Civilians are still not allowed to go to the airport and the refugees returning from Britain have been instructed to tell relatives and friends not to try to meet them.Diane Grammer, head of the IMO's UK and Ireland office, said conditions in Kosovo remained "quite dangerous", but that most Kosovars in Britain intended to return eventually.She said: "It's not to say that everyone would choose to go back but we would think that by next spring a lot of people would be thinking about going back, particularly if the country remains stable."Some 4,500 refugees were flown to Britain in the official humanitarian programme and housed in public buildings. Up to 20,000 others came separately as asylum-seekers after making their own way here.. CHARLES KENNEDY'S hopes of becoming leader of the Liberal Democrats have been boosted by winning the vote of Paddy Ashdown, the outgoing leader. Mr Ashdown, who stands down on Monday after 11 years as leader, would have preferred Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman, or Nick Harvey, their campaigns chief. But neither man entered the race to succeed him. Last night Mr Ashdown's office refused to reveal how he had voted, but close friends said he had opted for Mr Kennedy as the candidate most likely to continue his policy of forging close co-operation with Labour.The four other candidates have opposed any extension of the remit of the cabinet committee which includes senior Liberal Democrat figures, forcing Mr Kennedy to harden his line during the leadership campaign.
"Paddy has reluctantly come round to the view that it has to be Charles," said one friend.Mr Ashdown has not been regarded as a member of the Kennedy fan club. Viewing him as too disorganised for a frontline post, Mr Ashdown made him agriculture spokesman and barked: "Where's Kennedy?" when he failed to turn up to meetings with military precision.Mr Ashdown was irritated when Mr Kennedy appeared to distance himself last year from the strategy on co-operation with Labour. He believed he was playing to the party gallery ahead of a future leadership bid.There was even speculation that Mr Ashdown ensured a marathon six-month leadership race in the hope that an "ABC" candidate - "anyone but Charles" - would emerge.Although Mr Ashdown has remained neutral during the campaign, his decision could swing some last-minute support behind Mr Kennedy. The Liberal Democrats' 90,000 members have until tomorrow to return their ballot papers.Mr Kennedy, the hot favourite when Mr Ashdown resigned in January, now faces a strong challenge from Simon Hughes, the party's health spokesman. At the outset, Mr Kennedy had hoped to win a clear mandate by landing more than half the votes cast, giving him a first round victory. But Mr Hughes is thought to have won enough support to deprive him of that.The last of the five candidates would then drop out, with the second preferences of the people who supported him re-allocated among the other four. Insiders believe that Mr Hughes could pick up twice as many second preference votes as Mr Kennedy, who would therefore need a lead of about 12 or 13 points in the first round to avoid being overtaken in the later stages.
"If Charles is only 10 points ahead, it will be a nail-biter," said one source.. THE PRISON Service has drawn up a 118-point action plan to save the notorious Wormwood Scrubs jail by turning it into one of the most progressive prisons in the country. The leaked "Wormwood Scrubs Action Plan", seen by The Independent, is a blueprint for a head-on conflict between Prison Service bosses and militant members of the jail's staff. It warns: "Obstructive and negative attitudes will be challenged robustly and will not be allowed to block progress in any circumstance."The rescue package follows a savage report on the jail in June by the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Sir David Ramsbotham, who suggested that the Scrubs, in west London, should be closed or privatised. The plan promises to turn around the prison's fortunes by next February, in time for a follow- up visit by the Chief Inspector.Drawn up by the Scrubs governor, Stephen Moore, and his area manager, Peter Atherton, it is based largely on a crackdown on what Sir David described as "destructive, unco-operative and self- seeking" members of staff.Prison officers have been ordered to stop stripping vulnerable prisoners and throwing them into bare cells. They have been instructed to return to inmates a television room and a shower area, which the Chief Inspector found they had commandeered with signs saying "For Staff Use Only".Officers have been told they must not prevent chaplains from visiting inmates in their cells.
They are also prevented from stopping prisoners taking exercise in the open air on the grounds of bad weather or staff shortages. Such decisions can now only be taken by governors.Officers must also undergo fresh training in race relations, the treatment and searching of visitors, security matters and preventing drug smuggling.The action plan promises to put Wormwood Scrubs on an equal footing with the privately run prisons in England and Wales, which are widely regarded as providing some of the most effective and progressive regimes.The package of measures are designed to transform the lives of inmates, whose treatment was described by the Chief Inspector as "profoundly unsatisfactory".Prisoners are promised at least 10 hours out of cell each weekday (currently some spend 23 hours locked up) and daily access to showers, pay phones, exercise and association with other inmates.The number of telephones available to prisoners is to be increased and inmates are to be surveyed on their food preferences to improve the quality of the menu. The action plan also suggests managers should "actively consider" allowing prisoners to eat their meals outside of their cells.The report, which "recognises the severe criticisms" made by the Chief Inspector, was signed off by the Prison Service director general, Martin Narey, last week,Major changes are planned for the prison's healthcare system, particularly the treatment of mentally disordered patients, which Sir David described after his inspection as "not only clinically but also morally unacceptable and unsafe".The action plan demands that a full psychiatric team is employed in the prison as a priority. Separate phone lines to the Samaritans should be provided in the healthcare, segregation and vulnerable prisoner units.Other changes relate to prisoners of foreign nationality or minority faiths. Staff have been instructed not to prevent Muslim prisoners from attending Friday prayers and to provide cassette players and language tapes for non-English speaking foreign inmates when they are being told the rules and regime of the prison..
TOUGH NEW parliamentary controls should be placed on the BBC, ending decades of its near-total independence from Westminster, a government- commissioned report will state today. The Gavyn Davies panel of experts investigating BBC funding will say that the corporation should be more accountable, with its pounds 2.2 billion expenditure opened for scrutiny by the National Audit Office. The inspection would force the BBC to make public the millions of pounds it has spent refurbishing its corporate centre, funding costly business courses for television managers and on chauffeur-driven cars for corporation apparatchiks.The BBC governors recently expressed concern that in surveys only 34 per cent of people said they thought the BBC was open and accountable. "The corporation reports on itself," David Elstein, the chief executive of Channel 5, said yesterday. "It doesn't have to abide by the normal rules that everyone else has to abide by. The truth is the BBC is not accountable, except in the most nominal fashion."The BBC will be furious at the move, which it sees as threatening its editorial integrity. "The Tories never went this far, and this proposal will be seen as unjustified political interference by Labour," a BBC executive said. "It will be hard to convince foreign governments that the Beeb is politically independent when it reports financially to a government body."But the Davies-panel announcement will please critics of the BBC who claim that it unlawfully subsidises some of its commercial activities with licence fee income.