need to be there.

Mr Taylor said: "3% of all hospital beds are occupied by people whose only diagnosis is dementia.

"These are people who have not been able to get the care in the community and as a result have ended up in A&E and put into a hospital bed - they really shouldn't be there."

In response to the research Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: "NHS mortality rates are low, but we want them to be the lowest in Europe.

"This data can help the NHS to spot and act on poor care more quickly. We expect all hospitals and regulators to examine this data carefully and take action wherever services need to improve."

Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust was named Dr Foster's Trust of the Year for providing good quality and efficient care for patients.

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Winter Weather As Snow Hits Northern UK

Snow is continuing to fall across the north of the UK, with up to 10cm settling across the high mountains overnight.

Glasgow and Edinburgh have seen up to 5cm fall overnight, with up to 4cm settling in Teesside and County Durham.

The mountains in Cumbria, Northumbria and parts of Scotland have been decorated with a blanket of 10cm of snow.

Sky's weather presenter Isobel Lang said: "Winter started on December 1 and the weather has become more seasonal.

"In fact it looks set to stay that way with a continued threat of frost, ice and snow.

"Even looking ahead towards Christmas the rather cold and wintry story continues."

And the rest of this week is bound to be frosty, said Lang.

"On Tuesday colder north winds will bring in more widespread snow showers across northern and eastern Scotland, with these spreading across hillier parts of eastern England on Wednesday," she said.

"During Thursday another Atlantic frontal system is set to sweep east bringing in more persistent rain, preceded again by a period of snow."

Frozen flood water at York Racecourse, North Yorkshire, on Sunday

Further south, including Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, escaped the snowfall but were greeted with rain and very cold temperatures instead.

Eastern England shivered in temperatures dipping to -4C and it dropped to -7C in western Scotland.

But hasn't been cold all over Britain - areas of Cornwall and west Wales enjoyed far warmer highs of 11C.

The extreme weather in parts of the UK caused signal failures on transport, meaning delays for passengers on Sunday.

The big chill comes just days after severe flooding hit Britain, from which many areas are still recovering.

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Open Prison Fugitive Arrested By Police

Fugitive Ivan Leach, who absconded from an open prison, has been found by police in Camden, north London.

The 47-year-old had been on the run from North Sea Camp open prison in Boston, Lincolnshire since October 9.

Police arrested him on suspicion of a number of offences this morning in the Camden area, Scotland Yard said.

Leach, also known as Lee Cyril, was wanted for questioning about a rape in Scotland committed while police hunted for him.

On October 15, a woman was woken and raped by an intruder in her home in Perth, and the following day a mattress was stolen from her home.

Leach, from Preston, was jailed in 2005 for robbing a 90-year-old woman in her home in the city.

He was given a life sentence with a minimum tariff of five years.

Leach is currently in custody in a north London police station.

Police had warned people not to approach the fugitive under any circumstances.

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First Text Was Sent To A Mobile 20 Years Ago

By Richard Suchet, Sky News Reporter

Monday marks 20 years since the first text message was sent to a mobile phone.

The first SMS was sent on December 3, 1992, when a 22-year-old British engineer called Neil Papworth - an employee of the technology company Sema - used his computer to send the message "Merry Christmas" to an Orbitel 901 mobile phone.

Texting has now surpassed the traditional phone call as the most common method of staying in touch.

Speaking to Sky News, Mr Papworth said he never envisaged that texting would be so popular.

"Back then I had no idea - I was just doing a day's testing. It wasn't until the 10th anniversary that I realised and thought 'Wow, that was a big thing'.

"And here we are another 10 years later and text messaging has gone on to even bigger and better things now."

According to figures released by Ofcom, more than 150 billion texts were sent in the UK last year, almost triple the amount sent five years ago.

Its most prolific users are 12 to 15-year-olds, who send an average of 193 texts every week, almost four times as much as the UK average.

In fact, most of us are now more likely to text a friend than to pick up the phone or have a face-to-face conversation with them.

But the first half of 2012 saw two quarterly declines in the volume of SMS messages sent in the UK.

The drop is being put down to the meteoric rise in web-based communications - many of which are freely available on smartphones and tablets - like WhatsApp, Blackberry Messenger (BBM), iMessenger, Google Talk and MSN Messenger.

An increase in communication through social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook is also thought to be having an impact.

SMS stands for Short Messaging Service and a message is traditionally under 160 characters in length.

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Weather: Snow Continues As Mercury Plunges

Weather forecasters are warning of more snowfall in parts of England and Scotland, as Britons continue to shiver in below-freezing temperatures.

Overnight temperatures dropped to -6C in many parts of the country, from central Scotland through to Cumbria and Buckinghamshire.

Many areas will see up to 3cm of snow, while 15cm is predicted to fall in the Scottish mountains.

Sky News weather producer Jo Wheeler said there would be "significant snowfall" in the Scottish mountains and the Pennines later.

She said: "There is also the possibility of seeing between 1cm and 3cm of rain, even at lower levels for parts of the East and North East."

Many areas are likely to see about 3cm of snow

Edinburgh, the Pennines, the Peak District, County Durham, Yorkshire, Norfolk and East Anglia are all expected to be affected.

The Met Office has issued a low-level severe weather warning across most of Scotland, north and east England, and north Wales, because of the freezing temperatures and snowfall.

"Following showers of rain, sleet and snow on Saturday, ice is expected to form on untreated surfaces on Saturday evening and persist well into Sunday morning. Further wintry showers are likely to affect eastern coastal counties through the night.

"The public should be aware of possible disruption to travel."

The Met Office believes the freezing temperatures will last into next week, possibly followed by more snow.

The white start to the month has been enough to prompt record numbers of punters to place bets on snow falling on Christmas Day.

According to bookmakers Ladbrokes, more money had been staked on a white Christmas on Saturday than by any other December 1 in its history.

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Starbucks Tax Backlash: Firm Pledges Action

Starbucks has announced it is reviewing its tax affairs after a public backlash over the low amount of tax the US company pays in the UK.

The Seattle-based company reportedly paid just £8.6m in corporation tax in 14 years of trading in Britain.

It recently revealed it paid no corporation tax for the past three years, despite sales of £1.2bn in the UK.

Now, the coffee chain has revealed it is in talks with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Treasury over its tax affairs as part of a bid to "build public trust".

"Starbucks is committed to the UK for the long term and we have invested more than £200m in our UK business over the past 12 years," the statement said.

"Starbucks has complied with all the tax laws in this country but has regretfully not been as profitable as we would have liked.

"We have listened to feedback from our customers and employees, and understand that to maintain and further build public trust we need to do more.

"As part of this we are looking at our tax approach in the UK.

"The company has been in discussions with HMRC for some time and is also in talks with the Treasury."

The firm is one of many multinationals to have the amount of tax they pay in the UK put under the spotlight.

Starbucks operates more than 700 stores in the UK

Chancellor George Osborne is set to address the issue in his Autumn Statement on December 5.

On Sunday Mr Osborne announced extra investment to help clamp down on the multinational companies' tax avoidance.

Last month, the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is charged with monitoring government financial affairs, questioned senior executives from Starbucks, Google and Amazon on why they pay so little tax in the UK while racking up millions of pounds' worth of sales.

"I assure you we are not making money," Troy Alstead, the chief financial officer of Starbucks, told the committee.

"It's very unfortunate. We're not at all pleased about our financial performance here. It's fundamentally true everything we are saying and everything we have said historically."

His comments came despite operating more than 700 UK stores and employing nearly 8,500 people, along with plans to employ another 6,000 staff and open 300 outlets.

Companies are able to sidestep the taxman legally by conducting different operations in different countries, and constructing complex global frameworks that allow them to move money through offshore subsidiaries and locations.

The three leading US companies and their corporate tax rates

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George Osborne Takes On The Tax Avoiders

Little Christmas Cheer From Osborne

Updated: 1:01pm UK, Sunday 02 December 2012

By Peter Spencer, Political Correspondent

Borrowing costs up, growth forecasts down. Little wonder, then, that George Osborne's Autumn Statement will look more like January's credit card bills than Santa's stocking.

And there's a rare degree of unanimity across Fleet Street about what form the nasty fiscal news will take.

This seems to point to behind-the-scenes briefings of a kind Lord Leveson would like to outlaw.

But for now it's everywhere.

The expectation is that George Osborne will announce tax rises on the pension pots of the wealthiest AND a freeze on many benefits.

It's also predicted there'll be a lowering of the annual limit of tax relief on pension contributions from £50,000 to £30,000. Alongside this, it seems, we can expect a freeze on out-of-work benefits.

However, any form of mansion tax - or splitting council tax bands - is likely to be ruled out. That's a battle the Lib Dems have lost.

A battle that Tory backbenchers appear to have won, by contrast, is agreement to delay the 3p per litre rise in fuel duty planned for January.

While that last one will come as some comfort for many, the overall picture is bleak.

No surprise there, given that economic experts from the Independent Office for Budget Responsibility to the Governor of the Bank of England agree that unless the Chancellor's prepared to let his debt reduction target slip further into the future, he has no choice but to make himself deeply unpopular.

Though he knows this as well as anyone, he's sticking doggedly to his script.

Speaking to The Sun On Sunday, he said: "We are still all in this together. Everyone must make a contribution to dealing with our debts, from the richest in our society to those living a life on benefits.

"The road ahead may be longer than we thought, but it leads to a better future. Let's have the courage to stay the course."

Labour say that course is made that desperately more uphill and potholed by HIS actions. Trying to cut the deficit too far and too fast.

But they know that if THEY'D won the election there'd still have had to be deeply unpopular austerity measures following the economic meltdown of 2008.

Governments across Europe have been falling like dominoes for precisely that reason.

But, in the short term at least, Mr Osborne's offering will be judged on the basis of fairness. Or otherwise.

Research by the consumer group Which? suggests that almost one in four UK households are already feeling "financially squeezed".

For them at least, any talk from the Treasury of discomfort (that favourite doctor's euphemism) will mean what it really means. Pain.

Which is why, for the Chancellor, the political stakes this week could hardly be higher.

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