These figures may not make welcome reading for Gordon Brown."Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat spokesman on work and pensions, said that the figures proved the need for a "super-tax" on higher earners. A tax rate of 50 per cent on those with incomes over £100,000 could raise billions to combat poverty, he said."This just shows how empty the Government's rhetoric is. Of course, under Margaret Thatcher's first nine years, there was a top tax rate of 60 per cent," he said. "Tackling poverty takes serious money and serious money is needed.". Clare Short quit as International Development Secretary today, with a farewell mauling over Iraq for Tony Blair and the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

This makes my position impossible."After assuring Mr Blair that she was proud of her work at the Department she has served for six years, Ms Short wrote: "I am sad and sorry that it has ended like this."Mr Blair swiftly appointed Foreign Office Minister Baroness Amos to replace Ms Short as International Development Secretary.Shadow foreign secretary Michael Howard said: "This Government really does seem to be falling apart.

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Police are investigating a second fire on Brighton's crumbling West Pier, which firefighters say was probably arson. Although not as severe as the fire that gutted the pavilion at the end of the Grade I-listed pier on 28 March, showers of sparks were seen falling into the sea.Danny Sherman, station officer for Roedean Fire Station, said: "There were several seats of fire inside the structure itself, which is very unusual. If I was a betting man, I would bet that this one has been started deliberately."Hundreds of revellers returning from the city's nightclubs watched as a dozen firefighters tackled the flames. At the height of the fire one man in his 30s was arrested and later released without charge after climbing on to the pier.Firefighters were called back to the pier during the day yesterday after flames were again seen coming from the pavilion. A Sussex Police spokesman said there had been reports of fireworks being let off near the pier. "We have a scenes of crime officer going to the pier, and a full health and safety assessment will also be made.

We are not clear of a cause yet," he said.A huge fire in March, believed to have been started deliberately,ripped through the pavilion, leaving nothing but the original cast-iron structure.. Civil liberties groups reacted angrily last night to the Government's plans to double to 14 days the period that terrorist suspects can be detained without charge. At present the maximum penalty is a £2,500 fine.Mr Blunkett insisted that the extra time proposal was necessary in complex or exceptional cases. "It takes time to investigate members of loose-knit networks across international boundaries," he said.Under the proposals, which would be effective across the UK, courts would have to be satisfied that the extra time was vital for further evidence-gathering, and the grounds for continuing to hold a suspect would be kept under constant review.The proposals were condemned by the human rights organisation Liberty as "ill-considered, unnecessary and politically motivated". Mark Littlewood, campaign director, said: "There is precious little evidence to suggest the present provisions, allowing for up to seven days' detention without charge, are inadequate.".

Croatians stood in mourning at two separate places yesterday. On the site of the most notorious concentration camp run during the Second World War by Croatia's Nazi regime, President Stipe Mesic expressed his "deepest regret for the innocent victims of those who tarnished Croatia's name". Of the 600 who tried to break out, only about 70 succeeded.Meanwhile, in the southern Austrian town of Bleiburg, thousands of Croats gathered as they do every year to mark one of the atrocities of the last months of the war that is all but forgotten outside Croatia. Last week, the Croatian government announced that it planned to buy land in Austria on which to build a permanent memorial to the horror. It is a story that ought also to be well known in Britain, because it was largely due to British policies that the terrible events occurred.In May 1945, hundreds of thousands of Croats, soldiers in the army and civilians, congregated in Bleiburg after fleeing the Croatian capital, Zagreb, before Tito's advancing partisans.