The last straw came when his daughter Emily rang to whine about her privileged life with her newest husband among the irritating people of France.

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Both Michael Howard and Jack Straw insisted that they must have the right to vary the terms of a life sentence, if the twin requirements of retribution and deterrence are to be met.

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But this is not a call to some nostalgic lost era of education, and nor is the life-crushing tedium of school computing unique to the U.K. It appears, in a straw poll, to be common across a lot of Western Europe.

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Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is understood to have written to Governor Perry asking for Elliott's sentence to be commuted to life.

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