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There have been furious opposition protests in the commons after the government announced they're to limit, or guillotine, debate on the bill to set up referendums on devolution for Scotland and Wales. The guillotine will take place at 3.30pm on Tuesday. The conservative Chief Whip Alastair Goodlad said it was another example of Labour's high handed disregard of the views of MPs. He said it "beggared belief" to propose that the devolution referendums bill could be properly scrutinised under such a timetable.

A Catholic lawyer has become the first ever nationalist Lord Mayor of Belfast. Alban Maginness - a former chairman of the SDLP - received 26 votes. The Democratic Unionist candidate was supported by only 22 councillors. Nationalists won control of the council for the first time ever in last months local elections.

The pensions industry must "grasp the need for change" and provide better products to the public. Pensions Minister John Denham said companies must take up the challenge to meet the Government's aim of having better value-for-money, flexible and secure pensions. Last month the Government carpeted some of Britain's biggest insurers for delays in compensating victims of the personal pensions mis-selling scandal. "They should grasp the need for change now. Our aims are clear and the pensions industry as a whole should today be looking to achieve the highest standards of provision." he said. A number of the industry's leading companies have been set tough new deadlines which they must meet for compensating people who received bad pensions advice.

Swipe cards and electronic readers should be used by MPs to register their votes in the Commons, according to the technology-minded Member for Cambridge, Anne Campbell. With such a huge Labour majority, voting in the traditional way by marching through the lobbies is taking up valuable time and should be scrapped in favour of new technology, Mrs Campbell said. "When there are three votes in a row, we can be there for up to an hour-and- a-half. "What we need is a system where MPs can sit anywhere in the chamber and swipe smart cards through an electronic reader to make their votes. I think there's quite a strong feeling that we've got to reform the system," she said.

Irish fishing familiesliving on four islands off the Donegal coast will be able to vote on the same day as the rest of the country in next weeks Irish general election. For the past seventy years the islanders of Arranmore, Tory, Inisbofin, and Inisfree have voted more than a week ahead of the election to make sure that their ballot boxes got back to the mainland on time for the count. This time, good sea conditions are expected to make the journey possible straight after the poll. The islands have six hundred inhabitants between them, with the smallest, Inisfree, having a voting population of just ten.

Defence Secretary George Robertson has said that his review of the armed forces would not include the question of gays in the military. He said that "as a matter of routine," every government had to with personnel issues in the armed forces. Speaking on GMTV's Sunday programme he added that the government needed to ensure " we have got the right atmosphere so that we are able to recruit in all parts of the community"

Diana, Princess of Wales, 1961-1997

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