Bloodsuckers and Bloggers

  Barclays announced on Friday that it was capping cash bonuses at £65,000 as it reported a 3% fall in profits to £5.9bn. The bank also admitted it may miss the targets it had set itself for making returns to shareholders. Providing more detail about bonuses than usual, the bank said that the value of bonus per group employee was down 21% year on year to £15,200, while the average value of bonus per employee at Barclays Capital, its investment banking arm, was down 30% to £64,000 - just below the value of the cap. The bank said that annual bonuses for executives and its eight highest paid employees were down 48%. Chief executive Bob Diamond received a bonus in shares of £1.8m in 2010 so, if he is in line with the average, this might indicate that his bonus would be around £900,000. Barclays shares were down 3% at 225.9p in early trading. But the bank admitted that its return on equity was just 6.6% in 2011 - down from 8.8% the year before and...

Photo: PA   Top officers warned of the increasing cost of drug-ravaged society with hundreds of millions is being spent on the increasing number of addicts. Chief Superintendent Mark Mathias from South Wales Police said: "Each addict can cost society not far off £850,000. "You work through all the treatment, all the criminal justice issues that arise - then you see a significant costs involved." Police in Swansea have launched a £500,00 clampdown in the city known as the "heroin capital of Wales" where officers have seized 1,000 "deals" in the last two weeks. Superintendent Phil Davies said: "Some of these drug dealers have stated they are untouchable. "My message to them is there is no hiding place, we will find you, we will catch you and we will put you behind bars." Addict Amy Protheroe, 20, who has been an addict since she was 13 has just started her fifth treatment programme in Swansea. She said: "When you're a heroin addi...

charity worker employed by one of David Cameron’s Big Society gurus has been arrested on suspicion of smuggling cocaine with a street value of £120,000 into Britain. Former US gang member Derrick ‘Anthony’ Mitchell was held at Heathrow this month after UK Border Agency officers allegedly discovered 3kg of drugs in his luggage.  Mitchell, 37, is a duty manager at the South London-based Kids Company founded by charity boss Camila Batmanghelidjh. She set it up in 1996 to care for abused, neglected or  abandoned children in London’s inner-city communities.  She has been described as ‘Britain’s most colourful charity leader’ because of her style, dress sense and selfless approach to charity work.  The award-winning author and campaigner was invited  to 10 Downing Street last year.  She also advises former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith and is thought to be one of the inspirations behind Mr Cameron’s pledge to ...