Speaking to Newsnight he said:

"Without the presence of heads of state and governments we can't close a deal which can come into immediate effect and can be implemented immediately... It is a direct call to President Obama. But not only to him.

"This isn't just a question about the American position, I feel strong willingness from many leaders, and I have spoken to many in the last couple of weeks, that what we need now is to bring those bilateral talks into one meeting room."

And the shuttle diplomacy is beginning to intensify.

It turns out that the Danish capital itself was the venue for one set of pre-Copenhagen talks, earlier this week.

Newsnight listened in, as cross-party teams of legislators from 16 countries finalised two days of discussions.

The talks were hosted by GLOBE International , one of a number of organisations working to coerce the Copenhagen process into shape, outside of the mainstream political process.

It was a good chance to catch some of the key players.

Parliamentarians from Brazil, Japan, Mexico, the United States and South Africa were among those represented, but it was the Chinese delegation that attracted the most interest.

The team included the architect of China's climate legislation, Congressman Wang Guangtao.

He chairs the Environment & Resources Protection Committee of the National People's Congress, and wrote ground-breaking climate legislation passed in China only this August.

He is also very close to the small team that will eventually negotiate China's position at the Copenhagen Conference.

A global fund to help developing countries switch to low carbon growth and adapt to climate change is the key sticking point ahead of the UN conference.

Mr Wang did not want to talk about specific numbers, saying it was not just about the amount of money on offer, but recognition by rich countries of their responsibility for past emissions.

He also said developed countries must recognise China's obligation to bring millions of its own people out of poverty:

"China has 250 million people living in poverty. Eliminating poverty and problems of survival is something that the Chinese central government and government of all levels are working very hard on.

"While we are trying to solve a massive poverty problem, we also have to tackle climate change... We are being responsible in tackling climate change. China is definitely doing it best under these circumstances."

One goal for the GLOBE forum was that even if everything fails in December, national parliamentarians will at least be better prepared to push for action at home, and with a clearer idea of how far each country might go in international negotiations.

Denmark's Mr Rasmussen spoke at the forum. When we met him he was clearly still worried about the level of finance on offer to the developing world.

He put in a plea to European leaders meeting on Thursday and Friday to finalise their position.

They are said to be about to propose a global sum of around 100bn euros (£90bn) a year, as they prepare their position before meeting negotiators from the rest of the world in Barcelona next week at the last official session before the UN conference itself.

"Finance is the make or break element," Mr Rasmussen told me. "... the European Commission has proposed figures... I think it you look at the top figures proposed by the commission that's the amount we will need...

"I really think that Europe has had a leading role in these negotiations in the last two years, and in order to keep this leadership I simply call on European leaders to agree concrete figures next week."

"We cannot let Copenhagen pass people by," he said at the launch of "Prove It", a temporary exhibit that brings together the evidence for climate change.

The energy and climate change secretary said one of his fears is that this will be "an item on Newsnight, and then people forget about it".

I'm sure he didn't mean that people forget about items on Newsnight... rather that he wants the issue to get a wider audience than our devoted viewers.

And that was the point of this morning's event. Both of the brothers Miliband, Ed and David, the foreign secretary, helped to launch the government's map of the possible effects of a global temperature rise of 4 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.

The chief scientist, professor Sir John Beddington, said the map (produced by the Met Office Hadley Centre) showed the disastrous effects of such a temperature rise.

He and Chris Rapley, director of the museum and former director of the British Antarctic Survey, stressed the need for people to understand the dangers of failure at the Copenhagen conference in December.

David Miliband said too many people still failed to grasp the scale and urgency of the problem. He said climate change was a foreign policy issue that will deepen Middle East tensions, trigger wars over water and food, and lead to unprecedented migration unless action is taken now.

"For too many people, not just in our own country but around the world, the penny hasn't yet dropped... that this climate change challenge is real and is happening now...The penny hasn't dropped too that Copenhagen is the chance to address on a global scale the climate change challenge. There isn't yet that sense of urgency and drive and animation about the Copenhagen conference."

Professor Myles Allen, a climate modeller from Oxford University, told me about his own contribution to the exhibition - a tonne of coal. His goal is to make people think about the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. People have already burnt enough fossil fuels to have passed the half a trillion tonne mark.

Prof Allen says that if we are to avoid dangerous climate change then we must never burn the trillionth tonne. If Copenhagen succeeds, the museum will hold on to the "trillionth" tonne in perpetuity. If it fails, museum staff will - eventually - ceremoniously burn this trillionth tonne.

You can find out more, and keep track on the number of tonnes being released on the trillionth tonne "ticker". Prof Allen told me his children "freaked out" when they saw it. Not perhaps his intention, but a sobering message that he hopes will make people think positively about changing their lifestyles.

David Miliband said the stakes are high - affecting the future lives of millions of people. And for the political process too. If the multilateral system is unable to address climate change, then people will say it's a discredited system, he told reporters.

He hinted at the failure this week of EU finance ministers to agree a financial package to help developing countries to adapt to climate change and help prevent it.

And that's perhaps the biggest hurdle ahead, with another chance next week, in the lead up to the European Council meeting in Brussels.

"It will be relatively few people who decide...It will come down to the fundamental question - are leaders prepared to take the potential flak from their own countries from those who say 'we can't afford this'? That is essentially a political decision that requires vision over the long term."

One key message is emerging - that the most likely outcome is a "framework", but with much of the all-important detail to be fleshed out in the first six months of 2010.

Tuesday's breakfast briefing was hosted by GLOBE International, one of a number of organisations working outside the mainstream political process to coerce the Copenhagen process into shape.

GLOBE was formed 20 years ago, after the Kyoto Protocol was rejected by the US Senate.

The idea was to get parliamentarians talking early by providing a place where policies can be tested, without using up the precious few formal negotiating days of such international summits.

Lord Michael Jay is vice-chair of GLOBE's Commission on Climate Change and Energy Security. He is well qualified to assess how pre-Copenhagen talks are developing as a former head of the Foreign Office, and G8 Sherpa for Tony Blair in 2005/6.

This morning he said that despite the fact that there is no agreement yet on any of Copenhagen's central themes, he does at least see no one country preparing to scupper a deal:

"I do get the sense that everybody wants there to be a deal. That's a pretty fundamental point... there's nobody sitting outside saying we don't care if there isn't an agreement."

Nevertheless, he'd like to see pressure on politicians mount in the next few weeks: "Heads of government focus when they know they have to be in the limelight."

The US-Chinese conversation is seen as crucial to a meaningful global agreement. It's an exaggeration to describe this as a G2 situation, but there's some expectation that President Barack Obama's trip to China next month could seal what is essentially a trade deal between the two countries.

If that goes well, Europe may feel that it has missed a chance to seal such a deal with China itself, and lost a chance to take the lead at Copenhagen.

Better communication with China - now the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter - is seen as vital.

Yet China is something of a conundrum.

In the summer it agreed significant new measures on climate change, but didn't go out of its way to tell the world about it. On the other hand, it seems the rest of the world may have over-interpreted China's position on the so-called 2 degree issue.

Leaders of the world's largest economies have accepted scientific advice that global temperature rises above pre-industrial levels ought not to exceed 2C, to avoid dangerous climate change.

But the Chinese position apparently got garbled in translation. They agreed only that this is what scientists say we should avoid. That's subtly different. And I'm told the reason for this is that the Chinese doubt it's possible for warming to stay below that figure.

Aside from the Chinese, there are other enigmatic players.

Russia is considered a real unknown. It stands to make some gains from climate change - with the possibility of melting permafrost releasing oil and gas reserves, and increasing agricultural productivity in Siberia.

It may not therefore look favourably at a global deal. Japan and India have both made recent, positive shifts, but the ability of the US to go to Copenhagen with a positive proposal still looks unlikely, given its bogged-down state of climate legislation.

And there is still the tricky business of tying down a financial promise by developed countries to help developing countries adapt to climate change.

Those close to the negotiating process concede that money on the scale that's being talked about - some $100bn a year - is not easy to come by these days.

But they describe this as "miniscule" when compared with banking bail outs, and crucial to making Copenhagen a success.

New cases are rising slowly enough that the government's chief doctor said he is hopeful of averting another peak altogether.

Sir Liam Donaldson, chief medical officer (CMO) for England, said the so-called second wave is "proving to be a slow-burn", with the possibility that it may peak at a lower level than previously feared.

"This is incredibly good news, because if this virus had another peak like the pandemic of 1968/70 (which had a second peak over Christmas and New Year 1970)...we might be able to avert that entirely," he said.

The aim is to achieve this through the use of vaccines, due to be rolled out before the end of this month.

Sir Liam said he would take "any breathing space we get", because this would "allow us to fight the disease, and save lives".

Some vaccine stocks are already sitting in UK warehouses, waiting to be sent out to GP practices.

Both the Baxter and GlaxoSmithKline versions have been granted a license for use.

The government's committee of vaccine experts met this afternoon to decide whether to extend the reach of the vaccine beyond frontline health workers and "at risk" groups.

The number of new cases in England last week is estimated to be around 18,000 compared with 14,000 in the previous week.

Numbers in Scotland - which appears to be a little ahead of England in the pattern of disease - are half what they were last week.

Health officials warned against interpreting this fall as a sign that Scottish cases have peaked.

Sir Liam repeated his description of swine flu: "The disease is not a killer, but it can kill."

And he said this was highlighted by the fact that numbers in intensive care are now at their highest for the last two months.

Of the 290 cases in hospital in England, 47 are in intensive care. But with fewer cases around, Sir Liam may find it harder to persuade people to take up his offer of a vaccine.

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All eyes are on New York today, for the latest political moves ahead of the make-or-break conference in Copenhagen in December seeking a global climate deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

And last night it looked as if Danish prime minister and host of the talks, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, was about to drop a quiet bombshell.

He was expected to make clear that he is no longer looking to Copenhagen to deliver a "treaty", that is a document with legally enforceable emissions cuts, but only "a political declaration" - an altogether different outcome.

But overnight reaction from European countries has now put a question mark over that, suggesting that he may now defer his announcement.

Downgrading from a treaty to a political declaration would be a bitterly disappointing result for those pinning their hopes on Copenhagen, despite all the warning signs that a meaningful deal looks perilously close to impossible.

Yet, a political declaration may still be worth having, if the detail is right.

If it includes a line committing countries to agreeing emissions cuts say by the middle of next year, then it may still be effective.

If not, then the politicians risk going home thinking they have achieved a deal, but one that proves empty and undermines the carbon price.

Granted, everything is still "in the balance" as the Miliband brothers put it two weeks ago.

And there are positive signs. Later on Tuesday, Chinese president Hu Jintao is expected to say enough on China's emissions plans that it can stake a claim to be leading the world.

At least that is the way his speech was trailed last night by the UN's senior climate negotiator, Yvo de Boer.

After all, someone has to fill the leadership vacuum.

President Barack Obama is struggling with his climate bill at home. This is in second place to getting healthcare reforms passed. And even if health goes well, and earns Obama political capital from unexpected success, hopes of formulating a meaningful US offer in time for Copenhagen - with real figures on emissions cuts - will remain on a knife-edge.

The problem is that all this "high-level" political activity has a downside as well as an upside.

If prime ministers and presidents get involved, then they can at least negotiate with real authority - without having to constantly "phone home". But they also bring their own staff, with the risk that they edge to one side the climate negotiators with knowledge of the detail that is needed for a deal to have an impact in the real world.

Because it is the real world that sets a time limit on these talks - and marks them out from other global discussions.

Leaders of the world's largest economies have accepted scientific advice that the increase in global average temperature above pre-industrial levels ought to stay below 2C - defining this as the threshold into dangerous climate change.

So success or failure at Copenhagen has one simple test - is the deal enough to secure that 2C limit?

If the talks fail, it gets tougher to fix the problem later, because climate scientists are now confident that for a reasonable chance of keeping temperature rise below 2C, the concentration of greenhouse gases should not go beyond 450ppm of carbon dioxide equivalent.

And to do this, they say, global carbon emissions must peak within the period 2015-2020 and decline rapidly after that.

Hence the race against time, and the need for the detail to be right.

The number of cases last week in England is estimated to be just over 5000, compared with around 3000 in the week before. And in Scotland the numbers have doubled in the last week, from around 3300 to just over 6000.

The Chief Medical Officer for England, Sir Liam Donaldson, described the rise as "one of a number of straws in the wind that suggest we might be seeing the start of an upturn".

These straws include a rise in people in hospital with swine flu in England to 143 from 132 in the previous week, a rise in reports to GPs and a handful of outbreaks in schools (two in South Yorkshire, one in Carlisle, one in the North East, and two in London).

This early rise, following the return to school in England two weeks ago, is not unexpected, but it is early.

"We would naturally have hoped for a bit more breathing space", Sir Liam told journalists at his weekly flu update this afternoon.

The early rise steps up the pressure on the national vaccine programme. Sir Liam said he is eager to get this started, to protect the small minority for whom the virus can prove very serious. Swine flu remains a mild disease in most people.

And the good news on the vaccine front is that trials suggest one dose is enough to offer protection. This makes sense of the government's announcement today that it's prepared to donate ten per cent of UK vaccine supply to the developing world. The White House made a similar pledge this afternoon.

This follows barely disguised pleas from the World Health Organisation that well-off countries do more to help countries where access to vaccine could prove vital for millions of people who are already sick, have poor nutrition and limited access to basic health care.

Sir Liam drew attention to rising swine flu numbers elsewhere in the northern hemisphere - notably in Eastern Europe and the USA - which has seen a significant increase in the past few weeks

Sir Liam said a colleague recently returned from the US visited one college campus with 2000 students sick with the virus. This is clearly ringing alarm bells here. The UK might reasonably be expected to follow the US pattern of disease - as it did in the first wave in the Spring. Though the expert view apparently remains that we may not see a second peak in UK cases before mid October.

"A little bit stunned" was the phrase that computer scientist John Graham-Cumming used as he told me about his 'phone call from Prime Minister Gordon Brown last night.

He had been called at around 8.30pm, and told that Mr Brown would like to speak to him - about his petition on the Downing Street website asking for an apology for Alan Turing, the brilliant mathematician and code breaker whose work on the German Enigma codes is credited with shortening the second World War.

The prime minister told John that the way Alan Turing had been treated was "an injustice that ought to have been undone long ago".

Turing was injected with female hormones as punishment for a conviction for gross indecency in 1952 - when homosexuality was still illegal in the UK. He committed suicide two years later.

The official apology appeared at around 9.30pm.

"The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely - in effect tried for being gay. "

The detailed response describes Turing's work at the Bletchley Park code breaking centre in Milton Keynes.

"It is no exaggeration to say that without his outstanding contribution, the history of WWII could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. "

The response is signed by Gordon Brown - and concludes: "So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we're sorry, you deserved so much better."

Alan Turing's three nieces were stunned as well, when I broke the news to them. The youngest, Shuna Hunt, said "that is incredible - gosh I feel I am in a dream".

Middle niece, Janet Robinson, said "That is really good news".

And the eldest, Inagh Payne, said that Alan's treatment had indeed been an injustice.

At last look there were approaching 30,000 signatories to the petition - all of whom will now get an email, apparently, with the Prime Ministers response. I think that for John Graham-Cumming, what he has achieved has yet to sink in. He will hope that as well as reaffirming the reputation of Alan Turing, this outcome will help to raise public awareness of the role of all of those whose work at Bletchley Park contributed not only to shortening WWII, but to the birth of computing too.

The pair stood together as a symbol, they said, not only of the importance of the issue, but because it must be tackled across government - stressing that climate change traverses not only environmental concerns, but is of economic, national security and foreign policy significance too.

Well that much is not new...

Their joint message today was however a stark one: "There is a real danger that the talks scheduled for December will not reach a positive outcome and there is an equal danger that in the run up to Copenhagen people don't wake up to the danger of failure until it's too late," David Miliband said.

The problem, he said, is not that the need is less urgent, or that the technology is not there with solutions, but that the issue is a hugely complex one, that the world faces other pressing global issues, and that there remains suspicion between the developed and developing world about each others' motivations and intentions.

Europe, he said, must now unite in a joint effort. He is due to hold talks with France, and Sweden, which holds the current EU presidency, to stress the point later this week.

And he used a curious phrase, saying that Europe has a potential not only to lead, but to be a "force multiplier" for the negotiations, by tapping into its political friendships. Well I think I know what he means...

So what of rumours of a special deal between the US and China that's supposed to rescue Copenhagen, as other countries coalesce around it?

It is surely not helped by the difficulties that US climate legislation is currently facing in Congress.

I asked to what extent the US problems had prompted today's call for Europe to take a lead. The foreign secretary said the plea "reflects the fact that we are worried".

But is this gloomy prognosis really justified? Perhaps this is some kind of reverse bluff.

Only yesterday, the new Japanese government tripled its emissions reduction commitment, to 25% on 1990 levels by 2020 - a move which David Miliband himself described this morning as "very significant indeed".

On the other hand, as we heard form commentators on Newsnight earlier this month it is now recognised that a "political surge" is needed to re-energise the talks.

So if this morning's briefing was the UK's attempt at that, it'll be interesting to see who else might now follow.

First, Janet Robinson - the youngest of Alan's three nieces. She made me laugh when I asked if any of her family had followed in his footsteps:

"Absolutely not - on my side of the family the brains definitely skipped our generation. My eldest daughter Lisa studied computational maths at university, but then decided she had a vocation with children, and went on to be a primary school teacher ."

Earlier she had mentioned that Lisa's maths teacher apparently sometimes had to go home and work out how she had got the right answer, often by a route that was different to the rest of her class.

Janet was 7-years-old when Alan Turing died, and she recalled the day of his funeral :

"I remember my father in his dressing room getting ready. Obviously it was a very important occasion, every fleck of dust and everything was brushed away. I found this to be an exciting experience. It was like getting ready for a party. I sort of danced around. I had some inkling that it was a sad occasion, but being a particularly thick child I didn't respond quite as one would expect. "

She would like to see wider recognition of his contribution: "A lot of people haven't heard of him."

So, I asked, is this a timely moment to reflect on the man, and his work at Bletchley Park?

"This generation is obviously moving on and the next generation, they need to know what happened in the war, and how all these people at Bletchley brought things together and how the computer came about. Quite a lot of time has gone by and if any more time slips away the people who were around at that time won't be here to remember him."

I asked what she thinks lies at the root of this lack of recognition - the need to keep secret the work at Bletchley Park, or official attitudes at the time to his homosexuality?

"I think it was more the need to keep the work of Bletchley Park secret, because basically during those thirty post-war years we had not any inkling. We knew he did war work, but that was it, we didn't know anything else."

Alan Turing's nephew, Dermot Turing, told Newsnight producer Sam McAlister how he felt about his family connections, and the latest calls for public recognition of his legacy:

"We're always very proud to have been related to Alan Turing. It's part of the family folklore, and you can't get away from it. In a strange sort of way I think we're touched and honoured by it. It's not our personal achievements, but it's still very nice to be associated with it in some way."

He supports the aims of the petition.

"Yes I do, though to an extent I've got slightly mixed feelings about it. Certainly I think what was done to Alan Turing was absolutely disgraceful, but I'm measuring that against early 21st Century values - and I think that at the time it may not have seemed so extraordinary.

"But I think that things move on, and for example we've seen some apologies given for treatment of soldiers in the First World War and if you put it in that kind of context I think a re-evaluation is appropriate and therefore I'd support it."

"I can't see why the UK government would not wish to treat Alan Turing as one of the citizens that they are willing to laud and see as a true representative of Britain... certainly a patriotic individual who did his best for the country and was prosecuted for something that frankly doesn't seem to have any modern relevance, and I think it would be good, in a modern world, to reflect that."

Dermot did not meet Alan Turing himself, but talked about the family stories.

"Well there are plenty of stories about how eccentric he was and I think sometimes that gets a bit blown out of proportion. I mean obviously he was a very unusual person. But talking to people who met him and worked with him you get a feeling of a very human person as well somebody who really wasn't anything as eccentric or difficult to get along with as perhaps some of the stories might imply.

"Therefore I think to see him as a family member, as a human being, is probably a bit easier for us than maybe it is for people who read the books or see the films or who have come across him, for example as mathematicians or computer scientists do in the classroom... he can possibly seem a bit remote and a bit strange if that's your only encounter."

I asked him how the family feels now about the attitude of the establishment at the time.

"I think we have just sort of accepted it as what happened, rather than trying to be too judgemental about it. I think it's easier for me personally to say that because I didn't have to go through all the trauma of it when it was going on. My father and Alan's mother were obviously very upset about the whole business - I'm not sure that she ever really understood it properly.

"It's been something that has always been there in the background. We've never really talked about it very deeply because it's the sort of thing that would have upset the people who were personally involved at the time."

Alan Turing's eldest niece, Inagh Payne, was 18-years-old when he died and has clear memories of him :

"I can remember Uncle Alan as very, very kind, very generous, untidy, rather unkempt. He had a stammer. He had a very high-pitched voice with a sort of whinnying type laugh, but he was always very generous and used to give us lovely presents.

"I remember once when I was about eight he gave me this parcel and it was an iron. When I opened it I burst out laughing, and I felt so remorseful after that because I think I must have hurt his feelings. But it was very unusual. I was very undomesticated at any rate. But to be given an iron at that age. "

One of the lesser known aspects of his life was Alan Turing's fondness for running - narrowly missing out on representing his country at the Olympics because of a knee injury, Janet told me. Inagh recalls an outing by way of compensation:

"He took my sister Shuna and myself to the Olympic games when we were very little, and we watched all these runners and everything... but the highlight for me, and for Shuna I think as well, was going out to have mushrooms on toast afterwards. That was great."

So what does she think of the petition?

"I think definitely that he should be given all the recognition for what he did during the war. It's so sad that he was persecuted and hounded at the end of his life. I'm sure it must have absolutely ruined his life. It was absolutely miserable. They injected him with hormones and goodness knows what."

I asked her if the family thought that this experience had contributed to his untimely death.

"Well we don't really talk about it, though I'm sure most of the family would think that yes it did, though my grandmother always maintained that it wasn't suicide - that it was a complete accident."

I asked Janet what it was about Alan Turing that future generations should remember, and why?

"Alan had the most amazing brain. There are wonderful stories about things he did as a child which were totally off the wall and unusual, and this brain was used to the greater good. But also he was a very deserving person. He was very, very kind, very truthful and quiet and unassuming. I think he was somebody special."

And it proved to be a real treat.

A potential problem for the petition's organiser, John Graham-Cumming, was working out who the government might apologise to.

Then yesterday, Newsnight interviewed three of Turing's surviving relatives - and found that they all support the computer scientist's attempt to raise Turing's profile.

It turns out that Alan Turing's brother, John, had four children - three daughters, Inagh, Shuna and Janet with his first wife Joan, and a son, Dermot, with his second wife Beryl.

You can hear a little from Inagh, Janet and Dermot in our film from last night, which you can watch here.

And I am digging out the tapes now so that I can reproduce more of those interviews on this blog later.

In the meantime, I thought you might like to hear from Shuna Hunt, the middle daughter, who also spoke to me yesterday, though too late to appear in last night's programme.

She has vivid memories of "Uncle Alan".

"He was a very kind, gentle person and had a terrible stammer. It's sad to think that if he had lived now, he would have been celebrated as a hero... but he had to hide everything. And it was all terribly shameful. "

"It's also sad that at one time I would talk about him and people were interested... but the younger generation look blank...

"During the war, because of his inside information, he became convinced that we were about to be invaded... so he buried the family silver near Bletchley Park and it's still there, because he forgot where he'd buried it... He was the stereotypical boffin. He used to chain his mug to the radiator at Bletchley Park so that no one ran off with it."

Shuna told me that she still has a Teddy Bear of his:

"It was called Porgy. He bought it for himself when he was an adult, and it used to sit in the chair when he was at Cambridge. He used to practice his lectures in front of Porgy."

"... It's still amazing to think that the family didn't even know what he did in the war until it came out in the 1970s."

More from Inagh, Janet and Dermot to follow...

That does not fit neatly with the UK government's policy of giving the drug to anyone who meets the National Flu line's "phone-in" criteria. It also comes a day after we learned that only some 10% of callers are likely to be suffering from swine flu, yet 40% are receiving the drug - as I reported yesterday (link to yesterday's blog).

Ok, some people may have cheated the system, matching the criteria so they can store the drug for future use. But if Tamiflu is being taken unnecessarily it could matter to everyone, because this increases the chance of the H1N1 virus developing resistance.

The Department of Health (DoH) denies that today's advice from the WHO contradicts its own, saying: "We have consistently said that many people with swine flu only get mild symptoms, and they may find bed rest and over-the-counter flu remedies work for them."

The problem is that telephone prescribing takes the GP or nurse out of the loop, so limiting the opportunity for a health professional to take a view that some patients will do just as well without antivirals.

The DoH says its approach is safer: "We believe a safety-first approach of offering antivirals, when required, to everyone remains a sensible and responsible way forward. However, we will keep this policy under review as we learn more about the virus and its effects."

And that's the important bit - because we may only be looking at 11,000 cases in the last week, but if that rockets up again in the autumn or winter then the experiment with mass-prescribing of Tamiflu gets bigger.

And every day the experts are learning more about who is most at risk. So targeted prescribing should get easier. Up until yesterday, the UK had seen 59 deaths linked to swine flu. Today, both Wales and Northern Ireland reported their first swine-flu related deaths.

The Chief Medical Officer for England, Sir Liam Donaldson, has been investigating deaths and classifying these according to whether a patient had mild, moderate or severe underlying health conditions, or none at all. To date, just over a fifth of deaths linked to swine flu are in otherwise healthy people.

As you can see in this graphic provided by the CMO:

So it clearly remains hard for anyone to second-guess who among otherwise healthy patients ringing the flu line might go on to develop severe symptoms from this disease.

And as the DoH pointed out today: "WHO state that 40% of severe cases worldwide have been in previously healthy children and adults and that serious cases should be treated immediately. This emphasises the need not to become complacent about the mildness of the illness and the reasoning behind a precautionary policy."

The bottom line then is if you have any doubts about whether you need Tamiflu or not, avoid the flu line. Which is pretty much what the government is saying too.

"People with underlying health conditions, pregnant women, and parents with children under the age of one should speak to their GP if they have symptoms. If people have any doubts about taking antivirals they should contact their GP."

So what comes next? The Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for England, Sir Liam Donaldson, said it's "virtually impossible" to predict when the second wave might hit. He showed us the pattern in cases of previous pandemics. The pandemic of 1957- 58 saw a first wave peaking in late September/early October of 1957, and a second peak over Christmas and New Year of 1958. The pandemic of 1968-70 peaked first in early March 1969, then again over Christmas and New Year of 1970. "That's completely different to 1957-8, and nobody knows why," Sir Liam said.

Pandemic 2009 could look like either of those last two, he said, or do something entirely new of its own. He hopes we see no second wave until Christmas, because this would buy time in which to roll out the vaccine programme. And he clearly remains convinced there will be a second wave - whether sooner or later.

There's been some discussion while I've been away over the wisdom of giving antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu to otherwise healthy children who catch the H1N1 virus. One study suggested that side effects outweigh benefits, though this was based on seasonal flu not swine flu. And there was more to add to the "Tamiflu good-or-bad" debate from today's briefing. It emerged that on the basis of sample testing, officials estimate that only 10% of people reporting to their GPs and of those ringing the National Flu line actually have swine flu.

This has been higher, up to a maximum of 33% so the Health Protection Agency tells me. And they say that it's expected that the percentage would come down to about the 10% mark as we reach the end of a first pandemic wave. In fact it seems any rise in this number is a sign that a second wave has begun...so worth watching.

But if some 90% of those calling the National Flu line are likely to be swine flu free, it begs the question; how many callers are being prescribed Tamiflu when they don't actually need it? The Department of Health is getting back to me on that.

UPDATE:

I asked the Department of Health for numbers of callers being prescribed antivirals, and at the moment it seems to be just over 40%, down from close to 50% the week before. Here's what their spokesperson had to say:

"Use of the National Pandemic Flu Service has continued to fall. In the week ending 18 August, 108,555 assessments were completed and 45,986 courses of antivirals were collected. This compares to 192,007 assessments and 90,363 courses of antivirals collected during the week ending 11 August."

Well at risk of giving credence to what is probably now more than an urban myth, the official line is a resounding "no, no, no - a very bad idea".

But let's look at the logic here.

From parents' point of view, perhaps with a couple of children in local schools, it might make sense that they would prefer their children to catch the virus now, when it is arguably easier to cope with than in the coming autumn and winter when it will certainly be more miserable to be ill; local healthcare resources are more likely to be swamped as numbers of infections rise; and the virus could have changed to become more dangerous.

And many experts agree that even if the virus alters between now and then, those who catch it earlier will develop some immunity to whatever comes later.

But these same experts are having to balance that narrow logic against broader public health concerns.

And on balance, they say, the greater public good still weighs heaviest.

They might concede that most children who catch H1N1 may get over it after just a couple of days of a slight fever, a sore throat and aches and pains - easily sorted out with a few doses of pain killers and some early nights.

But, for vulnerable groups flu is still a killer, and so is this new one.

Friends of those infected at a swine flu party might have asthma, or grandparents unlucky enough to catch the virus - even though their age groups has some immunity from similar viruses circulating a few decades ago.

And asthmatics and older people who DO catch this flu have a higher chance of a severe illness - and complications.

And by seeking out infection, rather than sticking to the wash your hands, "Catch it, Kill it, Bin it" routine, the fear is that the numbers of infections could, as one expert put it to me today "go large" over the summer .

Statistically, having a larger number of infections around raises the likelihood of seeing more really serious cases.

And that is what the government wants to avoid.

In fact Sir Liam Donaldson, the government's chief medical adviser, was candid last week when he said that the whole strategy of containing the spread in areas least affected, and managing it in areas with widespread transmission, is designed to buy time until there is a vaccine in place to boost the immunity of the rest of us - the "herd" - and dampen down the whole bell curve shape of this pandemic.

The driving thought here is that the fewer infections we see overall, the smaller the impact on public services, and the economy as a whole... and an NHS better able to help those with serious complications.

So whilst there is an inarguable internal logic to the position that for some individuals it might be better to catch this new flu now than later, it may not be better for the UK population as a whole.

And as for that logically-minded parent - perhaps it makes sense not to actively seek out infection (even if the mythical swine flu party actually exists), but instead to take news of cases at their child's school with a common sense shrug of the shoulders.

It might also help not to rush around demanding Tamiflu, the anti-viral drug, unless of course they have concerns about asthma or other long term conditions in their offspring.

This was underlined last night with reports that a patient in Denmark has developed resistance to Tamiflu. Though he has now fully recovered, this could mark the start of a significant change in the new H1N1 virus.

What happens in the next few days will be key.

This case could be a one-off, with no further cases in the community. Or, Danish authorities, who will by now no doubt be scrutinising patients closely, could report more cases.

In that situation we could be witnessing the beginning of what many scientists have long described as inevitable - the emergence of a Tamiflu-resistant strain of the 2009 pandemic virus, and the chance that it will become the dominant strain.

Of course this may not happen. Often in the past, viruses that develop resistance to Tamiflu have also been weaker specimens, fizzling out before they become widespread.

But last year a group of H1N1 viruses emerged that were not only resistant to Tamiflu, but showed no compromised abilities.

One interesting concern crossed my radar last night. I hear that Health Protection Agency staff are getting reports of "pack-splitting" of Tamiflu by parents at schools where the drug has been given out to classmates as a prophylaxis.

Hard to guess at the reasoning, but perhaps the aim was to treat two siblings, when only one was given a packet of the drug, or perhaps to treat a child with half the dose now, saving the rest for the winter months.

It is worrying the authorities because it is just the sort of approach that can allow resistance to Tamiflu to develop.

They still hope that we won't see widespread Tamiflu resistance before the autumn, and a vaccine on offer.

If we do, then they will have the alternative drug, Relenza, to hand. Though questions remain about whether we have enough of this drug in the UK stockpile.

It's about the vaccine against this new flu virus, which the government sees as its most powerful weapon in holding back a potentially overwhelming tide of infections - whether mild or severe. The Health Secretary, Andy Burnham, yesterday confirmed that the Government has contracts with Glaxo SmithKline and Baxter for vaccine for the whole UK population, and that some of this will arrive as early as August.

But in the very next breath we learned that only 60 million of the 120 million doses on order will be ready by this winter. At the estimated two doses apiece to provide protection, that's enough for only half of the UK population. I think many people are expecting a vaccine out there sometime soon with their name on it, should they want it. That will not now be the case for everyone.

It may be that trials show some people gain protection from only one dose, so it's possible there may be more doses to go around. But the Government is clearly going to have to decide who gets the vaccine first, as it comes off the production line. That judgment's a fine balance between the needs of the individual against those of the public at large. High-risk groups such as those with asthma, diabetes or suppressed immune systems, for example, have a strong case for early vaccination. But there's also logic in early vaccination for children, because they're notorious "super spreaders" of influenza.

Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer for England, made it sound as if this was all part of the master plan, pointing out that pandemics typically last two to three years, so we're going to need vaccine stock in subsequent years. The public may not see it like that if we really do reach the tens of thousands of cases a week he's predicting for this autumn and winter, especially if the virus changes in a way that makes it more dangerous.

As Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization, reminded us at the start of all this, flu viruses are notoriously unpredictable, and can change rapidly. One piece of news I was told last night is typically ambiguous. Flu specialists in the US now estimate that as many as 30 to 40 per cent of infections may be completely symptom-free. Good news if you happen to be one of those with such a mild response, but tricky for scientists trying to track and model the spread of infections to help officials who are planning ahead.

Scientists learn more about this virus every day, and plans put in place assuming the pandemic virus would resemble H5N1 "Bird flu", with its 60% mortality, are having to evolve. So what may appear to many of us to be policy-making on the hoof, could turn out to be common-sense tweaking as the world tries to make sense of who's getting infected, and how badly.

It is Environment Secretary Hilary Benn's day. His aim is to show us all what might lay ahead for our children, depending on how successful we are at cutting back greenhouse gas emissions.

Some might say to "worry" us into changing our behaviour.

This is an update on similar research from seven years ago, both spearheaded by the Hadley Centre's climate change team.

This time round there will be an interactive website for consumers, so we can all find out about the likely warmer, wetter winters or hotter, drier summers where we live.

The scientists have apparently divided up the UK into a grid of 25km (16 mile) squares.

The only trouble is that by offering up such a fine grid as this, instead of the region-by-region break down of 2002, there is necessarily less certainty about the changes that might be felt in each square.

The head of climate change at the Hadley Centre, Vicky Pope, tells me this larger uncertainty is "reflected" in the results.

She may find she struggles to get this across later on Thursday.

She told me the grid is designed to help satisfy "users", such as insurers who deal in say the risk of extra flooding, or local planners deciding where to build schools and hospitals.

But she also concedes that using climate models in this way necessarily stretches them as far as they can: "so there will be some unease", she says.

There may be even more unease tomorrow, when the Environment Agency publishes its strategy on current flood risks, and what it is going to cost to cope with climate change.