Theresa May, the home secretary, is today expected to announce an independent inquiry into whether the Home Office and other public institutions have covered up allegations of child abuse. Mrs May is likely however to stop short of launching the judge-led public inquiry being demanded in some quarters when she makes a statement to MPs at 3.30pm about claims of organised child sexual abuse at Westminster in the 1980s. A Home Office spokesman confirmed that she would address two key public concerns: “First, the Home Office’s response in the 1980s to papers containing allegations of child abuse, and second, the wider issue of whether public bodies and other institutions have taken seriously their duty of care towards children.” The controversy erupted after Lord Brittan of Spennithorne, the former home secretary, made a statement on Wednesday justifying his handling of a dossier of abuse allegations relating to at least eight public figures that was handed to him in 1983 by the late MP Geoffrey Dickens. Lord Brittan said that he had handed the dossier to officials. Since he made his statement a plethora of additional concerns has surfaced. The Home Office has admitted that it either lost or destroyed 114 files relating to historical complaints of child abuse between 1979 and 1999, and that details of four undisclosed abuse cases of which it was informed several decades ago were quietly handed over to police as recent

The memorial commemorating victims of the July 7 bombings in London has been defaced just hours before survivors and bereaved families gather to mark the ninth anniversary of the attacks. The stainless steel columns of the memorial in Hyde Park were daubed with red and black slogans overnight with the messages “4Innocent Muslims” “Blair Lied Thousands Died” and “J7 Truth”. A spokeswoman for the Royal Parks said that the slogans were removed after they were discovered by the park’s manager early this morning. “We found it this morning,” she said. “It has now been removed and the memorial can go ahead as planned. Obviously, we are very disappointed.” A photograph posted on Twitter by James Banks, a broadcast journalist for London Live, shows the extent of the defacement. The monument honouring the 52 victims killed in the attack on London’s transport

Patients will have to pay for the NHS at the point of use, accept higher taxes or see treatments heavily cut back, some of its most senior figures warn today. Politicians must acknowledge that the health service is “creaking at the seams” and cannot carry on as it is, say leaders of medical royal colleges, patient groups and two independent directors of NHS England. In a letter to The Times, they call for an urgent inquiry into how the NHS and social care system will cope with the demands of an ageing population that is getting sicker so quickly that the health service faces a £30 billion black hole by the end of the decade. Attention in Whitehall is focused on getting the NHS through the election without disaster, and ministers have put their faith in a £20 billion programme of efficiencies that ends next year. However, the health service leaders s