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Former Conservative Health Secretary Stephen Dorrell has downplayed apparent government confusion over the proposed scrapping of free milk for under-fives.

The coalition said on Sunday that the benefit would not go, after health minister Anne Milton suggested plans for such a move were in place.

Mr Dorrell, an ex-health secretary, said it had been judged the political risk "didn't merit the rewards".

He added that the proposal had been discussed only at a "junior level".

The Nursery Milk scheme allows children under five in approved day care to receive 189ml (1/3 pint) of milk each day free of charge.

It dates back to 1940, when milk was issued to pregnant women and young children to protect them against wartime food shortages.

'Difficult choices'

In a letter to the Scottish government, Mrs Milton had said the milk scheme was too expensive - costing almost £50m this year - and the coalition was considering increasing the value of Healthy Start vouchers for the poorest families instead.

She said there was no evidence the scheme improved health and that the government was looking at abolishing it by April 2011.

But Downing Street later ruled this out.

Mr Dorrell, who is chairman of the Commons health select committee, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "This was a proposal from Anne Milton suggesting that this money might be better used to deliver the same objective by different means.

"It was a proposal that was being discussed at a junior level in the government. Downing Street... clearly reached the conclusion... that the [political] risks didn't merit the reward.

"All life, not just politics, is about making sometimes difficult choices. This was a suggestion that there was £50m spent in providing free milk for under-five-year-olds.

"Could that be better spent to deliver the objective that we all share, which is to ensure that there is the best possible healthy start for all children, but perhaps particularly children from low-income backgrounds?

"If you read the correspondence it's absolutely clear that everybody was seeking to deliver that objective."

'On the hoof'

Former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was branded a "milk snatcher" by some when, as education secretary, she presided over the abolition of free school milk for children over the age of seven in 1971.

Mr Dorrell said of Mrs Milton's letter: "A change was proposed. When Downing Street found out about it, they recognised the historical context of it... and suggested this was not a change they wished to see proceeded with."

Shadow health secretary and Labour leadership contender Andy Burnham said there was "policy chaos within his government".

Leadership rival Ed Balls, the shadow education secretary, said: "This is a coalition in chaos, making policy on the hoof."

world hottest news: Yahoo targeted in China cyber attacks

The Yahoo e-mail accounts of foreign journalists based in China and Taiwan have been hacked, according to a Beijing-based press association.

Rival Google has been involved in a high-profile row with the Chinese government following similar cyber-attacks against Gmail accounts.

The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China (FCCC) has confirmed eight cases of Yahoo e-mail hacks in recent weeks.

Yahoo said it condemned such cyber-attacks.

But the FCCC accused Yahoo of failing to update users about the situation.

"Yahoo has not answered the FCCC's questions about the attacks, nor has it told individual mail users how the accounts were accessed," a spokesman told the news agency.

Yahoo said in a statement that it was "committed to protecting user security and privacy".

Clifford Coonan, a reporter for the Irish Times, told the AFP news agency that he had an error message when he logged into his Yahoo account this week.

"I don't know who's doing it, what happened. They (Yahoo) haven't given any information, but it seems to be happening to journalists and academics in China, so that's why it's a little suspicious," he said.

Great Firewall

China censorship has hit the headlines since the high profile cyber-attacks against the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists in January.

The hacks led the search giant to redirect its traffic to an uncensored site in Hong Kong earlier this month.

The Chinese government reacted with anger, saying it was "totally wrong" to blame the authorities for the attacks, the source code of which originated in China.

It does operate a tight control over internet content, including pornography and sensitive political material, in what is dubbed the Great Firewall of China.

Earlier in the week Google blamed the great firewall for blocking its search service, although it said it did not know if it was a technical glitch or a deliberate act.

The issue is now resolved, a Google spokesman said in a statement.

"Interestingly our search traffic in China is now back to normal - even though we have not made any changes at our end. We will continue to monitor what is going on", he said.

world hottest news: Poll tax riots - 20 years after violence shook London

Twenty years ago a protest against what had been dubbed the poll tax erupted in violence and led to rioting that could be heard in nearby Downing Street. Some of those who were there remember the day's events.

The rioting in central London on 31 March, 1990, was not the first demonstration against the so-called poll tax to end in violence. In the weeks beforehand a number of protests around the country had culminated in violent skirmishes.

But the riot that turned London's Trafalgar Square, a top tourism spot, into a battleground between police and protesters came to be seen by many as the fatal blow for the government's community charge.

A central policy of the Conservative Party's winning 1987 general election manifesto, the charge, which replaced the old rates system, was levied on individuals rather than properties. It was supposed to increase accountability. But its introduction met with fierce resistance among some sections of the public.

In the London poll tax riots, up to 3,000 of the 70,000 demonstrators turned on police, attacking them with bricks, bottles and scaffolding poles, and 340 were arrested. Of 113 people injured, 45 were police.

By the end of the year, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had been forced to step down. She was replaced by John Major who scrapped the charge in favour of the council tax that continues today.

Insp Tanner was in charge of the 20-strong team of mounted officers whose charge across Trafalgar Square under a hail of missiles became one of the most replayed incidents of the riot.

The officer, now retired, recalls following a mass of demonstrators into the square:

"There was an angry noise. You could sense the tension. A building was on fire and officers on the ground were trying to sort out scuffles, linking arms and looking frightened.

"It was not a good situation."

The order came to clear the Northumberland Avenue side of the square to allow fire crews access to the burning building.

"We weren't cantering all-out, we were trying to push the crowd away," says the 54-year-old, now a web manager from Ashford, Kent.

However, one horse turned sideways and knocked over a demonstrator. TV footage showed her being picked up by fellow protesters and reports suggested she was shocked but not badly harmed.

"We tried to trace her afterwards but never managed," says Mr Tanner.

As the officers advanced, they were pelted with bricks. One injured Mr Tanner's hand, another tore a chunk from the flank of his horse, Keswick.

"I couldn't shake hands for about six months," he recalls, adding that other officers suffered psychologically afterwards.

For six hours after the crowds had dispersed from Trafalgar Square, mounted police "chased incidents" around central London.

"We were exhausted by the end. None of us had ever seen or experienced anything like it," he adds.

June Havoc, the Hollywood actress whose childhood partly inspired the musical Gypsy, has died in Connecticut at the age of 97, it has been announced.

Havoc, younger sister of famed stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, died of natural causes on Sunday at her home in Stamford, her publicist said on Monday.

Born June Hovick in 1912, Havoc had leading roles in more than 20 films, among them Gentleman's Agreement.

Yet she mostly worked on the stage, appearing in numerous Broadway shows.

These included Pal Joey, in which she appeared with Gene Kelly and Van Johnson, and Cole Porter show Mexican Hayride.

Her last Broadway appearance came in the early 1980s when she took on the role of Miss Hannigan in Annie.

However, it is for Gypsy - filmed in 1962 with Rosalind Russell and Natalie Wood - for which she is perhaps best known.

Havoc inspired the role of Baby June in the musical, the archetypal stage daughter pushed to stardom by her overbearing mother.

The play was based on a memoir of her older sibling Louise, who grew up to be the burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee.

"I loved my sister but I loathed her life," said Havoc in 1998, saying there was nothing wrong with her mother Rose's "drive and ambition".

Havoc also wrote four plays, one of which - 1963's Marathon '33 - won her a Tony nomination as best director.

Toyota has said it will listen more carefully to customers and respond faster to complaints after the recall of millions of cars over safety fears.

The beleaguered carmaker made the pledge following the first meeting of its global safety committee, which was set up following the recalls.

It also said it would enlist the help of outside experts across the world.

Toyota was forced to recall more than 8 million cars globally after faulty brakes and accelerator pedals.

"Listening carefully to the voice of the customer is crucial to regaining credibility from our customers," said Toyota president Akio Toyoda.

"We are setting up a system to respond more quickly to complaints."

Executives and workers from around the world met for the inaugural meeting of Toyota's safety committee at the carmaker's headquarters in Japan.

The carmaker said it would bring in independent experts to help evaluate what went wrong with its quality control measures.

The committee will publish its first report in June, it added.

Toyota also said it would be incorporating a brake override system on new cars to resolve braking issues reported by drivers.