As speculation started about who will fill one of the few relatively safe Tory seats, Fran Abrams and Jojo Moyes witnessed the bizarre demise of a man who continued to protest his innocence. All political careers end in tears, of course, and Piers Merchant's was no exception. The member for Beckenham, whose majority was slashed in May after he and his "friend" Anna Cox were pictured together in the Sun newspaper, was doing his grieving in private last night. Mr Merchant, who survived his first public pillorying after receiving the backing of his local party, decided to throw in the towel after the Sunday Mirror revealed that he had spent several days during last week's Conservative Party conference with Ms Cox.The drama surrounding Mr Merchant continued unabated last night as Ms Cox was taken to hospital from his family home, after launching an emotional attack on waiting press.Photographers said that she appeared to be suffering some kind of minor breakdown.Miss Cox's collapse marked the end of a bizarre day at the Merchant family's Beckenham home. Press were camped out following news of Mr Merchant's resignation, but the teenager, with whom he is alleged to have had an affair, spent much of the day in the house with the Merchants and an unidentified friend.Early yesterday evening, she emerged to ask what the photographers were after.

When one said "A picture of you and Mr Merchant", Ms Cox became extremely agitated.A matter of minutes later, an ambulance arrived along with police officers. Miss Cox subsequently left the house leaning heavily on two paramedics and two police officers.Mr Merchant said he had decided to resign "to protect my family, especially my two sensitive children, and also my friends, including Anna Cox and her family, from the intensive and continued tabloid intrusion into our private lives which otherwise seems set to continue indefinitely, and from further character assassination."Some local Tories admitted they felt let down, though. Eric Chalker, a member of the Beckenham executive committee, said: "People will obviously be feeling very bruised."He added that the decision to stick by Mr Merchant when the Sun revelations appeared in the run-up to the election campaign had seemed the right one at the time, but if the MP had not resigned, "I think that something would have had to give."Mr Merchant had a 15,000 majority when he was elected in 1992, but there was a 15 per cent swing to Labour in May and it was reduced to 4,953 despite boundary changes which should have increased it to around 22,000. Despite Labour's popularity, the Conservatives can be reasonably confident of holding on to the seat.Although Michael Portillo appeared to have ruled himself out of the succession for the seat last night, a number of other high-profile Conservatives are still without seats. While the Beckenham Conservative Association might be reluctant to replace a rightwinger like Mr Merchant with a moderate such as Chris Patten, they will still have a whole host of ex- ministers to choose from..

The bureaucratic `Berlin Wall' that blocks co-operation between hospitals and local social services is to be pulled down, helping reduce pressure on hospital beds. Anthony Bevins, political editor, reports on the pounds 300m winter lifeline for the NHS. Tony Blair said yesterday that patients would feel a direct benefit from the emergency injection of funds to deal with the expected winter crisis in frontline care. Touring the Central Middlesex Hospital, in west London, the Prime Minister said the Government had kept a promise by putting in the money, and it was now up to NHS managers to improve and modernise it. Frank Dobson, Secretary of State for Health, said some of the money would be used to lubricate a new system of co-operation between health authorities and social services, locally, to look after people in the community, rather than having them "block" much-needed hospital beds.He said the Government was determined that the money should not be used as a mere palliative to treat this winter's problems, but as a proper foundation for longer-term management.In particular, he wanted to make a start "on removing the Berlin Wall between the NHS and local social services so that that's there as a real foundation for a much better and more targeted effort in future - so it isn't just for this winter."Mr Dobson said at the Central Middlesex: "At the moment, there are between six and seven thousand people in hospital who shouldn't be there."We need to work to stop people ever coming into hospital in the first place and ensuring that they go home as soon as possible by offering them community services."The winter bonus comes from a pounds 168m "fine" from the Ministry of Defence, which overspent its budget in the last financial year, and pounds 102m from the Department of Trade and Industry. A further pounds 30m will come from internal administrative savings in the NHS; some of it from prescription fraud.Jean Trainor, acting chief executive of the NHS Confederation which represents health authorities and trusts, said: "This cash must be directed towards providing care in a range of settings: hospital care is only one option for coping with the winter problems and general rising emergency admissions."Health authorities and trusts have already set up imaginative plans to work with social services and GPs to provide appropriate care. This may not always be in an acute hospital, but it will be first-class, as patients have the right to expect. These well thought-out plans should be our building blocks for the future."But Paddy Ashdown said: "To begin to tackle the long-term effects of years of Tory underfunding and to stop hospital waiting lists rising further, at least an additional pounds 250m is now needed in the health service, on top of the pounds 300m which the Government is providing."Michael Jack, the Tory spokesman, said higher inflation and the abolition of tax relief on private medical insurance for the over-60s had turned out to be "a costly self-inflicted wound on the NHS"..

A senior director of General Motors, which owns the car maker Vauxhall, said last night his company may pull out of Britain if it does not join a single currency. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight, Dr Mustafa Mohatarem said that unless the Government committed itself to monetary union the company may have to switch production from the UK. He said that a single currency would remove the exchange rate volatility that is damaging profits and added that many manufacturers jobs that relied on sales in Europe were also dependent in Britain joining EMU.. A celebration of car culture kicked off yesterday with the launch of the London Motor Show. Unfortunately, it opened just as government figures painted a bleak picture of clogged roads and choking cities in the 21st century.

Randeep Ramesh examines why little has been done. The amount of traffic on the roads could increase by 51 per cent over the next 20 years and motorway journeys could take twice as long, according to the National Traffic Forecasts.The figures, the first for seven years, show the scale of the problem facing the Government. However, the numbers released yesterday are considerably better than those predicted in 1989. Then, civil servants predicted that traffic would grow from 1988 to 1996 by 25 per cent. In fact, it only managed to rise by 17 per cent.Officials point out the figures rely less on economic growth and have a new way of calculating congestion. This assumes that when roads become saturated with traffic, motorists are deterred from driving.Transport forecasting is notoriously difficult. The M25 was built to handle 80,000 cars and lorries a day - but two weeks after it was opened the orbital motorway was carrying 120,000 vehicles every 24 hours.The motor industry - which has been extremely critical of the Government's green pronouncements - attacked the figures.