I think these lessons could be applied in other parts of the public service.I have two final points. The first is for the Labour Party and in particular the Parliamentary Labour Party. There is much that our Government has achieved that reflects Labour's values and of which we can be very proud. But we are entering rockier times and we must work together to prevent our Government departing from the best values of the party. To the Prime Minister I would say that he has achieved great things since 1997 but, paradoxically, he is in danger of destroying his legacy as he becomes increasingly obsessed by his place in history.Finally, I am desperately sad to leave the DfID.

I apologise to those in the developing world who have told me I had a duty to stay. I will continue to do all I can to support the countries and institutions with which I have been working It has been an enormous honour to lead the department. It is a very fine organisation of which Britain can be proud We have achieved a lot but there is much left to do I am sure others will take it forward. I hope the House and party will protect the department from those who wish to weaken it.". The Tory party will start the countdown to its general election campaign today by promising to abolish all university tuition fees.

In a speech at University College London, he will pledge to end what he calls Labour's "tax on learning" by abolishing tuition fees, currently at £1,100 a year, and plans to introduce top-up fees of £3,000.The annual £700m cost of the policy will be funded by scrapping the £480m a year expansion of the university sector and £200m annual cost of the Office For Fair Access (Offa) regulator.Universities have complained bitterly about the bureaucracy and interference involved in plans for the regulator and have long opposed the 50 per cent target as too rigid.Damien Green, the Tory Education spokesman, said: "Labour's university tuition fees are a tax on learning ... Under the Conservatives, the university sector will be smaller, better focused and open to all who deserve to be there."Up to 140 Labour MPs have signed an Early Day Motion calling for the Government to abandon its top-up fees policy.. A British war widow has discovered that parts of her husband's body are in America and Oxford, despite having held his funeral. The Royal Marine, 28, was killed when an American helicopter crashed in Kuwait in the first week of the war against Iraq.Seymour, a Navy mechanic, was flown to RAF Brize Norton on 29 March and buried a week later at a funeral in Hamworthy, Dorset.Ten bodies were repatriated but an 11th coffin was also brought back, containing body parts, family members were told.

The news that some parts had only just been identified was given by military officials and the coroner's office in Oxford.Mrs Seymour accused Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, of having "no respect for servicemen". She was told that a "major limb" of her husband was in Oxford and other fragments were in America. She says she intends to hold a second funeral.The MoD said: "Aircraft wreckage had to be returned to the US for investigation and given the catastrophic nature of the crash it has taken the coroner until recently to complete DNA testing.". A former deputy headteacher convicted of murdering his foster daughter had his case referred to the Court of Appeal yesterday to consider evidence not used in the original trial. There were more than 150 microscopic spots of the teenager's blood discovered on Jenkins' jacket, which were consistent only with his having been the attacker, the court had heard.At the Court of Appeal in December 1999, Jenkins' barrister Anthony Scrivener QC claimed the teacher's jacket had been contaminated with the blood as he attended the dying girl because a bubble of blood burst in her nose and it splashed him.Jenkins lost the appeal and, the following month, was refused leave to appeal to the House of Lords. But in April 2001, a file containing new evidence was handed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). Yesterday, Jenkins' lawyer said the commission had decided there was a "real possibility" Jenkins' conviction would be quashed by the Court of Appeal.Neil O'May, a partner at the London solicitors Bindman and Partners, said the appeal related to why Jenkins' two daughters were not called at the trial to give evidence.