New Chemical History

Latest news and comment from Britain | guardian.co.uk

Tax errors hit 6 million people

author: David Batty, Phillip Inman-{ts '2010-09-04 09:59:57'}

Tony Blair pelted with eggs at book signing

author: Henry McDonald-{ts '2010-09-04 16:04:00'}

New blow for Gove as only 20 'free schools' approved

author: Nicholas Watt-{ts '2010-09-03 20:30:49'}

Doctors call for David Kelly inquest

author: David Batty-{ts '2010-09-04 12:22:32'}

It's in employers' interests to care about stressed staff | Ben Wakeling

author: Ben Wakeling-{ts '2010-09-04 10:00:52'}

Instead of simply disciplining underachieving staff, employers could benefit from finding out what's really going on

On 10 September, the European Work Hazards Network conference will be held in Leeds, where health and safety representatives and managers from across Europe will gather to review and discuss the risks facing employees of all industries in today's marketplace. They will deal with protective equipment, the obligation for employers to provide a safe working environment, and the effective management of employee safety. It is probable – if not certain – that, at some point, the issue of stress in the workplace will be raised.

Let's begin with a few sums. Take your average professional, and assume that they start their career at the tender age of 18 and work until the ripe old age of 65, plugging away Monday to Friday from 9 to 5 – we'll discount holidays, as things will get messy and maths isn't my forte. This means that Joe Bloggs spends just under a quarter of his working life under the guidance and rule of his employers. Take eight hours a day for sleeping out of the equation, and the proportion rises to over a third.

As a result, our working lives contribute hugely to who we are, and – most importantly – our welfare. Many can empathise with the fact that hundreds of thousands of employees find themselves stressed at work: 415,000 of us to be exact, if Labour Force Survey figures for 2008-09 are to be believed.

It is well documented that stress can lead to complications in health. Studies have shown that increased stress in the workplace can lead to a range of complications such as absenteeism, job dissatisfaction, and difficulty in making routine decisions. These symptoms manifest themselves through decreased productivity, or behaviour that is deemed unsuitable or inappropriate by an employee's superiors. Disciplinary action against the individual will often follow.

Is it enough for employers to simply react to an employee's misdemeanours, or should they dig a little deeper? Do they owe it to that member of staff to try and discern why he or she is exhibiting low productivity? Merely disciplining an employee without looking for the root cause of their problems leaves them confused and angry, left alone to work out their issues with little to no support from those with whom they spend so much time. It will come as no surprise that perceived workplace injustice also leads to unhealthy behaviours such as smoking and drinking excessively, risking an exacerbation of the issues that the individual is experiencing.

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, all employers have a duty of care towards their employees: that is, they must ensure that the workplace environment is free from hazards to an employee's mental and physical health. But no laws mention anything about emotional care. However, looking after an employee instead of merely disciplining them in the event of poor behaviour has benefits for the employers as well: working with the problematic member of staff to resolve issues and difficulties, instead of simply terminating their employment, will save thousands of pounds. The average cost for recruiting a new member of staff begins at £5,000, increasing with the seniority of the position. Other employees will recognise and appreciate their manager's interest in their wellbeing, with the result of a boost in morale, leading in turn to a high level of productivity. The effects can be reversed when a struggling employee is dismissed by employer who is seen to be aloof to an individual's problems, with morale slumping and productivity waning.

Maybe employers owe it to themselves to take a keener interest in the emotional welfare of their employees; not prying into personal lives, but simply taking the time to check every now and then that an employee is happy. At the very least, employers should recognise the fact that they are an important influence in the lives of their staff, and actively seek to establish if there are any underlying reasons for an individual's problems at work. It's a win-win situation.

Stephen Hawking's big bang gaps | Paul Davies

author: Paul Davies-{ts '2010-09-04 07:30:52'}

The laws that explain the universe's birth are less comprehensive than Stephen Hawking suggests

Cosmologists are agreed that the universe began with a big bang 13.7 billion years ago. People naturally want to know what caused it. A simple answer is nothing: not because there was a mysterious state of nothing before the big bang, but because time itself began then – that is, there was no time "before" the big bang. The idea is by no means new. In the fifth century, St Augustine of Hippo wrote that "the universe was created with time and not in time".

Religious people often feel tricked by this logic. They envisage a miracle-working God dwelling within the stream of time for all eternity and then, for some inscrutable reason, making a universe (perhaps in a spectacular explosion) at a specific moment in history.

That was not Augustine's God, who transcended both space and time. Nor is it the God favoured by many contemporary theologians. In fact, they long ago coined a term for it – "god-of-the-gaps" – to deride the idea that when science leaves something out of account, then God should be invoked to plug the gap. The origin of life and the origin of consciousness are favourite loci for a god-of-the-gaps, but the origin of the universe is the perennial big gap.

In his new book, Stephen Hawking reiterates that there is no big gap in the scientific account of the big bang. The laws of physics can explain, he says, how a universe of space, time and matter could emerge spontaneously, without the need for God. And most cosmologists agree: we don't need a god-of-the-gaps to make the big bang go bang. It can happen as part of a natural process. A much tougher problem now looms, however. What is the source of those ingenious laws that enable a universe to pop into being from nothing?

Traditionally, scientists have supposed that the laws of physics were simply imprinted on the universe at its birth, like a maker's mark. As to their origin, well, that was left unexplained.

In recent years, cosmologists have shifted position somewhat. If the origin of the universe was a law rather than a supernatural event, then the same laws could presumably operate to bring other universes into being. The favoured view now, and the one that Hawking shares, is that there were in fact many bangs, scattered through space and time, and many universes emerging therefrom, all perfectly naturally. The entire assemblage goes by the name of the multiverse.

Our universe is just one infinitesimal component amid this vast – probably infinite – multiverse, that itself had no origin in time. So according to this new cosmological theory, there was something before the big bang after all – a region of the multiverse pregnant with universe-sprouting potential.

A refinement of the multiverse scenario is that each new universe comes complete with its very own laws – or bylaws, to use the apt description of the cosmologist Martin Rees. Go to another universe, and you would find different bylaws applying. An appealing feature of variegated bylaws is that they explain why our particular universe is uncannily bio-friendly; change our bylaws just a little bit and life would probably be impossible. The fact that we observe a universe "fine-tuned" for life is then no surprise: the more numerous bio-hostile universes are sterile and so go unseen.

So is that the end of the story? Can the multiverse provide a complete and closed account of all physical existence? Not quite. The multiverse comes with a lot of baggage, such as an overarching space and time to host all those bangs, a universe-generating mechanism to trigger them, physical fields to populate the universes with material stuff, and a selection of forces to make things happen. Cosmologists embrace these features by envisaging sweeping "meta-laws" that pervade the multiverse and spawn specific bylaws on a universe-by-universe basis. The meta-laws themselves remain unexplained – eternal, immutable transcendent entities that just happen to exist and must simply be accepted as given. In that respect the meta-laws have a similar status to an unexplained transcendent god.

According to folklore the French physicist Pierre Laplace, when asked by Napoleon where God fitted into his mathematical account of the universe, replied: "I had no need of that hypothesis." Although cosmology has advanced enormously since the time of Laplace, the situation remains the same: there is no compelling need for a supernatural being or prime mover to start the universe off. But when it comes to the laws that explain the big bang, we are in murkier waters.

Tax collection. Now there's a moral crusade for the Tories | Polly Toynbee

author: Polly Toynbee-{ts '2010-09-04 06:30:52'}

Misgivings about the ideological nature of Osborne's cuts agenda could be dispelled by protecting the HMRC

The star chamber is in session. Any foot-draggers in the cabinet are due to be hauled before it if they fail to offer up 25% or even 40% cuts in time for the mass slaughter of the public sector next month. A wail of pleas for mercy has gone up to at least stop shortsighted purging that will end up costing the state more.

The recent cut in teenage pregnancy prevention programmes will add to future spending. Cuts in early mental health treatment will lead to more florid cases arriving in hospital. Cutting home care for the frail will send more into costly care homes. The arts can prove how every £1 the Arts Council spends generates another £2. Everywhere you turn, there are compelling arguments for upfront investment to save money later. But the Treasury is implacable, fingers in ears, sceptical about future savings that have a habit of vanishing into their departments. Myopia is part of Treasury DNA, pessimism about putative paybacks hardwired into its circuit board – now, more than ever.

But the Treasury should heed the voice in its own backyard, Revenue & Customs, which brings in the money, cash in hand, here and now: it could bring in enough to deal with the deficit. The World Bank estimates £70bn a year goes missing in Britain's shadow economy – and its last report found tax evasion rising.

On average a senior tax inspector on £50,000 brings in about £1.5m, while lower-level inspectors on £25,000 bring in £300,000 each – in all 10 times more than is recouped by Department for Work and Pensions fraud-chasers. Yet Revenue staff have already been cut by a third to 68,000. How can they now lose another 25%? Top brass is fighting hard to resist it, suggesting a state-financed "investment plan" to recover lost funds.

Revenue has been accused of going soft on using the law: the Association of Revenue and Customs union reports HMRC brought 200 cases last year, while the DWP brought 9,000 for considerably less lucrative benefit fraud. Three huge firms recently settled out of court, but critics said all three would have paid more if these cases had proceeded. Each handed over at least £1.25bn in unpaid tax: one had set aside nearly twice as much as a contingency. HMRC settled these cases at the door of the court as they had each already drained £12m from its diminished resources. Now they say only high-risk big businesses are targeted. Overt organised crime such as VAT carousel fraud and carbon-trading fraud have "hoovered up our resources", so most big evaders are under-scrutinised.

"There is a tipping point where without enough investigation, more of the fiddlers think they can fiddle more," senior officials warn Osborne. A culture of honesty soon evaporates without the constant threat of arrest. HMRC tells how a recent crackdown on doctors spread the word fast: 10% came forward and confessed to cheating. Now the HMRC says bluntly: "We need to send more people to jail so people recognise that it is not worth cheating." The honesty tipping-point comes when too many people know someone who is getting away with cheating: why pay if no one else does? Research shows the deterrent effect: every £1 detected deters another £1 in potential fraud.

HMRC says it needs resources for urgent scrutiny of the wealthy who are converting their income into capital to avoid the 50% income tax rate: City law partners are among the many awaiting investigation. The big four accountancy and consulting firms are still devising avoidance schemes, although they are required to register each new loophole. An honest rich man called a top tax inspector last month to report an approach by a big four firm offering a complex new capital gains tax wheeze involving "rescindable contracts".

A brisk official call sent the firm into a "flat spin"; it subsequently withdrew it. But the dangerous impression is that the taxman is always a plod behind, short of resources, depending on tip-offs and settling out of court to save money. The National Audit Office's report says "lack of funding" is preventing efficient debt recovery, with a 17m backlog of PAYE cases. Some £26.1bn is owed in back PAYE, according to tax expert Richard Murphy: "They haven't enough people to get on the phone and knock on the door to get the money in."

The Guardian's Tax Gap report showed the vast scale of corporation tax avoidance. Meanwhile, a meagre 100 HMRC inspectors do their best to police the entire country's employers for compliance with the minimum wage.

Britain is historically a nation of relatively compliant taxpayers, but that is changing. Lord Oakshott, the Lib Dem Treasury spokesman, told the Lords: "Tax-dodging in Britain is a deep-seated, pervasive, pernicious disease … Highly organised, aggressive, abusive tax avoidance which used to be a marginal and rather spivvy operation, that was frowned on by the main banks and shunned by top accountants and lawyers who were mainly concerned with reputational risk, has now mushroomed out of all recognition."

He questions why the government is willing to give the big four and City law firms state contracts while they earn fortunes helping to deplete the Treasury. Until its last year Labour turned a blind eye to tax havens and other dodges; can the coalition do better? The BBC's Robert Peston points out in his blog that the Conservative party is exceptionally beholden to donors from high finance and hedge funds. Sir Philip Green's bizarre appointment as an anti-waste tsar undermined the coalition's promise to "actively examine tax avoidance".

HMRC top brass fear George Osborne needs to prove he is cutting his own department as savagely as all others. But cutting any further on tax collection would show beyond doubt that government cuts are ideological and totemic, and not based on sound economics.

After the Institute for Fiscal Studies showed cuts falling hardest on the poor, the coalition could restore some credibility by ensuring at least that taxes are collected fairly from all, and not just paid by Leona Helmsley's "little people". Why not deny state contracts to the consultants who help the wealthy drain the Treasury? And strengthen HMRC so inspectors can put the fear of jail into tax-dodgers. Conservatives could find it easier than Labour to launch an unflinching moral assault on the greedy culture of evasion, avoidance, off-shoring and cheating that has become poisonously socially acceptable.

Loudon Wainwright by Nicola Jennings

author: Nicola Jennings-{ts '2010-09-04 05:07:00'}

Tony Blair gives live TV interview in Ireland

author: Lisa O'Carroll-{ts '2010-09-04 00:33:10'}

Boris Johnson pledges extra buses and bike escorts as London Tube strike looms

author: Jo Adetunji-{ts '2010-09-04 00:11:37'}

Andy Coulson under pressure as furore over phone hacking claims grows

author: Nicholas Watt-{ts '2010-09-03 23:54:34'}

Letters: Friends for free on the buses

author: -{ts '2010-09-03 23:06:33'}

The free travel pass is a great boon to many older people, but serious questions have to be raised as to whether it should be a universal benefit at 60. We are now in an era of huge cuts in public funding and there are more urgent social care needs among the poorest and most vulnerable older people than a free pass which can and is used by people who are still at work, such as Keith Ludeman, chief executive of Go-Ahead (Let pensioners pay one-off fee for bus pass, says Go-Ahead, 3 September). There are serious questions as to whether it is the poorest older people who benefit most from the universal free pass, or whether, as in so many other cases, it is of more value to the wealthier people. Rather than go down a means-testing route, though, one answer may be to raise the age of eligibility for a pass.

Leon Kreitzman

Chair, Age Concern Lewisham & Southwark, London

• A one-off payment for bus passes would, indeed, cut the £1bn annual cost, but it would seriously affect the poorest pensioners. A better solution would be to make all benefits received by pensioners (bus passes, winter fuel allowances, free TV licences and NHS prescriptions) taxable so better-off pensioners contributed according to their means.

John Howes

London

• The greatest benefit of the bus pass is that pensioners who have lost their cars through ageing and ill health can still get about without worrying about the cost. They meet neighbours on board who become friends that help each other when needed, and save the social services far more money than the obnoxious Ludeman complains about.

Brian Robinson

Brentwood, Essex

• Transport for All's attack on London Underground's staffing proposals (Letters, 30 August) is based on a misunderstanding. Our proposals have come about because ticket sales at stations have dropped significantly since the introduction of Oyster, so that now only one in 20 journeys starts with a visit to a ticket office, and some stations sell fewer than 10 tickets each hour. Under our plans, every station that has a ticket office now will continue to have one, and staff will remain in every station in exactly those areas that Transport for All want them to be: in ticket halls and on platforms where they can help customers, not hidden away behind under-used ticket office windows. Staff will still help with any problems and provide a reassuring presence across the network – including for older and disabled Londoners, many of whom receive a Freedom Pass which requires no interaction with either ticket offices or machines.

Mike Brown

Managing director, London Underground

Letters: A mystery wrapped in an enigma

author: -{ts '2010-09-03 23:04:52'}

Stephen Hawking assumes that the big bang started from "nothing" (Universe not created by God, says Hawking, 2 September). I would like to know what his definition of "nothing" is. It is no answer to point to the emergence of positron-electron pairs that appear from "nothing" as each of these have energy and this energy must have existed beforehand. It is difficult to think of a universe in which there is "nothing" because nothing means just that, no mass, no energy and therefore no means of making anything in this or any other related universe. This is the crucial phrase: how can anything be born of absolutely nothing? If we accept this definition then the universe has existed for ever – and will continue for ever. If anyone wishes to call this infinitely long existence "god", then fine, but it doesn't solve anything, it still leaves all the questions of existence that all organised religions fail to explain. Such as: if the gods created the big bang then what were they doing before then? And since it is impossible to make absolutely nothing from something, what will they do after Armageddon – start all over again?

Professor AB Turner

University of Sussex

• Spontaneous creation, "something from nothing", is puzzling coming from a physicist. No-thing means no physical reality, but all reality is logically the realisation of possibility; ergo possibility is meta ta physica: beyond the physical.If one considers nature as two interdependent domains: the universe of physical reality, and the metaphysical realm of logical possibility, then some-thing does indeed arise from no-thing. Physical nature arising from metaphysical nature makes a supernatural explanation for reality entirely unnecessary. That doesn't disprove the god hypothesis, of course, but it does offer arguably a more probable explanation for our existence. Mathematics is a form of logic by which possibility is reduced by a process of entertained argument to a hypothetical conclusion, which while logically consistent is not necessarily true. So M theory, by which the metaphysics of logical possibility is used to argue an explanation for physical reality, without the mind of god, is only one of many possibilities. The only truly definitive conclusion arises when there is only one possibility left, the end of the current universe and a new "big bang" nature of possibility and reality.

John Stone

Thames Ditton, Surrey

• The capacity for self-delusion of the enormously gifted and intelligent seems to be as limitless as that of the rest of us.

If Stephen Hawking thinks that everything will be explained by the laws of gravity and physics, well, what explains the existence of the laws by which everything is explained? Why and how should there be any laws of gravity? How did they happen to exist even before matter came into being?

His theory just leaves yet another question begging. Even if we did come from nothing, where did the nothing come from? The existence of nothing is surely just as mysterious and inexplicable as the existence of anything.

Hawking's theory is not a satisfactory answer even for an atheist like myself. There probably never will be a full explanation for our existence. To explain A in terms of B simply leaves B to then be explained, and so on down an infinite alphabet.

Alex Shearer

Backwell, Somerset

• God, gods, whomever, may well have become tired of the arguments about his/her/their existence (In praise of… God, 3 September). Two thousand years ago, the Epicureans maintained that, while the gods certainly existed (well, obviously), the Immortal Ones had no interest whatsoever in mankind; much, I suppose, as interstellar travellers feel about defective species generally.

Tom Drane

Mitcham, Surrey

• Professor Hawking's new book is called The Grand Design. Doesn't a design require a designer? Without one, it is "A Grand Accident". It's curious how atheists cannot help resorting to religious language.

Rev Richard Haggis

Oxford

Archbishop of York condemns UK opt-out from EU directive on sex trafficking

author: Martin Wainwright-{ts '2010-09-03 23:02:00'}

One in three GCSEs taken at private schools earned an A or A*

author: Rachel Williams-{ts '2010-09-03 23:01:59'}

Risky application strategy cost students university places, says clearing chief

author: Jessica Shepherd-{ts '2010-09-03 23:01:59'}

Archie Panjabi: 'I love roles that transform me'

author: Amy Raphael-{ts '2010-09-03 23:01:59'}

Archbishop of York criticises government inaction on sex trafficking

author: Martin Wainwright-{ts '2010-09-03 23:00:52'}

Potential phone-hacking victims put alleged police failures in spotlight

author: Afua Hirsch-{ts '2010-09-03 21:52:24'}

Our covenant with Britain | David Miliband and Jon Cruddas

author: David Miliband, Jon Cruddas-{ts '2010-09-03 21:00:48'}

We share a commitment to an economy that enables people to live decent, dignified lives

These are historic times for our country. The biggest economic crisis since the 1930s is generating new political alliances. The task for Labour is to define, shift and then occupy a new centre ground in British politics.

The era of Blair and Brown is over. We must shun a factional and sectional politics built on toxic relationships and mistrust. Ours is a great movement with great traditions and we must honour them once more – through a fundamental rethink of our ideas, our organisation and our electoral strategy.

On ideas, we must move beyond both a statist social democracy whose time has passed, and a timid accommodation to the market that leads to tinkering not real change. In government we were too hands-off with the market and too hands-on with the state. Our weakness in political economy left the welfare state with too much work to do. We need a broader agenda to reshape the market, democratise the state and rebuild the bonds of community.

On economic policy we face major challenges: a shift in power from west to east; the structural weaknesses left by the unnecessary cruelty of Thatcherism; reducing the deficit while promoting jobs and growth. We need an industrial policy that makes government the ally of wealth creation. Private sector reform in the name of justice and efficiency; like giving employees a voice in decisions at work. A living wage so that no one who works hard ends up poor. And a banking system that spreads capital to new businesses across the country.

We let the Tories claim our language and traditions in their one-sided "big society", while allowing ourselves to be pigeonholed as defenders of the "big state". Labour stands for a state that redistributes power and increases people's security. We want a revived local government to meet the need for decent housing and protection against fear and antisocial behaviour. We seek a welfare covenant that protects better and demands more in return: a decent pension for everyone who pays in; a job guarantee to prevent long-term unemployment.

But new ideas alone won't be enough. We need to change the culture of our politics. Honest debate and differing opinions are the basis of democracy. There are many things we do not agree on, but we share a fundamental Labour creed: a commitment to democracy and liberty, and an economy that enables people to live decent, dignified lives.

We must return Labour to its roots as a movement for mutual self-improvement in neighbourhoods across the country. We need a new electoral strategy, too. Labels such as "core vote" and "middle England" are now largely meaningless. Since 1997 we lost support right across society: 1.6 million lower-income voters and 2.8 million middle-income voters. We need a broad appeal based on principle, not polling – rooted in the lives and experiences of the people. We combine radicalism and credibility by inspiring people with a sense of hope, while taking them with us as partners in a shared adventure.

This new agenda – ideological, organisational and electoral – is more challenging than simply junking unpopular policies or seeking a new tactical patchwork of voters. It confronts us with more uncomfortable truths. But it is essential. Our relationship with the British people has been ruptured, and we need to rebuild it. We need to talk to peoples' concerns about debt, housing, violence and wages. We need to renew the Labour covenant with the people based upon our shared fate and shared responsibility for each other. That is the way we will renew our party and, in time, change our country.

Morrissey reignites racism row by calling Chinese a 'subspecies'

author: Alexandra Topping-{ts '2010-09-03 20:53:00'}

A million people face tax bills of up to £5,000 after recalculations

author: Phillip Inman-{ts '2010-09-03 20:49:44'}

Rich, famous and depressed: Coppola's second take on celebrity life

author: Mark Brown-{ts '2010-09-03 20:31:49'}

Keeping up appearances | Ben Goldacre

author: Ben Goldacre-{ts '2010-09-03 20:11:56'}

A new study demonstrates that how women musicians dress alters the perception of how they play

Everyone likes to imagine they are rational, fair, and free from prejudice. But how easily are we misled by appearances? Noola Griffiths studies the psychology of music, and she's published a cracking paper on how what women wear affects your judgment of their performance. The results are predictable but the context is interesting.

Four female musicians were filmed playing in three different outfits: a concert dress, jeans, and a nightclubbing dress. They were also all filmed as points of light, wearing a black tracksuit in the dark, so that the only thing to be seen – once the images had been treated – was the movement of some bright white tape attached to their joints.

All these violinists were music students, from the top 10% of their year, and they were vetted to ensure comparability : they were all white Europeans, size 10 dress, size 4 or 5 shoe, and aged between 20 and 22.

They were even equivalently attractive, according to their score on the MBA California facial mask, which seems to be some kind of effort to derive a numerical hotness quotient from the best fit of a geometric mask over someone's face. I'm not saying that's not ridiculous, I'm just saying they tried.

In fact they did better. All the performances were also standardised at 104 beats per minute, so the audio tracks from each musician could be replaced with a recording of a single performance, recorded by someone who was never filmed, for each of the various pieces in the study.

This meant there was no room for anyone to argue that the clothes made the musicians perform differently, and when the researchers checked in a pilot study, nobody watching the clips had spotted the switch.

Then they got 30 different musicians – a mixture of music students and members of the Sheffield Philharmonic – to watch video clips with various different permutations of clothing, player and piece. All were invited to give each performance a score out of six for technical proficiency and musicality, and the results were inevitable.

For technical proficiency, performers in a concert dress were rated higher than if they were in jeans or a clubbing dress, even though the actual audio performance was exactly the same every time (and played by a separate musician who was never filmed). The results for musicality were similar: musicians in a clubbing dress were rated worst.

Experiments offer small constricted worlds, which we hope act as models for wider phenomena. How far can you apply this to wider society? Women are still discriminated against in the workplace, but each situation has so many variables it can be difficult to assess.

In the world of music, assessment of performance goals can be restricted to make individuals broadly comparable, and so there's a reasonably long tradition of the field being used as a test tube for bigotry. In the 1970s and 1980s, in an attempt to overcome biases in hiring, most orchestras changed their audition policy, and began using screens to conceal the identity of the candidate.

Female musicians in the top five US symphony orchestras rose from 5% in the 1970s to around 25%. This could have been due to wider societal shifts, so Goldin and Rouse conducted a very elegant study, Orchestrating Impartality: they compared the number of women being hired at auditions with and without screens, and found women were several times more likely to be hired when nobody could see that they were a woman.

What's more, using data on the changing gender makeup of orchestras over time, they were able to estimate that from the 1970s to 2000 – the era which shifted from casual racism and sexism in popular culture, to more covert forms – the trend towards greater equality was driven simply by selectors being forced not to see who they were selecting. I don't know how you'd apply the same tools to every workplace. But I'd like to see someone try.

Nigel Farage to stand again in Ukip leadership contest

author: Nigel Farage, Andrew Sparrow-{ts '2010-09-03 20:00:52'}

Andy Coulson 'lied' over News of the World phone-hacking – reporter

author: Nicholas Watt, Peter Walker-{ts '2010-09-03 20:00:39'}

News of the World: how the phonehacking scandal unfolded

author: James Robinson-{ts '2010-09-03 19:59:08'}

The Queen at Breakfast – painted by the Duke

author: Stephen Bates-{ts '2010-09-03 19:27:50'}

MI6 man tried to sell colleagues' names for £2m

author: Caroline Davies-{ts '2010-09-03 19:25:23'}

High street has designs on fashion week of its own

author: Imogen Fox-{ts '2010-09-03 19:22:53'}