Federal MPs are set for a massive pay rise - taking a backbencher's salary close to $200,000 a year - but will lose some entitlements and have their future ''gold pass'' travel slashed.

The Remuneration Tribunal, which makes binding determinations on salaries for MPs and senior public servants, will announce the results of a rigorous review within weeks, with speculation that the rise for backbenchers could be $50,000. They are currently paid about $140,000.

From the dawn of the colonial era, long before they even had a national identity, Americans have always felt they had a special role in the world, though the exact nature of American exceptionalism has always been a matter of some dispute.

Many have taken it to be a special religious destiny, but Alexis de Tocqueville, the first to consider it systematically, affirmed the exact opposite: "a thousand special causes ... have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects." Ironically enough, the exact term "American exceptionalism" was first used by Joseph Stalin, in order to reject it.

The BBC has been forced to apologise after television presenter Jeremy Clarkson said British public sector workers taking part in a 24-hour walkout should be shot in front of their families.

The national broadcaster issued an on-air apology, saying Clarkson's comments in an interview on the BBC One live talk show, The One Show, were a misjudged attempt at comedy.

When asked what he thought of the strikers, Clarkson said: "I would have them all shot".

"I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families," added the presenter, best known as the face of the BBC's top-rated Top Gear car show.

James Murdoch has been re-elected as the chairman of British broadcaster BSkyB, but critics who wanted him to resign over the phone hacking scandal that has rocked Britain say his position is weakened.

BSkyB said Murdoch won the support of more than 81 per cent of shareholders who voted on Tuesday, while nearly 19 per cent voted against him at the company's annual meeting.

News Corporation, the media conglomerate controlled by Murdoch's father Rupert Murdoch, owns 39 per cent of the company.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL has told the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics that the British press has become "frankly putrid in many of its elements". He believes the whole newspaper industry has moved downmarket, aping celebrity magazines in an attempt to increase circulation.

Campbell, a former Daily Mirror journalist who became Tony Blair's spin doctor, believes investigative journalism is "dying". He said budget cuts mean journalists are now largely desk-bound and rely on private investigators to get stories.

The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing.

The Opposition says it is considering not putting out an alternative budget update, after Treasurer Wayne Swan announced $11.5 billion in savings to get the budget back to surplus in 2012-13.

Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey says the Government steals its policies and the Coalition is tired of doing the "heavy lifting".

He says the Government's decision to make cuts to the public service to help make savings is stolen from the Opposition's policy play book.

'Well it's no surprise and we welcome the Government copying us. I wish they'd copy us on everything and then maybe the country would be in better shape," he said.

from Crikey .....

Hey, panic merchants: asylum seekers are already living next door

Caz Coleman, a member of the Council for Immigration Services and Status Resolution, writes:

ASYLUM SEEKERS, BRIDGING VISAS, DETENTION CENTRES

Julia Gillard has appealed to a handful of right-wing MPs for their support to avoid a humiliating defeat on the floor of this week's ALP national conference over same-sex marriage.

Having staked her leadership on keeping an election promise not to change the laws surrounding traditional marriage, the Prime Minister was forced yesterday to lobby individual ALP delegates as the Right faced defeat on the issue by as many as 10 votes.

Only nine of the 62 apartments sold in One Hyde Park - the world's most expensive residential block - have been registered for council tax.

The ownership of the Knightsbridge apartments, which range in price from £3.6m for a one-bedroom flat to £136m for a penthouse, is now under investigation by Westminster city council, which is determined to pursue the monies owed by the secretive owners of the apartments.

Someone in the Labor Party remarked yesterday that the former prime minister Kevin Rudd assumes that everyone has the memory of a goldfish".

The MP, like many others, was a touch staggered at Rudd's call over the weekend for the ALP to embrace greater internal democracy or perish.

He has been railing against factional thuggery and calling for the empowerment of the great unwashed on and off since he was deposed in June last year.

But with the three-day ALP national conference beginning on Friday, and the party reforms recommended in the post-election review conducted by John Faulkner, Bob Carr and Steve Bracks to be hotly debated, Rudd has joined in.