Justine Greening has a knack for coming across as a shifty little bastard, regardless of the topic. Also, on the news yesterday she managed to treat winter weather arriving in winter to a hearty dose of business school speak, "Going forward in Q1 we can anticipate further snow falls, etc". All she had to do was show up and say, "We're clearing the roads and have enough salt".

About the only one I'd leave out of the race is Ken Clarke. And that's not because he's any good, it's because the others' stupidity is such that they'd have an unfair advantage.

Ministers and the intelligence services will be able to cover up sensitive information relating to the state's complicity in torture and secret rendition, under controversial plans likely to be included in the Queen's Speech in May.

Sources at the Ministry of Justice say the plans, first outlined in a green paper in October last year, are likely to be included in a justice bill in the next session of parliament in a move that critics say will fundamentally undermine Britain's tradition of open justice.

The plan could mean that so-called closed material procedures - in which secret evidence is withheld from the claimant and the press in a closed court - would be introduced more widely into civil law. This would allow the government or its agencies to defend serious allegations knowing that damaging information would never emerge.

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A response to the green paper from Guardian News and Media, owners of this newspaper, says Kenneth Clarke's proposal would have a serious impact on the judicial process, court reporting and public interest journalism. Closed hearings, secret evidence and secret pleadings and judgments will result in the indefinite removal of information from the public domain.

"For me one of the most worrying aspects about this militant secularisation is that at its core and in its instincts it is deeply intolerant. It demonstrates similar traits to totalitarian regimes – denying people the right to a religious identity because they were frightened of the concept of multiple identities."

"Too often there is suspicion of faith in our continent hinging on a basic misconception – that to create equality and space for minorities we need to erase our religious heritage," she will say.

She will argue "people need to feel stronger in their religious identities, more confident in their beliefs". While individuals should not dilute their nations, nor should nations deny their religious heritages.

That she's whining to the Vatican about religious intolerance might actually be the death of irony

The number of people officially classed as homeless in England has jumped by 14% – the biggest increase for nine years – as what charities have described as a "perfect storm" of rising repossession rates and unemployment drives thousands more families into temporary accommodation.

Across England, 48,510 households were accepted as homeless by local authorities in 2011, according to figures published by the Department for Communities and Local Government on Thursday.

The data shows 69,460 children or expected children are in homeless households, with three-quarters of the households accepted containing children.

Homelessness had been going down since 2003, with a small increase in 2010, and the scale of this rise has shocked housing campaigners.

But the housing minister, Grant Shapps, said the figures were still half the average rate seen under Labour and blamed "the debt-laden economy we inherited [which] is leaving a legacy of hard-up households across the country".

He said the government had made an extra £70m available to councils in the past year to assist households facing the prospect of homelessness.

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The figures come days after official statistics showed the number of rough sleepers in England had gone up by one-fifth.