These included suspending the shares to prevent a “disorderly market” developing.He also had to tell the company’s stockbroker and the banks, the Stock Exchange and the company’s lawyers. JOHN WILLCOCK

Financial Correspondent
Kevin Maxwell described on his fifth day of giving evidence at the six- month-old Maxwell trial the panic following the news of his father’s disappearance at sea on 5 November 1991.”It is very hard to explain the sense of panic,” Kevin Maxwell told the Old Bailey, “I consider myself to be quite a calm and solid individual and I found myself almost unable to control myself physically, and I realised that if I didn’t get a grip that I would probably suffer some kind of breakdown.”I realised that despite not knowing where my father was, that a hell of a lot depended on not losing control and I therefore sat down and thought as logically as I could what had to be done.”Questioned by his counsel Alun Jones QC, Kevin Maxwell said he then made a “very urgent” check list of things to do. Both the Louvre and the Boston Museum of Fine Art are said to have shown interest, as has at least one top private collector in Europe.n Ta-er-Pet’s Book of the Dead can be seen at Seaby Galleries, 14 Old Bond Street, London, weekdays 10am-5pm until 31 October Free.. Indeed parts of the text are completely garbled.The Ta-er-pet Book of the Dead revealed a sort of religious revivalist conservatism – almost a religious antiquarianism – in which wealthy first century BC Egyptians, around the time of Cleopatra, tried desperately and somewhat pathetically to hark back to more ancient times, as their real world became increasingly Hellenised and Romanised.Now, the New York-based antiquities gallery, Royal Athena, and their London associates, Seaby Antiquities, hope to sell the book for US$600,000 (pounds 375,000). Yet today only about 100 lengthy, complete examples survive.Ta-er-pet’s scroll – now cut into nine framed lengths – is one of only a dozen of complete examples from the end of production of the books.However both the people who produced the scroll and Ta-er-pet’s family appear to have had virtually no idea as to how the text actually read.It had obviously been copied from a much earlier example and the scribe had made a lot of mistakes. It is the only Book of the Dead to include such a chart.Over 1,500 years, thousands of Books of the Dead were produced by the scribes of ancient Egypt.

They included formulae which the dead person could use to merge his or her soul with those of the gods.And this particular example also included a unique chart of images depicting 75 protective amulets – powerful talismans which would have protected the body and soul of the deceased. Malcolm Mosher, has revealed that the book came from a pre-Christian cemetery near the ancient Egyptian city of Akhmim. It was probably removed illicitly by local treasure hunters in the 1880s around the time when the French archaeologist Gaston Maspero, an early director of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, was excavating the site.The first Books of the Dead were produced in about 1450BC and production went on until around AD50.Their function was to act as manuals for use by the dead in the afterlife. The book subsequently became the property of the Los Angeles Philosophical Research Society which, three months ago, sold it to the New York auction house Harmer Rooke, which then decided to put it on the market through Royal Athena Galleries in New York.Back in the first century BC, the scroll was made for the funeral of a member of a priestly family – a wealthy Egyptian woman named Ta-er-pet.Research over the past few months by an American Egyptologist, Dr. For at least two decades it remained in Mr MacGregor’s private museum in Tamworth, Staffordshire, until, he sold it at auction in London in 1922 to the American millionaire William Randolph Hearst.Hearst then kept it in one of his many mansions – or possibly in storage in New York – until 1942, when financial circumstances forced him to sell it. DAVID KEYS

Archaeology Correspondent
A unique 2,000-year-old ancient Egyptian manuscript – a so-called Book of the Dead – has surfaced on the international antiquities market, after having disappeared from view for the past 70 years.The “book” – a 23ft-long papyrus scroll – was removed from an unknown tomb in southern Egypt late last century and bought by a prominent Victorian amateur Egyptologist, the Rev William MacGregor. Right-wingers especially want to see a drive for people to make their own provision for long-term residential care through private insurance.A further demand that is expected to be brushed aside by the Chancellor is help from the public purse for home-owners faced with falling prices and negative equity.Treasury split, page 24.

MPs at the meeting urged the Government to resist calls from “Middle England” asking for help from the taxpayer for long-term care for the elderly.Tory backbenchers are concerned that next month’s Budget may be the last chance for tax cuts before the election is called, and some are hostile to suggestions that the social security savings limit should be doubled to pounds 16,000 before people have to pay for private care, or that nursing fees for the elderly should be paid by the state. Mr Clarke is also expected to attempt to breathe more life into the Private Finance Initiative to reduce capital public spending.The final balancing act between spending commitments and tax cuts will be hammered out at a Cabinet meeting early next month in advance of Mr Clarke’s detailed announcements in the 28 November Budget.At a private meeting with backbenchers on Thursday night, William Waldegrave, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, warned that tax cuts could only be delivered through cuts in public spending. PATRICIA WYNN DAVIES

Political Correspondent
Kenneth Clarke, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, set about crystallising the scope for Budget tax cuts yesterday at a meeting of Treasury ministers and advisers at his country residence, Dorneywood, in Kent.While some analysts say the case for cuts is weak because the public- sector borrowing requirement is running ahead of Treasury forecasts, there were growing expectations yesterday that the necessary scope for a cut of up to 2p in the basic rate of income tax, or its equivalent in other taxes such as inheritance or capital gains tax, could be found.Mr Clarke is holding out hope that spending could be cut to below this year’s control total of pounds 263bn, but Gillian Shephard, Secretary of State for Education and Employment, Stephen Dorrell, Secretary of State for Health, and Peter Lilley, Secretary of State for Social Security, are fighting against cuts in their budgets.Ministers will assess the likely receipts from next April’s sell-off of Railtrack, while the spending-cut axe is likely to be wielded heavily over Whitehall running costs. Over the weekend, Mr Blair is expected to appoint 10 new whips – four of whom will be women – who are likely to include: Angela Eagle, vice- chairwoman of the centre-left Tribune Group, Alan Milburn, chairman of the backbench Treasury committee, and John Denham, the “soft left” MP for Southampton Itchen.A bad week for Labour was sealed with an opinion poll exposing the party’s continuing weakness on the issues of inflation and tax.A Mori poll for yesterday’s Sun gave the Tories a 2-to-1 advantage over Labour as the party “most likely to control inflation” (49 to 26 per cent), and a smaller edge as the party “most likely to reduce overall tax” (38 to 32 per cent).. Publication of a full list of appointments was yesterday postponed until Monday, although the team of the deputy leader, John Prescott, was announced.Peter Mandelson, MP for Hartlepool and Mr Blair’s close ally, was promoted from the whips office to the team, which includes Richard Caborn, returning to the front bench from the chair of the Commons Trade and Industry Select Committee, as Mr Prescott’s deputy, and Derek Foster, the former chief whip, who retains “ex-officio” membership of the Shadow Cabinet.As many as nine shadow junior ministers have been sacked to make way for promotions and a new influx of the 1992 intake through the whips office.

“Tony Blair’s view is that the key questions remain unanswered and the public remain appalled by Mr Howard’s refusal to answer them,” he said.Thursday’s debate, called by Labour to demand the Home Secretary’s resignation for interfering in “operational” Prison Service matters, came the day after shadow cabinet elections in which Labour MPs delivered a sharp rebuff to Mr Blair’s favoured candidates and plumped instead for “old Labour” stalwarts.Mr Blair had intended to announce all his frontbench changes on Thursday, but instead named only his Shadow Cabinet posts after running into resistance from disappointed colleagues. JOHN RENTOUL

Political Correspondent
Tony Blair was reported to be “very low” yesterday after one of his most testing weeks since becoming Labour leader, as the inquest began into what several Labour MPs described as a “disastrous” debate on prisons on Thursday, and his front-bench reshuffle was delayed after running into difficulties.Mr Blair’s spokesman did not comment on the suggestion that the Labour leader blamed his home affairs spokesman, Jack Straw, for handing Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, a parliamentary triumph. It was he who was worried that anything short of that would be seen as a ‘fudge’.”And it was he who refused on seven occasions to deny having taken the crucial decision that John Marriott would be removed on the day of his statement to the Commons.”The damaging impression has been left of a Home Secretary who has something to hide.”Caught between a rock and a hard place, he could not admit the full truth because of the responsibility which he would then have to accept the blame for the overwhelming crisis now facing the prison service.”The problem for him now is that he has run out of scapegoats.”Next time something goes wrong there will be no one else to blame.”. It conveniently allowed Mr Howard to take the credit when things went well but to say ‘Don’t blame me I’m not in charge’, if things went wrong.”But on Thursday Mr Howard was forced to admit that, in the aftermath of the Parkhurst escape, he was deeply involved in operational decisions.”It was he who pushed for the governor to be suspended. I want to concentrate on the important work being done by the Prison Service: mandatory drug- testing; curbing the abuses of home leave; and ensuring that privileges are earned, not handed down as of right.”As the Learmont report makes clear there are many excellent people working in the prison service who want to do a good job.”I hope the changes I have announced this week will help them achieve that goal.”‘He has no scapegoats left’JACK STRAW”This week’s events have blown apart the Home Secretary’s claim not to be responsible for operational matters in the prison service.”The distinction between operations and policy was always a bogus one. Starting with a dramatic escape, ending in yobbish political farce, neither the public nor the prison service are any better off.’I would have resigned’MICHAEL HOWARD”On Thursday I comprehensively rebutted the unfounded allegations made against me by Tony Blair.”General Learmont’s report into prison security was highly critical of both John Marriott – the former governor of Parkhurst – and senior prison service management.”In accepting the broad thrust of that independent report, I concluded that Derek Lewis’s position as Director General of the Prison Service was untenable.”Had such criticisms been made of me I would have resigned.”I am responsible for prisons policy.

The Director General for the day- to-day running of the service. As I made clear two days ago I am entitled to be consulted on operational matters which might give rise to grave public or parliamentary concern I was consulted on such matters I was not entitled to issue instructions I did not.”It is now time to look forward. But should a matter as delicate and important as the management of prisons and prisoners be decided by who performs best at the dispatch box and who shouts loudest from the benches. Labour, outclassed and outmanoeuvred, let Mr Howard off his own hook. They failed to pursue the bulk of Mr Lewis’s other claims and they missed entirely the wider questions of who runs the prisons, the relationship between government and the semi-independent agencies, and, indeed, what, on the ground, is being done in response to the Learmont report.Mr Howard, meanwhile, secured the backing of the Commons in a 280-231 vote and he secured his tenure at the Home Office by a robust and adept performance. In fact he clearly had discussed it, but under the lacklustre cross- examination in the Commons of the shadow Home Secretary, Jack Straw, he was able to side-step repeatedly the main allegation that he, Mr Howard, had insisted that Mr Marriott was removed that day against Mr Lewis’ wishes – in other words that he involved himself directly in operations.That was the admission the opposition were chasing and they did not get it. The Opposition and Mr Lewis were seeking to prove that Mr Howard’s wall was built without foundation – and crucially that he had been “less than frank” about the division of responsibility for the Prison Service to the Home Affairs select committee.