Vaudeville, LondonJoe Orton’s final play, unrevised at the time of his death in 1967 , is a hard one to get right, since it combines manic farce with non-stop social commentary. That doesn’t excuse Sean Foley’s production . Everyone bellows, barks, screeches and shouts so much that Orton’s subversive wit gets buried under an avalanche of coarse acting.You know it’s going to be an over-the-top evening from the moment Tim McInnerny’s lubricious shrink, in trying to get a putative secretary to undress, starts hee-hawing at his own outrageousness. That note of excess is maintained by Nick Hendrix who, as a cheeky hotel pageboy, suggestively brandishes his crotch in announcing “I had a hard boyhood.” And, from his first entry, Omid Djalili, playing a corrupt Whitehall official, delivers every line as if it were the climax of the play. All this is in the first 10 minutes. Any possibility of escalating mayhem goes out of the window.What you lose is any sense of what Orton was trying to say: namely, that our rigid categorisation of people as mad or sane, straight or gay is confounded by experience. Admittedly, Orton makes his points through a helter-skelter farce in which a psychiatrist’s lechery leads to an orgy of cross-dressing, mistaken identity and wild pursuit. But it’s a measure of Foley’s priorities that a sight gag in which the shrink appears to be fellated by the pageboy gets a far bigger laugh than the investigating Dr Rance’s observation that “You can’t be a rationalist in an irrational world. It isn’t rational.” Foley also paints the lily by having two of the main characters getting smashed on limitless supplies of whiskey: a joke-killer if ever there was one, since the nightmare of farce depends on people being painfully alert to their predicament.Not even Foley’s folly can quite suppress Orton’s epigrammatic wit, and one or two of the performers retain a visible humanity: principally Georgia Moffett as the secretary arbitrarily classified as insane and Jason Thorpe as a dogged cop strangely gratified to be bundled into a dress. But even the magnificent Samantha Bond , as the shrink’s sexually inordinate wife, is forced into overplaying her hand. The end result is a grotesque cartoon in which Orton is deprived of any real sense of danger.Rating: 2/5 Joe Orton Samantha Bond Theatre Michael Billington guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Findings suggest everyone over certain age should qualify for therapy with the cholesterol-lowering drugs, say expertsCholesterol-lowering drugs can benefit even apparently healthy people with no previous history of heart disease, a study has found.The findings suggest everyone over a certain age should qualify for statin therapy, say experts.But NHS prescriptions of the drugs are restricted to patients judged to have at least a 20% risk of a “major vascular event” in the next 10 years. A major vascular event can include a non-fatal heart attack, stroke, or surgery to bypass or unblock damaged arteries.The authors of the new research, which used data from 175,000 patients and is published in the Lancet, say the findings suggest international treatment guidelines for statins should be reconsidered. Medical research Heart attack guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Shepherd’s Bush Empire, LondonThe Scissor Sisters ’ futuristic glam-pop has influenced a string of artists, from Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj to tonight’s support act, Little Boots . The New York band themselves, though, increasingly feel like a cult act. The UK has always been, as singer Ana Matronic nudge-nudges tonight, their “homo away from homo”, but there’s been little fanfare here about the upcoming release of the album Magic Hour. Two Shepherd’s Bush dates ? their only British shows of 2012 ? sold out, but the main tabloid coverage of their visit has been a story about the lighting rig blowing a fuse when they performed on The Voice .Having said that, they still command the love of an audience who greet seven textbookish new songs with all the disco-dancing giddiness they do the hits. By contrast, Little Boots’s set of deceptively frothy, Robynesque new tracks is perfunctorily received: she never quite transcended cult status in the first place.Ana Matronic and tireless counterpart Jake Shears could teach her about putting on a show. Their strength is their ability to suspend reality: for an hour, the Empire is a Manhattan nightclub, with the singers our wisecracking hosts and the backing Sisters the incredibly tight house band. The set is sequenced with the intention of keeping the mood euphoric, with occasional reality-check dips that spell out the underlying bleakness of “fancy restaurants, cocaine nights”, as new track Inevitable has it.Musically, what emerges is how much the singers need each other. Shears’s sentimental solo turn on Mary and Matronic’s house-diva take on Skin That Cat just highlight the strength of their bawdy kinship on the likes of Take Your Mama . In the end, it says something that tonight’s big moment is a fan being let on stage to propose to his girlfriend. “He has our faces tattooed on his back,” Matronic gasps, but the proposal is accepted anyway.Rating: 3/5 Scissor Sisters Little Boots Pop and rock Dance music Caroline Sullivan guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Decision to release 24-year-old after appeal over 2004 murder conviction follows long legal battle by familySam Hallam became one of the youngest victims of a miscarriage of justice on Wednesday when the court of appeal released him after he served seven years for murder.Hallam, 24, emerged with his mother on to the steps of the high court, where, in front of a crowd of photographers, he was sprayed with champagne by the friends and supporters who have long campaigned for his release.Hallam, of Hoxton, north London, was just 18 when he was jailed for life for the murder of Essayas Kassahun in a gang attack in October 2004.The court of appeal is expected to quash his murder conviction on Thursday after the crown dramatically withdrew all opposition to his appeal.The court heard Hallam was jailed as a result of a flawed investigation that failed to follow lines of inquiry and in which the Metropolitan police and the Crown Prosecution Service withheld evidence.Outside the court, his mother, Wendy Cohen, said: "I am just shocked. I knew this would happen, he should never have been in there. My family has gone through hell, it is like we were all being tortured. Sam’s father killed himself while he was inside, all of us have suffered."Hallam’s release comes after a campaign run by friends and family and supported by the actor Ray Winstone.Henry Blaxland QC, for Hallam, said: "Sam Hallam ? and I put it boldly ? has been the victim of a serious miscarriage of justice brought about by a combination of manifestly unreliable identification evidence ? failure by police properly to investigate his alibi and non-disclosure by the prosecution of material that could have supported his case."Shortly afterwards, supporters and friends inside the court gasped as David Hannon QC, for the crown, announced: "We have given this anxious consideration for a long time, and again today, and we are not in a position to oppose the appeal."Hallam was one of two men convicted of the killing of 21-year-old Kassahun in a gang attack which was over within seconds on the night of 11 October 2004. The trial judge recommended he serve life with a minimum term of 12 years.The only evidence against him was two supposed witnesses who claimed he was present at the murder, one of whom gave several different accounts. The second retracted his evidence at the trial.There was no forensic evidence to link him to the scene, and under cross-examination the main witness, Phoebe Henville, admitted: "I just wanted someone to blame."The appeal was brought after the criminal cases review commission instructed an outside police force to investigate ? something it only does in a handful of cases. The inquiry by Thames Valley police uncovered new evidence which showed the witness evidence was “so manifestly unreliable” that it should never have been put to a jury, the court of appeal was told.Other new evidence included information from previously undisclosed police documents about another suspect, and evidence from Hallam’s mobile phone which suggested he was in the pub with his father on the night of the murder.As the crown withdrew its opposition to the appeal, Lady Justice Hallett adjourned the hearing for a few minutes and asked Hallam if he needed time to compose himself. She then announced that he would be released on bail with almost immediate effect. Hallam was led to the court cells, from where, shortly afterwards, he emerged into the well of the high court and the embrace of his mother. As campaigners cheered and clapped, most in tears, he stared straight ahead, looking dazed.His brother Terry Hallam, 32, said: "It feels amazing. I just want to get him back home. The first thing we are going to do is visit my dad’s grave together, he hasn’t been able to do that. We are all stunned, we knew it would happen but we didn’t think it would happen so suddenly."As Hallam was driven away, Paul May, who led the campaign to release him, said he was considering referring the case to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. “There’s a legal duty on the police to pursue reasonable lines of inquiry. They didn’t do it, they didn’t do their job,” said May."Not only has an innocent man gone to prison, the perpetrators of this dreadful murder have largely escaped justice."Winstone criticised the police and demanded answers on Wednesday evening. He said there had been “an outrageous miscarriage of justice” on ITV’s Tonight With Trevor McDonald. “For me it is the disgraceful unprofessional action of the police involved in this case. Action that has caused a terrible stress within the family of the Hallams.” Sam Hallam UK criminal justice Court of appeal Sandra Laville guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Modernisers gain ground but fail to take key posts in Tory party’s 12-strong executiveSupporters and opponents of David Cameron achieved a score draw in elections to the executive of the 1922 committee on Wednesday, which were seen as a test of Tory backbench mood amid fears that Downing Street is losing its touch.A bold move by loyalists to achieve “seismic change” in the elections, by removing “bloody rude” members of the old guard, achieved partial success when some critics of the prime minister were unseated. But the modernisers on the 301 Group, who had published a slate of candidates that was handed out to MPs as they voted on Wednesday afternoon, also suffered some setbacks.The 1922 committee is the Conservative equivalent of the Parliamentary Labour party (PLP), the elected members’ trade union branch, where grievances are aired and interests defended.The main battle for the two coveted secretary posts on the executive of the 1922 committee, which is open to all Conservative MPs not serving in government, resulted in a draw. Karen Bradley, who was on the 301 Group slate, won a post. But Charlie Elphicke, a Cameron loyalist, was beaten to the other by Nick de Bois, a popular figure with all wings of the party who was not on the 301 Group slate. The Thatcherite Chris Chope, who had been strongly supported by the traditional right, was unseated.Afterwards De Bois tweeted: "Delighted to be elected to 1922 Comm and thank you to all those who lent me their support. Congrats to my Executive colleagues as well."Members of the 301 Group succeeded in unseating some of Cameron’s main critics from the 12-strong executive. Peter Bone, the MP for Wellingborough, who recently toned down his criticisms of Downing Street, lost his place. But Bernard Jenkin, the chairman of the Commons public administration committee, who had been targeted by the 301 Group, survived.Jenkin was helped after Nicholas Soames, the veteran Tory MP, and Tracey Crouch, a moderniser elected to parliament in 2010, announced that they would be standing down. Crouch criticised the 301 Group for the “factionalisation” of the elections to the 1922 committee.The 12 members of the executive represent a mix of the 301 Group and those who were not supported by the group. George Hollingbery, who rebelled against the government in last year’s Commons vote on a referendum over Britain’s membership of the EU, succeeded with the support of the 301 Group.But Robert Halfon, the MP for Harlow, who is respected as a campaigner, succeeded in keeping his place on the executive without the support of the 301 Group. Priti Patel, a Eurosceptic, showed that she will become a formidable force in the party after retaining her seat with the support of the 301 Group and traditionalists on the right.Patel’s election allows the 301 Group to claim that eight MPs on its slate won election to the 1922 executive. In another significant blow to Cameron’s critics, Stewart Jackson failed to secure election. He has been a harsh critic of Downing Street since resigning last year as parliamentary private secretary to the Northern Ireland secretary Owen Paterson after rebelling against the government on the EU referendum vote.Organisers of the 301 Group’s slate had expressed fears that they would face a backlash after a claim by one of its organisers that it hoped to shake up the 1922 committee. Kris Hopkins, the MP for Keighley, told the Guardian shortly before the local elections: "I am confident ? I am not wishing to be arrogant ? that there will be seismic change in the shape and the tone and the narrative which sits in the 1922. It should be to everybody’s advantage."You are just going to get a new breath of fresh air coming to an establishment like this. Those new people come from a different era in British politics."One of the organisers of the slate said: "We had been doing well organising an under the radar operation. The Guardian piece on the elections somewhat brought this into the open."One traditionalist said: "The slate was awful and a rather left wing tactic. That is what the Labour party does. Tories may have slates but they are informal and are never published."One moderniser said: "It all felt rather distasteful. It was rather patronising to a highly sophisticated electorate."The old guard did suffer a clear blow in the elections for the four Tory positions on the Commons backbench business committee, which decides business in the chamber on backbench days. Philip Hollobone, who had been targeted by the 301 Group, was unseated.Cameron’s supporters avoided a backlash after a high turnout. Ministers cannot vote in elections to the 1922, but parliamentary private secretaries can. 1922 Committee Conservatives David Cameron Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds UK government making urgent preparations to cope with the fallout of a possible Greek exit from the single currencyThe British government is making urgent preparations to cope with the fallout of a possible Greek exit from the single currency, after the governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King, warned that Europe was “tearing itself apart”.Reports from Athens that massive sums of money were being spirited out of the country intensified concern in London about the impact of a splintering of the eurozone on a UK economy that is stuck in double-dip recession. One estimate put the cost to the eurozone of Greece making a disorderly exit from the currency at $1tn, 5% of output.Officials in the United States are also nervously watching the growing crisis: Barack Obama on Wednesday described it as a “headwind” that could threaten the fragile American recovery.In a speech in Manchester before flying to the United States for a summit of G8 leaders, the British prime minister, David Cameron, will say the eurozone “either has to make up or it is looking at a potential breakup”, adding that the choice for Europe’s leaders cannot be long delayed."Either Europe has a committed, stable, successful eurozone with an effective firewall, well capitalised and regulated banks, a system of fiscal burden sharing, and supportive monetary policy across the eurozone, or we are in uncharted territory which carries huge risks for everybody."Whichever path is chosen, I am prepared to do whatever is necessary to protect this country and secure our economy and financial system."Officials from the Bank, the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority are drawing up plans in the expectation that a Greek departure from monetary union ? increasingly seen as inevitable by financial markets ? could be as damaging to the global economy as the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.With a second election in Greece called for 17 June, King dropped a strong hint that the Bank would take fresh steps to stimulate growth if policymakers in Europe failed to deal with the sovereign debt crisis."We have been through a big global financial crisis, the biggest downturn in world output since the 1930s, the biggest banking crisis in this country’s history, the biggest fiscal deficit in our peacetime history and our biggest trading partner, the euro area, is tearing itself apart without any obvious solution," he said.Doug McWilliams, of the Centre for Economic and Business Research, said a planned breakup of the single currency would cost 2% of eurozone GDP ($300bn) but a disorderly collapse would result in a 5% drop in output, a $1tn loss. “The end of the euro in its current form is a certainty,” he added.Alistair Darling, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer under the former Labour administration, said: "This has the seeds of something disastrous. It is madness. If it spreads to bigger countries, this could be really disastrous for Europe. It could consign us to years of stagnation."Capital flight from Greece has increased since it became clear that a coalition government could not be formed after the election earlier this month. The Greek president, Karolos Papoulias, said citizens were withdrawing their money amid “great fear that could develop into panic” at the risk of a debt default and exit from the euro area, according to minutes of their meetings posted on the presidency’s website. In little more than a week following the election on 6 May, ?3bn was withdrawn from bank accounts. The central bank reported that ?800m was taken out in a single day earlier this week.The head of the International Institute of Finance banking lobby, Charles Dallara, said money was leaving Greece at a growing pace due to political uncertainty. “There has been a pickup of deposit flight from Greece, but I think that is stabilisable once you get a new government in place, if that government reaffirms its intention to remain in the eurozone.” The damage to the rest of Europe if Greece were to leave the euro would be “somewhere between catastrophic and armageddon”, he said.The Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, told parliament that his country faced trouble financing itself as borrowing costs shoot up to “astronomic” levels. The Irish finance minister, Michael Noonan, said Dublin’s plan to return to capital markets in late 2013 might not be achievable because of the uncertainty.The first meeting between French president François Hollande and German chancellor Angela Merkel helped to calm nerves in the markets at one stage, with suggestions that Berlin might be amenable to initiatives to boost growth in Greece and the other austerity-stricken nations of the eurozone.But the jittery mood was underlined by a fall in European shares and the single currency late in the day amid reports that the European Central Bank was cutting off its funding lifeline to Greek banks that had failed to amass enough capital to protect them from future losses.The ECB later said it expected the Greek central bank to use part of the ?130bn bailout from the EU and IMF to ensure that the country’s banks were safeguarded from collapse, and that they would receive additional help from Frankfurt only once this had happened. Already delayed by the political uncertainty in Greece, ?18bn is now expected to be released to recapitalise the banks.Sony Kapoor, of the Brussels-based Re-Define thinktank, said: "The high-stakes game of chicken between Greek and other EU politicians must end now. Those saying that a Greek exit from the eurozone will not be a big deal either don’t know what they are talking about, or have some ulterior motives. The social, political and economic damage to the EU from a Greek exit is potentially incalculable."At the G8 summit, which starts on Friday, Obama will press Merkel to lean more towards a growth package for Europe , instead of pressing so hard for the austerity measures that were rejected by Greek voters.But foreign affairs analysts said that Obama’s leverage with the European leaders is minimal. Although the US has the economic muscle to help Europe out of its mess, the Obama administration has taken the strategic decision not to become involved directly.Instead, Obama is to use the Camp David summit for some quiet diplomacy, hoping to sway Merkel to endorse some immediate actions to help growth. King, speaking at the publication of the Bank of England’s quarterly inflation report, said growth in Britain was weaker and inflation higher than Threadneedle Street had expected three months ago. It would take until 2014 for output to return to where it was in 2008, when Britain’s deepest post-war recession began."What is so depressing about it is that this is a rerun of the debates in 2007/08 ? these are not liquidity problems, they are solvency problems," King said. “Imbalances between countries in the euro area have created creditors and debtors and at some point the credit losses will need to be recognised and absorbed and shared around,” he said."Until that is done, there will not be a resolution. That is why just kicking the can down the road is not an answer. The European Central Bank has performed heroically in trying to buy time but that time hasn’t been used to put in place fundamental underlying solutions." Eurozone crisis European Union European monetary union Economics Banking European banks Euro Europe Greece Economic policy Coalition budget 2010 Larry Elliott Jill Treanor Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Beckham’s arrival for ceremony will increase speculation he will be part of the Great Britain football team at the OlympicsDon’t bother trying to keep David Beckham out of the news. Two and a half hours before Roy Hodgson revealed the composition of his party for the Euro 2012 finals ? the first major tournament for which England have qualified since 1998 in which Beckham will take no part ? came the announcement that Goldenballs will be arriving in Athens to observe Thursday’s ceremony at which the Olympic flame will be handed over to the representatives of London 2012.Beckham, who celebrated his 37th birthday a fortnight ago, earned Sebastian Coe’s gratitude for his prominent role in London’s campaign to win this summer’s Games, and his arrival this week will do nothing to quieten speculation that he will be one of the three over-age players in Stuart Pearce’s Great Britain team for the Olympic football tournament, in which the majority of players have to be under 23. Britain’s footballers won the gold medal at the first Games of the modern era, in 1896, but have not taken part in recent years because of the fear of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland football authorities that to enter a joint team would threaten their individual membership of Fifa, the sport’s world governing body.. There is a fierce debate about whether Beckham should be included in the squad, almost certainly alongside his old Manchester United colleague Ryan Giggs, who is 38. He has been adamant about his desire to take part, and his vast experience makes him a strong candidate for the captaincy.Earlier this week, Barack Obama met Beckham and his LA Galaxy team-mates, recent winners of the US championship play-off. On Thursday the former England captain will join Princess Anne, the president of the British Olympic Association, Hugh Robertson, the Olympics minister, and Lord Coe in the Panathenaic stadium, the home of the 1896 Games. The flame will arrive in the hands of Li Ning, the Chinese gymnast who soared to the rim of Beijing’s Birds Nest stadium to light the cauldron four years ago, and Pyrros Dimas, the Olympic weighlifting champion, who was born in Albania of ethnic Greek parents, moved to Greece at 20 and won gold medals for his new country in Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney. It will be handed to the British representatives by the president of the Hellenic Olympic committee.Lit by the sun’s rays during an elaborately choreographed pageant in Ancient Olympia a week ago, the flame arrived in Athens after a torch relay around Greece, including visits to Crete and the Turkish border. Despite beautiful weather, only small groups of spectators turned out to see the white-uniformed runners carrying it through a city preoccupied with thoughts of economic doom, while a gaggle of tourists stood amid cooling breezes halfway up the Acropolis, where the final torch-carriers turned up the steps to the Parthenon and to a rendezvous with the waiting dignitaries. A cauldron was lit, from which the torch will be reignited for its final ceremony on home soil.On Friday, Beckham and the assembled British dignitaries will accompany the flame on its flight to RNAS Culdrose, near Penzance, from where it will resume its peregrinations ? initially in the hands of Ben Ainslie, a multiple Olympic sailing champion ? on another long and winding relay before ending up in Stratford’s Olympic stadium on 27 July for the opening ceremony. David Beckham Olympic torch Olympic Games 2012 Greece Europe Richard Williams guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Medical journal says cholesterol-lowering pills can reduce the risk of heart problems, especially in the over-50sMillions of over-50s could safeguard their health by taking statins, according to a study that found the drugs benefit healthy people with no heart problems.The findings could lead to a change in policy by the NHS, which currently restricts cholesterol-lowering statins to those who either have heart disease or have at least a 20% risk of suffering a “major vascular event”, such as a non-fatal heart attack, stroke or surgery on damaged arteries, within the next decade.But a big study of statins’ effectiveness, published in the online version of the Lancet medical journal, challenges that policy and concludes that even for people with no record of heart problems, taking statins can reduce their risk by a fifth.The international criteria for who should receive statins should be reviewed and extended, the authors say. As many as 20 million Britons could be offered them, which would add up to £240m to the NHS’s annual drugs bill."If we want to prevent heart attacks and strokes that come out of the blue in people with no previous evidence of problems ? and about half such events happen in the absence of any prior history of disease ? then we have to identify and treat people who are currently healthy but are known to be at increased risk of developing heart disease," said Professor Colin Baigent of Oxford University, co-author of the study.The researchers reviewed 175,000 patients who took part in 27 previous randomised trials. They divided the participants into five groups, each with a different five-year risk of a major vascular event. They found that taking statins reduced the risk of such events by 21% for each unit reduction achieved in someone’s level of harmful low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. The benefit applied even in the patients deemed at lowest risk, they concluded."This benefit greatly exceeds any known hazards of statin therapy. Under present guidelines, such individuals would not typically be regarded as suitable for LDL-lowering statin therapy. The present report suggests, therefore, that these guidelines might need to be reconsidered." they said. The research also found no evidence that that statins increased incidence of cancer or deaths from non-vascular causes.June Davison, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, which part-funded the study, said: "Those who already have heart disease, or are at high risk, are offered statins because it’s well established they help to lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease. This large-scale research found that even people at low risk of heart disease could benefit from statin therapy. The findings will help to inform policy and treatment guidelines in the future."A Department of Health spokesman said: “We keep all new research under consideration. Nice [National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which assesses the cost-effectiveness of treatments] regularly reviews its published guidance in order to take account of new evidence.” Health Heart attack NHS Denis Campbell guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Benoît Coeuré says conditions were very dangerous in autumn of 2011 and banks faced severe difficulties to fund themselvesA senior executive at the European Central Bank has admitted eurozone banks were on the brink of collapse last autumn.In an interview with the BBC to be broadcast on Thursday, Benoît Coeuré, executive director of the ECB, said: "In the autumn of 2011 the conditions were very dangerous ? European banks were facing severe difficulties to fund themselves, to access finance, and we were very close to having a collapse in the banking system in the euro area, which would have also led to a collapse in the economy and to deflation. And this is something that the ECB could not accept."The concern about the state of the banking system led to ?1tn being lent to banks through three-year loans and came as UK banks were told to make preparations for a potential exit of countries from the single currency.In November Andrew Bailey, the Financial Services Authority’s top regulator, told banks: "We must not ignore the prospect of the disorderly departure of some countries from the eurozone."Those contingency plans are now being dusted down amid speculation over a Greek exit. British banks have taken steps to reduce their exposure to Greek government bonds and other loans.Icap, the City currency broker, is ready to reintroduce a drachma trading facility by installing a new panel on its electronic screens. Michael Spencer, its chief executive, said: “I don’t think it’s going to happen in the next week, but I think it’s going to happen.” He dismissed concerns about the entire eurozone breaking up, but said other countries might leave and a Greek exit “needs to be organised ? sensibly”.While the timing of any exit is not clear, in their preparations bank banks are assuming a decision would be made quickly as the country would need to close down its borders and its banks to stop funds flooding out of the country.One unknown is exactly how the Greek currency would be denoted in the payment system ? known as Swift (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) ? that works behind the scenes moving money electronically around the world . The decision lies with the International Standards Organisation.When Greece joined the euro the drachma had been known as GRD and identified by the numeric code 300. Some bankers hope the new code will be different to ensure computers do not pick up any legacy information. Despite requests by banks for notification of the code, no decision will be made until a formal request by Greece. Then, a decision will be taken within hours.The hope is that a departure from the eurozone would happen over a weekend, allowing each of the UK’s major banks to deploy hundreds of people to switch over computer systems to allow them to handle the Greek drachma again.Banks have attempted to cushion the initial impact by selling off their Greek government bonds and reducing their exposure to corporate loans. Legal documents have been checked to ensure loans are written in English law rather than Greek law, permitting payments to continue in euros rather than the new drachma, which is expected to lose at least 50% of its value instantly. Greece joined the single currency at a rate of 350 drachma to the euro.While the computers can be reprogrammed, meeting demands from customers walking into branches to ask for drachma notes will be difficult as the currency will be controlled by Greece’s central bank. Unless officials have been secretly printing drachma notes, the fastest solution could be to stamp drachma or some such symbol across existing euro notes ? although Greek shopkeepers and merchants may well be keener to accept clean euros rather than mock drachmas. Banks are also ready to be able to process credit card transactions for their customers in the new currency. Eurozone crisis Banking Greece European Union European monetary union Economics European banks Financial crisis Financial sector Euro Europe Jill Treanor guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds The question about what Conservatives are for if they cannot manage the economy successfully remains unresolvedPolitics in an age of austerity, number 239 in a limitless series . Last night Conservative MPs turned the election for the executive of the backbench 1922 committee into a vehicle for their differences over what the party should be saying to voters . The result was inconclusive: the Cameron-baiting old guard were not trounced and nor was the 301 group of modernisers sent away with a bloody nose. The real question, about what Conservatives are for if they cannot manage the economy successfully remains unresolved. This matters to non-Conservatives too: the politics of extremes serves no one’s interests.David Cameron knew there were irreconcilable backbenchers likely to cause trouble in the course of the parliament: early on he tried to capture the 1922 by allowing ministers to vote in its internal elections. Having, reluctantly, abandoned the changes, the slate put forward this time by the loyalist 301 group was widely seen as another attempt to subvert the committee’s independence. Excessive zeal in party management is never an attractive quality, but the Westminster bickering of an internal organisation is much less significant than the problem that it represents ? constructing a viable platform amid the ruins of an economic policy on which the entire five-year programme of government had been predicated. For instead of going into the next election with a growing economy, more jobs and lower taxes, George Osborne has already conceded that there will probably be at least two more years of cuts to come. The past month in European politics makes plain how divisive the political consequences might be.No Tory backbencher is (yet) publicly questioning the austerity strategy. Nor, the polls suggest, do a majority of voters. In fact, despite Tory MPs’ criticism of the budget shambles, voters still trust the coalition more than Labour on the economy. The question that really divides the party is whether in the face of austerity it returns to an enhanced core-vote strategy of shoring up the right flank from Ukip by focusing on the traditional crime, immigration and Europe agenda, or whether to keep faith, despite the vastly altered circumstances, in Cameron’s modernising programme and anchor the party to the centre-right. At stake is not just the slender majorities of the 40 group (the proliferation of Tory backbench groups is surely a reflection of the uncertainty about political direction), nor surviving the cull of seats as the number of MPs is cut, but the tone of British politics. The omens are mixed.The best indication of current team Cameron thinking is in the parting shot of his California-bound blue-skies thinker, Steve Hilton . Mr Hilton’s frustration with the constraints of working at the centre of the Whitehall web has been well documented. In particular he despaired of the deregulation programme. Now the man who once mused on abolishing maternity benefit has left behind what is described as a well-developed plan for another swingeing round of welfare cuts with up to £25bn more taken from in-work benefits. It is a further sign of the shifting positions in the party that the welfare secretary Iain Duncan Smith has reportedly dismissed the idea as “absolute nonsense”. But ? and this is something Labour must contend with ? party strategists calculate welfare cuts to be popular, at least if accompanied by a reputation for economic competence. And although they would like to play down the old nasty party’s obsessions with Europe and immigration, and focus on jobs and the cost of living, there is no mistaking the pressure to appeal to an increasingly anxious electorate with a more divisive attack on the poor and workless. Strong and fair is one dubious slogan under which they would like to fight the next election. Meanwhile Mr Cameron’s increasingly noisy critics on the right worry that the prime minister has no stomach for fight at all. They see a Baldwinian inertia at the heart of government. That might yet mean that the loudest voice the voters hear is in the shrill tones of a populist right. Conservatives 1922 Committee guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds