News summary: Tuesday, September 8th

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News summary: Monday, September 7th

The BBC has defended their decision to invite the BNP to appear on Question Time: “Our audiences – and the electorate – will make up their own minds about the different policies offered by elected politicians.” Unite Against Fascism willtest

UK recession: long but relatively shallow

Projections published by the OECD today show that the recession in the UK is likely to be longer than in other G7 countries but of average severity. Although it is of little comfort given the projected 4.7% drop in year-on-year growth for Britain in 2009 but Germany, Japan, and Italy all face worse recessions.

NHS “lies” derailing Obama’s plans

The international online civic organisation, Avaaz, is promoting a petition from Brits to “the US Congress and the people of America” which states, “We urge you to ignore the myths about health systems in our country and others that are being pushed by US healthcare companies.”

VAT increase to 20% would be “intently regressive”

Conservative plans to increase VAT to 20%, which have not been ruled out by their HQ, would be “intently regressive.” It would mean that the poorest fifth of the population would spend a total of 13.8% of their disposable income on VAT, up 1.7 percentage points. This is more than double what the richest fifth would pay.

Obama: Popular President facing many challenges

A new study by US thinktank, the Brookings Institution, outlines that – despite facing more difficult circumstances – President Barack Obama is the most popular president 6-months into his term of office since Ronald Reagan.