The UK has been accused of failing its children, as it comes bottom of a league table for child well-being across 21 industrialised countries. The Unicef report looked at 40 indicators including poverty, peer and family relationships and health. The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Finland head the list.

{mosimage}Children’s charities have condemned the findings. The government says it has made progress on child well-being through several initiatives.

Unicef – the United Nations’ children’s organisation – says the report, titled Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-being in Rich Countries, is the first study of childhood across the world’s industrialised nations.

Unicef UK executive director David Bull said all the countries had weaknesses that needed to be addressed. “By comparing the performance of countries we see what is possible with a commitment to supporting every child to fulfil his or her full potential,” he said.

Lawyers must take a back seat to policy makers when it comes to counter-terrorism, the Lord Chancellor is expected to warn. Lord Falconer of Thoroton – due to deliver a keynote speech at a major conference on politics and terrorism – will say that counter-terror measures must always be lawful.

A failure to invest in and reform key public sector services will widen inequality and disadvantage Britain’s disabled community, the chairman of the disabled rights commission (DRC) has said.

The horrors some people have faced in Calderdale care homes has prompted Halifax Labour MP Linda Riordan to table an emergency motion in Parlia-ment today to highlight the issue.

Although political attitudes to cannabis use have softened over the past decade, more and more evidence has emerged linking the drug to serious mental illnesses.

Downing Street is pushing for Louise Casey, Tony Blair’s “respect tsar”, to take over the job of chair of the youth justice board left vacant last month by the resignation of Rod Morgan.

A woman of 85 was left to die after falling down a flight of stairs at a care home because staff were banned from dialling 999. Mary Carty fractured her spine and suffered a serious head wound when she tumbled down a staircase at a private residential home.

Victims of domestic violence will be able to flee to a haven in their own homes under plans to fit them with safe rooms. The government has told all local authorities they must arrange for one room in the family home to be fitted with reinforced doors, mortice locks and alarms which link straight to the police if victims ask for it.

Children want a good home that is safe and to be treated as individuals, not as ‘children in care’, according to a report out today. In his consultation about the Government’s proposals in the Green Paper ‘Care Matters’, the Children’s Rights Director for England was told that the top promise children want councils to make to them is that they will have a good and safe home.

Newly qualified nurses desperate for a job are working for less than the minimum wage, it emerged today. The County Durham and Darlington NHS foundation trust and North Tees and the Hartlepool NHS trust are offering “honorary” training contracts to some nurses unable to secure other work.