The demolition of six tower blocks in Glasgow failed when the top half of two of the blocks settled upright on rubble. Some more demolitions which went wrong:
— A girl of 12 was killed and several people injured in 1997 when the Royal Canberra Hospital toppled rather than collapsed in on itself. Debris, which was supposed to stay within a 50-metre zone, spilled over more than 200 metres.
— A 300ft power station chimney in Springfield, Ohio, toppled onto power lines, cutting off electricity to 4,000 people.
— A 80ft flour mill at Cankiri, Turkey, toppled onto its roof and came to rest against a block of flats. No one was hurt.
Euromillions
Launching Britain Stronger in Europe, a campaign to stay in the EU, Lord Rose of Monewden claimed that the average Briton is £450 a year better off inside the EU than outside it. With an average household size of 2.3, this works out at £1,035 a year per household. How does this measure up against other wild guesses?
Up to £3,500 better off: Business for a New Europe, 2011
£3,000 better off: CBI, 2013
£933 worse off: Business for Britain, 2015
£6,000 worse off: Prof Tim Congdon, 2013
The bill
The Metropolitan Police is to stop guarding the Ecuadorian embassy, where Julian Assange has been seeking sanctuary since 2012, after spending £12 million on a round-the-clock operation. Some other pricey police operations:
Phone-hacking investigations
£19.5m
Madeleine McCann investigation (cost to British police only)
£11m
Guarding of Cuadrilla exploratory fracking site in Sussex, in 2014
£4m
Operation Yewtree investigation (to March this year)
£3.5m
‘Operation Stack’, policing queued traffic on the M20 for three weeks owing to a strike in Calais
£700,000
Prison exchange
The cabinet argued over a contract to provide prison services for Saudi Arabia. How does the Saudi prison population measure up to ours?
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