News in Briefs

Tornado hits town of Moore, Oklahoma at 3pm local time as pictures show extensive damage with homes flattened and fires burning

By Tom McCarthy, Ben Quinn, Adam Gabbatt

Rebel Tories are defeated in Commons after PM’s last minute plea to Ed Miliband

The government’s gay marriage bill was saved after David Cameron was forced to rely on Ed Miliband to defeat an attempt by his own MPs to derail the measure by trying to extend civil partnerships to heterosexual couples.

An 11th-hour plea to the Labour leadership by the Tory chief whip Sir George Young, who warned that the government was in danger of losing the vote, prompted a change of heart by Miliband, who had been planning to abstain on the amendment.

The Labour move meant that the amendment, tabled by the anti-gay marriage Tory and former children’s minister Tim Loughton, was defeated by 375 to 70 votes, a majority of 305.

The decision by the Labour leadership, which has gone from supporting the amendment on civil partnerships to rejecting it within the space of 24 hours, means that the marriage (same-sex couples) bill will now experience a safer journey through parliament.

But the prime minister, who attempted to reach out to his party by emailing a “personal note” to all members saying that he would never work with anyone who “sneered” at them, suffered the humiliation of having to plead with the Labour party for support. He also saw more than 100 Tory MPs, including the cabinet ministers Iain Duncan Smith and Owen Paterson, vote against him on the first amendment of the day.

The prime minister will understand the dangers of relying on opposition support for a flagship measure after he personally ensured that Tony Blair’s schools reforms survived with Tory support in 2006 three months after he became leader. Within months, supporters of Gordon Brown forced Blair to name the date of his departure the following year.

As the debate was under way in the Commons the prime minister moved to shore up his position amid anger in the party over allegations that Lord Feldman, the Tory co-chairman, described grassroots activists as “mad swivel-eyed loons”. Lord Feldman strenuously denies having made the allegations.

In his email to party members, Cameron wrote: “I am proud to lead this party. I am proud of what you do. And I would never have around me those who sneered or thought otherwise. We are a team, from the parish council to the local association to parliament, and I never forget it.”

But deep divisions in the Tory party were highlighted in the commons when Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, and his long standing ally Owen Paterson, the environment secretary, joined more than 100 Tory MPs to vote against Cameron in favour of an amendment that would allow registrars to opt out of conducting same sex marriage ceremonies. This amendment failed as did an amendment to protect the religious beliefs of a person who believes marriage can only take place between a man and women. All votes were classified as free which meant that MPs could vote according to their consciences.

In one of the most dramatic moments the former defence minister, Sir Gerald Howarth, complained to a lesbian member of the prime minister’s policy board about “the aggressive homosexual community”. Howarth made the remarks after Margot James, the MP for Stourbridge, said that the legislation was part of recent changes that have created a level playing fields for everyone regardless of sexual orientation.

The prime minister came under fire from the anti-gay marriage MP Tim Loughton after his amendment, which would have legalised civil partnerships for heterosexual couples, failed after the deal between Labour and the Tories. Loughton warned of a “grubby deal” between the two frontbenches as he told MPs: “We are in danger to a stitch up, a last minute stitch up between frontbenches.”

The deal was reached after the government had warned earlier in the day that the Loughton amendment would have threatened the entire bill by adding £4bn to the costs and delaying its implementation. The costs would have come from increased pension survivor rates for new civil partners.

The government agreed during the day to a Labour request to amend its own plans by launching an immediate review into extending civil partnerships to heterosexual couples. The goverment had initially said it would do this no later than five years after the passage of the bill, though the equalities minister Maria Miller said the Labour amendment would make little practical difference.

The deal meant that the government amendment, altered by Labour, was approved by 391 to 57 votes, a majority of 334.

But Miller indicated that the review could end up leading to the abolition of civil partnerships once gay marriage becomes legal. She told MPs of the review: “It is important for us to understand what the demand is among individuals who might wish to embark on such an arrangement.”

Labour sources said that the party, which had announced earlier in the day that it would abstain on the Loughton amendment after overnight warnings from the government about the threat to bill, denied that Miliband had embarked on a double U-turn.

One source said: “We had an eleventh hour appeal from the government that they did not have the numbers to defeat the Tim Loughton amendment. They made repeated approaches to us at ever increasing levels.

“Ed’s overriding priority is to ensure that the bill gets on to the statute book. Ed and Yvette Cooper will therefore be voting against the Tim Loughton amendment. We expect a large number of MPs to join Ed and Yvette. Since there was a genuine threat to the bill Ed decided the best thing to do was to act in this way.”

The leaders of all the main parties offered all their MPs, including ministers and shadow ministers, a free vote on the grounds that marriage is a “conscience” social issue in which the party whips have no official say. But the prime minister devoted government time to the gay marriage legislation in the belief that it would help reach out to centre ground voters who may feel uncomfortable about supporting a party whose leader voted in favour of the retention of section 28 as recently as 10 years ago. A source close to Miller said: “We are pleased that the House has accepted our amendment offering a review of civil partnerships and that our warnings around the potential delay to same sex marriage have been heeded. A review is the right way forward and no changes should be made to civil partnerships, without being fully thought through.” Tory supporters of the bill were scathing about some of their fellow MPs. One said: “You know how to vote when you see who’s in the other division lobby.”

One minister said: “We are such an inclusive party we have our own opposition built in. We generally shoot ourselves in the foot and then rely on the Labour party to finish the job for us. And all the time we seem to have a smile on our face.”

By Nicholas Watt

Shimmy nightclub accused of fitting two-way mirror between bathroom and function room without notifying female guests

Allegations that a nightclub in Glasgow has secretly fitted a two-way mirror to allow male guests to spy on the women’s toilets “as a bit of fun” are being investigated by police and council licensing officers.

Glasgow city council said it had received complaints that the Shimmy nightclub had installed a spy mirror – without warning female guests – between the toilets and a function room that was allegedly rented to private parties for £800.

A customer at the club called Amy told the Guardian she was warned about the two-way mirror by another customer when she visited Shimmy’s recently to celebrate her birthday. Distressed, she left the toilet, and noticed that people in the club’s main room could glimpse inside the toilets.

The main view into the women’s toilets was from private booths that were immediately adjacent to the mirror, she said. “It was booked out by all boys and they were up against the mirror and making gestures up against the mirror.”

Amy complained directly to G1 Group, owner of the recently relaunched club in central Glasgow, saying it was “absolutely outrageous” that women customers were having their privacy invaded, allowing men to “leer disgustingly” at them.

“Nowhere is it made clear that this is the case, so when visiting the bathroom for the first time, there are women bending over the sink, pouting into the mirror to redo their lipstick, adjusting themselves personally whilst unknowingly being watched by people on the other side,” she said.”What is even more vulgar is that the toilets face on to a private booth that can be booked out to specifically leer into the girls’ bathrooms whilst the girls are unaware that they are being watched.”

She received an email reply from Kirstin Nicol, G1 Group’s director of risk and compliance, insisting a small disclaimer was printed on the women’s bathroom mirror to warn that two-way glass was fitted.

“Firstly can I apologise that you have been offended, this is 100% not our intention at all. The mirror detail in the ladies’ toilet was put in as a talking point, only the ladies at the sinks can be seen, there is another mirror behind the wall for people to use who don’t like the one at the sinks. And there is no view of the cubicles or the corridor,” Nicol wrote.

“We had attempted to put a graphic on the mirror to obscure it a little bit more but due to your comments we will change that and put a fuller one on it to make it more effective.

“I can assure you that if there was any behaviour deemed sexist or immoral or anyone was leering or making inappropriate gestures we would remove them from the club, and if necessary call the police.

“There is a small disclaimer on the mirror, however I will also look at making that bigger. We also have a toilet attendant who advises the ladies about the mirror.

“To date you are the first complaint, everyone else so far has seen it as we intended, as a bit of fun. We would have done the same with the male toilet, however structurally there wasn’t the option.”

The Scottish Sunday Express reported that several women had protested about the mirror after photographs appeared to show male guests with a clear view of women at a row of sinks.

A council spokesman said its licensing standards officers would visit the club. Police Scotland, the country’s new single force, confirmed it was investigating after receiving a complaint.

The nightclub is alleged to have marketed the function room as part of a “smoke and mirrors” promotion. The Sunday Express quoted a G1 Group spokesman, Gary Hall, as saying it was definitely not the case that two-way mirrors had been installed.

No one from G1 Group or the Shimmy Club responded to calls and emails from the Guardian on Monday seeking a response. Complaints about the mirror allegations were being deleted from the club’s Facebook page.

A council spokesman said: “The complaint is that mirrors have been installed, and licensing standards officers are going to speak to the licence-holders and see what can be done to resolve the situation. We have seen stuff on Facebook and so on, but the licensing standards officers have to be allowed to do their job and investigate what’s happening.”

A Police Scotland spokeswoman said: “We have received a complaint and the matter is currently being looked into.”

By Severin Carrell

Mother and charity claim doctors provided inadequate care because of attitudes based on woman’s disabilities

A catalogue of mistakes by an out-of-hours GP service and a hospital contributed to the death of a young woman with physical and learning disabilities, the NHS ombudsman says on Tuesday in a highly critical report that has led to fresh claims of prejudicial attitudes leading to poor care for such vulnerable patients.

The report, by NHS ombudsman Dame Julie Mellor, finds that Tina Papalabropoulos, 23, died in Basildon hospital in Essex of aspiration pneumonia in 2009 after a series of blunders by two NHS organisations.

Hospital staff let her drink, worsening her life-threatening illness, and even though fluids were leaking through her lungs.

Other failings included the refusal of an out-of-hours GP to visit Papalabropoulos when her parents requested a visit because their daughter’s condition was worsening, and crucial delays in diagnosing and properly treating her condition at the hospital.

Christine Papalabropoulos, the dead woman’s mother, and the charity Mencap both claimed that doctors provided such grossly inadequate care to her because of attitudes based on her disabilities. She had learning disabilities, epilepsy, a form of dwarfism called Russell-Silver syndrome and severe curvature of her spine.

“When your child becomes ill and you need professional help from doctors, you and your child are looked at and you can see their mind working: ‘Is there any point in trying to save this child’s life?’ You can see that they think ‘this child has an existence and not a life’,” said Christine Papalabropoulos. “Wrong! This child is loved by all the people, family and friends that they come into contact with. This child is a human being. They just happen to be born with a disability.”

Beverley Dawkins, Mencap’s policy manager, described Papalabropoulos’s death as “an avoidable tragedy”. She said: “Her family and Mencap believe that the failings that led to her losing her life at 23 were because doctors held the view that Tina’s life was not worth saving, due to her disability.”

The hospital trust issued a brief statement welcoming the ombudsman’s report but without any apology to the family or regret over the death. It simply said that since Papalabropoulos died in 2009 “the hospital has made significant improvements to the care and treatment we provide our patients with learning disabilities”.

In 2010 it appointed a dedicated nurse adviser specialising in learning disabilities to work with patients, their families and carers, and trust staff, it added.

Mencap says it has identified about 100 cases in which patients with learning disabilities have died after receiving poor care and estimates 1,200 such patients a year die because of neglect by the NHS. It is “deeply concerned” about three other deaths at Basildon hospital.

Dr Dan Poulter, the health minister, said it was “unacceptable” that anyone with learning disabilities received what he called the “substandard care” detailed by the ombudsman and said ministers were determined to improve the quality of care for such patients, to stop them dying avoidably early.

Papalabropoulos fell ill with a cough on 21 January 2009. A doctor from the family’s GP surgery visited, said she had an acute lower respiratory tract infection and advised her parents to ensure she kept taking antibiotics which had been prescribed the day before.

Three days later, in the early hours of the morning, Tina’s mother became so concerned by her daughter’s condition that she rang South East Essex Doctors Service (Seeds), the local out-of-hours GP service. “She asked for an urgent home visit, but the Seeds doctor declined to visit her. Instead the Seeds doctor said that he would send a message to the [GP] practice requesting a home visit the next morning. However, because the next day was a Saturday, the practice would not be open,” the ombudsman’s report found.

Mellor castigates the unnamed GP for not taking appropriate action to assess and treat the patient. As a result he “did not take reasonable decisions” and “his care fell so far below the applicable standard that this was service failure”. She found “no evidence that [the patient's] rights under disability discrimination law were properly considered by the Seeds doctor.”

The ombudsman made four findings of “service failure” against Basildon hospital, part of Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS foundation trust. It was guilty of “a prolonged delay before [Paplabropoulos] received the treatment that her condition called for”.

Doctors should have given her intravenous antibiotics through a drip and intravenous fluids but did not do so, Mellor found. “They allowed [her] to carry on drinking, despite the risk of aspiration (that she might breathe in the fluids) and they tried to give her oral antibiotics, which her records show she was refusing to take.” Staff also failed to transfer her to a high-dependency unit.

The report also criticises the hospital for doctors not giving Tina’s parents the full picture during discussions with them, not implementing a care plan which should have guaranteed her better care, as they had dealt with her since she was young, and staff did not discharge their responsibilities under disability discrimination law.

By Denis Campbell

Relatives of domestic violence victim say her murder in 2008 by former boyfriend Marc Chivers must be catalyst for change

The family of a woman strangled by her former boyfriend has called on the home secretary, Theresa May, to set up a Stephen Lawrence-style public inquiry to examine why victims of domestic violence are still not getting sufficient protection from the police and other government agencies.

As a highly critical report by the police watchdog is published today, the family of Maria Stubbings told the Guardian that nothing short of a formal inquiry would prevent another family having to experience the failures by Essex police that contributed to her death.

Stubbings was strangled to death and dumped in the downstairs toilet of her home in Chelmsford, Essex, in December 2008 by her former boyfriend Marc Chivers. The police knew he had killed before, and that he had served time in prison for assaulting Stubbings.

Yet by the time that Chivers left prison Essex police had disabled a panic alarm they had installed in her house, and failed to carry out any risk assessment when they did so – one of a number of failings highlighted by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Manuel Fernandez, 42, Stubbings’s brother, said his sister’s death must be a “catalyst for change” and an inquiry was needed to make sure that took place. “If there were ever a case that is an example of the state failing to protect a woman, then it is this case,” he said.

“Since her death, there has been a degree of rhetoric about how things have changed. And yet there is a long list of cases like Maria’s that continues to grow. How can this continue?”

When Stubbings called for help on another occasion after Chivers turned up at her home and stole her medication, the report of the incident was downgraded from domestic violence involving a “very high-risk victim” to a “burglary”.

In the intervening days, police made several ineffectual attempts to contact Stubbings, including one visit where they turned up at her home to find Chivers in the house and passed him a note asking her to call them.

When police finally realised the danger Stubbings was in – eight days later – they arrived at her home to discover her body hidden under a pile of coats in the downstairs toilet. Chivers was still in the house with Stubbings’ 15-year-old son, Bengi, whom he was closely watching in case the boy found his mother’s body. Now 19, Bengi said: “It is horrific to discover the extent of the police’s failings and hard to understand how they got it so wrong. The risk to my mum was clear. I don’t want other women and other children to go through an experience like that. We all deserve help and protection when we’re in danger – and they knew the danger.”

The family’s lawyer, Sarah Ricca, of Deighton Pierce Glynn, believes the cases illustrate institutionalised discrimination against women. “What we need to address this is a Stephen Lawrence [-style] inquiry for women,” she said.

In February 1999, a year after launching a public inquiry and nearly six years after the racist killing of Lawrence, Sir William Macpherson’s report ruled that the Metropolitan police’s investigation was “marred by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership by senior officers”. It made more than 70 recommendations across policing and criminal justice.

Chivers was convicted of Stubbings’s murder and sentenced to life at Chelmsford crown court in December 2009. He had previously served a sentence in Germany for the murder of a girlfriend.

The IPCC issues its second report on the killing today, after it was criticised for the narrow remit and errors in its first investigation. Today’s report recommends three Essex officers should be disciplined, but says the failures within the force go wider, also highlighting a failure to establish a consistent, co-ordinated and urgent response to her calls for help.

“Essex police should have been far more proactive in order to try and ensure that Ms Stubbings was protected and her murder prevented,” the IPCC says. “By the time the police realised the danger Ms Stubbings was in, it was too late.”

The IPCC report says there was “no co-ordinated, consistent or urgent action” taken after calls for help from Stubbings in December 2008. Vital opportunities to detain Chivers after this call, were lost and the police failed to realise that what they were labelling a “burglary” was “potentially an extremely abusive and threatening invasion of Stubbings’ home by a high risk perpetrator.”Fernandez added: “This man had killed a woman before, he had already gone to prison for assaulting Maria, yet when she called for help they didn’t provide it. They turned off a panic alarm at a crucial time when Maria needed it most and at one point, when police officers were told to find her because of growing concerns, her door was opened by her killer and they gave him a calling card to pass onto her. What kind of protection is that?”

The new chief constable of Essex police, Stephen Kavanagh, said the force fully accepted the findings of the report. He said: “A combination of factors, including missed opportunities and organisational failures, led to the brutal murder of Maria Stubbings. As a force, we must never lose sight of the impact of her death at the hands of a violent offender and we must respond to the IPCC report in a positive way.” He added that the force had offered to meet the family to apologise.

Today’s report is the not the first time that Essex has faced criticism for failures over domestic violence. In June 2011, three years after Stubbings’s murder – while the ink was still drying on the police apology to her family – 38-year old Christine Chambers and her two-year old child, Shania, were killed in Essex in similar circumstances.

In both cases the police were aware of a history of serious domestic violence, and in both cases the women were killed shortly after making desperate calls for help. The IPCC again issued a damning report, and again the police force promised change.

Nor is the problem isolated to a single police force. Elsewhere around the country the same promises to improve policing following a domestic murder have been made repeatedly over the last five years.The South Wales and Gwent forces were found to have failed when Joanna Michael was stabbed to death in her home by her ex-partner in 2009. Michael made two 999 calls before her death and police could have been there within five minutes but no one arrived for 20 minutes, by which time she was dead. She was one of four women killed in domestic violence attacks in south Wales in 2009 who had been in contact with police before their deaths.

In Greater Manchester in 2009 Clare Wood was another woman whom the IPCC said “was not protected”. Wood, 36, was strangled and set on fire by a violent and obsessive ex-boyfriend. The IPCC found she had been let down, they said, by “individual and systemic” failures within Greater Manchester police.

The same force had previously been criticised at an inquest – along with prosecutors and social services – after the death of Sabina Akhtar, 26, in 2008. She had told police about a threat that her violent husband had made to “get a knife and slaughter you” in the months before she was killed.

Sandra Horley, chief executive of Refuge, who is supporting the call for a public inquiry, said two women were still killed every week as a result of domestic violence. That statistic has remained the same since 1998.

“The list of women who have suffered the same fate as Maria is sickeningly long,” said Horley. “All of these women were murdered by a current or former partner in recent years. All of these women were also failed by the police, and sadly there are countless others.

“The reality is many state agencies are still failing to take domestic [violence] seriously. We need to uncover the truth to find out why women are not getting the support and protection they deserve.”

By Sandra Laville

Former general’s trip sparks human rights protests as President Obama uses controversial name Myanmar for country

Former general Thein Sein became the first Burmese president to visit the White House in almost 50 years on Monday – a visit human rights groups protested was premature, citing alleged ethnic cleansing and civil rights abuses.

Barack Obama, talking to the press alongside Thein Sein, acknowledged the human rights abuses but also praised him for the progress he had made towards democracy in the last two years.

In a symbolic moment, Obama became the first US president to talk about Myanmar rather than Burma. The US has long resisted the change, in part because of pressure from opposition groups and human rights organisations who said Myanmar was a name used by the military junta and was not inclusive of all the country’s ethnic groupings, unlike Burma.

Earlier, the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, anticipating the use of Myanmar, said it was not a change in policy by the US, which continued to view the name of the country as Burma, and there were no plans to officially adopt Myanmar. But there were times when its use as a courtesy was appropriate in certain settings, Carney said.

The visit underlines the extent to which Burma’s status has changed. Two years ago it was still viewed as an international pariah, run by a military junta. Since then, there has been a partial transfer to civilian rule, with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi being allowed to enter parliament and the release of hundreds of political prisoners.

Obama, anxious to encourage reform and trade, visited Burma in November. It has been one of his few foreign policy successes, courting the country and shifting it away from China’s sphere of influence.

Thein Sein was until September last year on a US blacklist that would have prevented entry to the country. It is the first visit by a leader from Burma since Ne Win in 1966. Ne Win led the coup that established military rule in 1962.

Obama praised Thein Sein for making a start towards establishing a democracy. “We’ve seen credible elections and a legislature that is continuing to make strides in more inclusivity and greater representation of all the various ethnic groups in Myanmar,” he said, adding that Thein Sein would be the first to admit it was a long journey and “there is still much work to be done”.

Obama said that Sein shared with him that he planned to release more political prisoners.

Thein Sein told journalists: “For democracy to flourish, we will have to undertake more economic and political reforms in the years ahead … and will need the assistance and understanding of the international community, including the US.”

Obama did not duck the human rights complaints. He said he had discussed with the Burmese president “our deep concerns about the communal violence directed at Muslim communities inside Myanmar. The displacement of people, the violence towards them needs to stop.”

Brianna Oliver, a spokeswoman for the US Campaign for Burma, which organised protests to coincide with Thein Sein’s visit, said: “We believe that President Obama has been giving way too many concessions to the Burmese government. We are seeing sanctions being lifted and we are seriously concerned about the ethnic cleansing and human rights.”

She said the use of Myanmar was significant because Burma had been completely respectful to the rest of the union whereas Myanmar, the name used by the regime, had not been all-inclusive. “It is very unfortunate for President Obama to concede this,” Oliver said.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, released a report on Monday detailing attacks against Muslims that took place in central Myanmar in late March which it said resulted in the deaths of at least 20 children and four teachers.

The report said state authorities stood by watching the events unfold and were complicit in these crimes.

“President Obama must use this occasion to persuade Burma’s leader that the only path from tyranny to democracy is through the promotion and respect of human rights,” said Richard Sollom, the report’s lead author and PHR’s director of emergencies. “One concrete step toward this goal is for President Thein Sein to support an independent investigation into these killings, bring perpetrators to justice, and speak out forcefully against ongoing anti-Muslim violence.”

By Ewen MacAskill

Labour leader votes against amendment extending civil partnerships to heterosexual couples after appeal by Tory whips

The gay marriage bill has been saved after Ed Miliband agreed at the last minute to vote against an amendment to extend civil partnerships to heterosexual couples that had prompted government warnings that it would derail the entire measure.

The Labour leader, who had planned to abstain in a Commons vote on the amendment, agreed to change tack after the government chief whip Sir George Young sent a message to his opposition counterparts that the Tory leadership was facing defeat.

The move meant that the amendment, tabled by the anti-gay marriage Tory, former children’s minister Tim Loughton, was defeated by 375 to 70 votes, a majority of 305.

The decision by the Labour leadership, which has gone from supporting the amendment on civil partnerships to rejecting it within the space of 24 hours, means that the marriage (same-sex couples) bill will now experience a safer journey through parliament.

The government had warned earlier in the day that the Loughton amendment would have threatened the entire bill by adding £4bn to the costs and delaying its implementation. The costs would have come from increased pension survivor rates for new civil partners.

Labour sources said that the party, which had announced earlier in the day that it would abstain on the Loughton amendment after overnight warnings from the government about the threat to bill, denied that Miliband had embarked on a double U-turn.

One source said: “We had an eleventh hour appeal from the government that they did not have the numbers to defeat the Tim Loughton amendment. They made repeated approaches to us at ever increasing levels.

“Ed’s overriding priority is to ensure that the bill gets on to the statute book. Ed and Yvette Cooper will therefore be voting against the Tim Loughton amendment. We expect a large number of MPs to join Ed and Yvette. Since there was a genuine threat to the bill Ed decided the best thing to do was to act in this way.”

The appeal by Tory whips for Labour support to ensure the safety of the bill highlighted deep divisions in the Conservative party in the wake of claims that a senior member of his entourage described party activists as “swivel-eyed”. Lord Feldman, the Tory co-chairman, denied making the remarks.

More than 100 Tory MPs planned to register their opposition to the marriage (same-sex couples) bill by voting in favour of a series of amendments to water down the measure. In the first vote of the evening, more than 150 MPs voted in favour of an amendment that would allow registrars to refuse to perform same-sex ceremonies.

Tory opponents of the bill were alarmed when Labour and the Tories embarked on negotiations during the day. The government agreed during the day to a Labour request to amend its own plans by launching an immediate review into extending civil partnerships to heterosexual couples.

Maria Miller, the equalities minister, agreed to the Labour request. But she suggested that the review could lead to the end of civil partnerships when she said the review will see “if there is a demand for [civil partnerships]“.

The deal meant that the government amendment, altered by Labour, was approved by 391 to 57 votes, a majority of 334.

But Labour initially said that it would abstain on the Loughton amendment on the grounds that it agreed with it but did not want to risk the overall bill.

The leaders of all the main parties offered all their MPs, including ministers and shadow ministers, a free votes on the grounds that marriage is a “conscience” social issue in which the party whips have no official say. But the prime minister devoted government time to the gay marriage legislation in the belief that it would help reach out to centre ground voters who may feel uncomfortable about supporting a party whose leader voted in favour of the retention of section 28 as recently as ten years ago.

The divisions among Tories was highlighted when Sir Gerald Howarth, knighted on the advice of the prime minister last year when he sacked him as a defence minister, warned of an “aggressive homosexual community” during a clash with a member of Cameron’s policy board. Howarth made the remarks when Margot James, a fellow Tory MP who is in a civil partnership and who was recently appointed to the new Conservative policy board, said that the equal marriage legislation would level the playing field after gay people suffered discrimination in the 1980s.

Howarth replied: “I warn you, and MPs on all sides of the house, that I fear that the playing field has not been levelled. I believe that the pendulum is now swinging so far the other way and there are plenty in the aggressive homosexual community who see this as but a stepping stone to something even further.”

By Nicholas Watt

Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer announces deal to buy blogging platform for $1.1bn – and gives Flickr a revamp, too

By Amanda Holpuch

Andrew Sparrow‘s rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen, including MPs debating the gay marriage bill at report stage and latest developments in the ‘swivel-eyed loons’ row

By Andrew Sparrow

Oklahoma City suburb of Moore flattened by mile-wide twister, with TV footage showing schools and homes reduced to rubble

• Follow the latest developments in our live blog

A devastating mile-wide tornado hit Oklahoma on Monday, flattening neigbourhoods and causing widespread fires in what experts said was one of the worst such storms in history.

Television footage showed homes and buildings reduced to rubble in Moore, south of Oklahoma City. Pictures showed vehicles littering roadways elsewhere in the state. There was no immediate word on casualties.

Authorities said that an elementary school in an Oklahoma City suburb took a direct hit from the tornado. Gary Knight with the Oklahoma City police department says there is no word of injuries from the elementary school. Knight said the school suffered “extensive damage” on Monday afternoon.

It was the second day that tornadoes had hit the area. On Sunday, tornadoes and baseball-sized hail brought destruction to a mobile home park in Shawnee, a suburb of Oklahoma City.

By Monday afternoon, two people were known to have died as a result of the severe weather at the weekend – 79-year-old Glen Irish and 76-year-old Billy Hutchinson.

Both were killed as tornadoes flattened homes in Shawnee. Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin declared an emergency in 16 counties as a result of severe weather and flooding.

Monday’s tornadoes prompted fears that the death toll could rise. Television footage taken in the aftermath of a twister that ripped through Moore showed scenes of widespread damage and destruction. Cars, homes and even schools appeared to have been destroyed. Sporadic fires broke out in the aftermath of the storm and thousands of properties remained without power.

Residents had been urged to stay inside and take shelter prior to Monday’s twister hitting. Moore is a city that knows all too well the impact that tornadoes can have.

It was in the way of a 1999 tornado that resulted in widespread destruction and resulted in the deaths of dozens of residents. On that occasion winds hit 302mph, registering F5 on the Fujita scale – the highest level.

Weather experts said the tornadoes might have been on a similar strength. Brian Edwards, meteorologist at Accuweather.com, told the Guardian: “From the images we are seeing, it looks like some structures have been completely levelled. It was definitely a high-ranking tornado. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was EF4 or 5, which is the highest level.”

Edwards added that the storm is likely to spread out across a large part of the Great Plains and midwest into Monday evening.

“We are in for a long night. It is a very, very large area covered and a very large storm. Some of this storm will hit as far north as Chicago and Milwaukee.”

“The night is far from over,” he added.

The National Weather Service said Monday afternoon that an area covering population of almost 62 million was at risk of storms.

By Matt Williams