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Nigel Farage has told a session of the European Parliament that "the little people" had rejected "big politics" in order "to get their country back".

Telegraph View: We are proud to combine journalistic excellence with commercial success and we will continue to do so. This newspaper makes no apology for the way in which it has covered the HSBC group and the allegations of wrongdoing by its Swiss subsidiary, allegations that have been so enthusiastically promoted by the BBC, the Guardian and their ideological soulmates in the Labour Party. We have covered this matter as we do all others, according to our editorial judgment and informed by our values. Foremost among those values is a belief in free enterprise and free markets. We are proud...

More than 170,000 immigrants refused leave to stay in Britain are to be tracked down by private-sector “bounty hunters”. The support services firm Capita will earn up to £40million if it finds all of the migrants identified by the UK Border Agency who may be living in the country illegally. But it was claimed by MPs that the company will be “laughing all the way to the bank” as its four-year contract does not specify how many people it has to remove. Rob Whiteman, chief executive of UKBA, told the Home Affairs Select Committee: “The contract is on payment by...

Prince Harry has qualified as an Apache helicopter pilot after 18 months of rigorous training in the UK and the US, the Ministry of Defence has said. The third in line to the throne was awarded a prize for best co-pilot gunner at a dinner on Wednesday at his RAF training base in Ipswich, Suffolk. He and 20 others who graduated now have limited "combat-ready status". Previously, the prince has hinted of his wish to return to Afghanistan after his first tour of duty was cut short. Last April, he suggested it would be pointless to train as a helicopter...

Leading UK polar scientists say the Times Atlas of the World was wrong to assert that it has had to re-draw its map of Greenland due to climate change. Publicity for the latest edition of the atlas, launched last week, said warming had turned 15% of Greenland's former ice-covered land "green and ice-free". But scientists from the Scott Polar Research Institute say the figures are wrong; the ice has not shrunk so much. The Atlas costs £150 ($237) and claims to be the world's "most authoritative". The 13th edition of the "comprehensive" version of the atlas included a number of...

A US congresswoman has been shot at a public event in southern Arizona in an attack in which a child was killed. Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords, 40, was shot in the head at close range in front of hundreds of people in Tucson. She and four other people are in a critical condition, a hospital doctor told reporters. He said he was "very optimistic about her recovery". A man was arrested by police after the shooting. The motive remains unclear. Asked about reports that a federal judge was among those shot, a local law enforcement official confirmed that a federal...

Gen David Petraeus, the commander of Nato troops in Afghanistan, has hailed a Parachute Regiment operation involving a precision attack that killed 15 Taliban but left two civilans unharmed. Two Afghan civilians survived unscathed as bombs and bullets rained down on Taliban during a "precision strike" campaign being run by the 3rd Bn The Parachute Regiment. Gen Petraeus undertook an urgent fact-finding visit to the Paras and praised the attacks as "the most impressive way to do business". The American commander has adopted the mantra "ruthless prosecution of targets" since arriving in Afghanistan but has faced obstacles from subordinates worried...

With the smug incomprehension in which it takes so much pride (can’t understand – won’t understand!), the BBC sets about the American Tea Party Movement as if it were a cross between the Klu Klux Klan and the German neo-fascist brigade. Not once in all the demonic depictions I have seen and heard (last week’s Newsnight package was particularly outrageous) have I heard a mention of what the TPM is actually about: taxation. (Note to BBC editors: the movement is named after the Boston Tea Party because it is protesting about the imposition of higher federal taxes and over-weening controls...

The story of the IPCC's claims about threats to the Amazon rainforest takes another bizarre turn. Last week the beleaguered global warming lobby was exulting over what it took to be the best news it has had in a long time. A serious allegation, which last January rocked the authority of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was “corrected” as untrue by The Sunday Times, the newspaper which most prominently reported it. The reputation of the IPCC, it seemed, had been triumphantly vindicated. The growing tide of scepticism over climate change had at last been reversed. But this episode...

The UK's Royal Society is reviewing its public statements on climate change after 43 Fellows complained that it had oversimplified its messages. They said the communications did not properly distinguish between what was widely agreed on climate science and what is not fully understood.

A cancer sufferer has described her despair at being refused a trial treatment which could be her only hope. Heather Parkinson, 27, from Preston, said NHS Central Lancashire kept her waiting for 13 weeks as they considered whether to pay £3,000 for a trial of CD25 targeted radiotherapy at the Royal Free Hospital in London. However, they eventually decided not to fund the treatment...

America's failure to rise up against the intimidation of cartoonist Molly Norris and South Park animators is a sad sign, says Alex Spillius. The trouble with terror is that it can be terrifying. Just ask Molly Norris, a cartoonist from Seattle. As far as we know, she hasn't been explicitly threatened by Islamic extremists, but evidently she feared she might be. Her error was to post on her website an illustration with many different household objects with speech bubbles all claiming to be the likeness of Mohammed, including a tea cup, a domino and a box of pasta. It was...

The Gulf Stream does not appear to be slowing down, say US scientists who have used satellites to monitor tell-tale changes in the height of the sea. Confirming work by other scientists using different methodologies, they found dramatic short-term variability but no longer-term trend. A slow-down - dramatised in the movie The Day After Tomorrow - is projected by some models of climate change. The research is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The stream is a key process in the climate of western Europe, bringing heat northwards from the tropics and keeping countries such as the UK 4-6C...

An official prediction by the United Nations that the Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035 may be withdrawn after it was found to be based on speculation rather than scientific evidence. Two years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made the claim which it said was based on detailed research into the impact of global warming. But the IPCC have since admitted it was based on a report written in a science journal and even the scientist who was the subject of the original story admits it was not based on fact. The article, in the New Scientist,...

Barack Obama's election did not usher in a post-racial America. Instead, speaking honesty about race is taboo, writes Toby Harnden in Washington. A year ago, Americans were basking in what many believed was a post-racial new dawn. The United States was just about to inaugurate its first black President. Across the world, those who had pronounced the country too mired in its past to elect an African-American were being forced to reassess. Fast forward to last week and the American chattering classes were engaged in the kind discussion about race that makes one despair. I use the term "discussion" but...

A police unit set up to support forces dealing with extremism in the UK is helping investigate the leaking of climate change data in Norfolk. In November it was revealed that the computer server at the Climate Change Unit at the University of East Anglia had been hacked and e-mails leaked. An inquiry was started by Norfolk Police. Now it has been revealed the force is getting help from the National Domestic Extremism Unit, based in Huntingdon. A spokesman for the unit said: "At present we have two police officers assisting Norfolk with their investigation, and we have also provided...

Newly-released documents have revealed the UK's "special relationship" with the US was under strain at the height of the Northern Ireland Troubles. The National Archives files show the murder of Lord Mountbatten by the IRA in 1979 did not prompt the response from the US that the UK had hoped for. While president Jimmy Carter expressed his "profound sadness" at the death, he made no reference to terrorism. Downing St privately said his failure to condemn the IRA was a "deficiency". The murder of Lord Mountbatten by the IRA on 27 August 1979 sparked shock and anger around the world....

British spies have foiled a terrorist plot by a suspected al Qaeda operative to blow up the New York subway. The plan, which reportedly would have been the biggest attack on America since 9/11, was uncovered after Scotland Yard intercepted an email. The force alerted the FBI, who launched an operation which led to airport shuttle bus driver Najibullah Zazi, 24, being charged with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. The Afghan is alleged to have been part of a group who used stolen credit cards to buy components for bombs including nail varnish remover. The chemicals bought were...

The British team that claimed the land speed record in 1997, taking a car through the sound barrier for the first time, is planning to go even faster. RAF pilot Andy Green made history in 1997 when he drove the Thrust SSC jet-powered vehicle at 763mph (1,228km/h). Now he intends to get behind the wheel of a car that is capable of reaching 1,000mph (1,610km/h). Known as Bloodhound, the new car will be powered by a rocket bolted to a Typhoon-Eurofighter jet engine. The team-members have been working on the concept for the past 18 months and expect to be...

On the fifth floor of an imposing building in London's Canary Wharf, six people are putting together one of the world's most important numbers. Every weekday morning, as the clock ticks round to 11, the group's members wait patiently for the numbers to arrive. These are the figures that will determine the day's Libor rate, or rather the rate banks charge when they lend each other money.