The Conservative party has said it has no plans to discipline Chris Heaton-Harris for plotting with a Telegraph columnist to help him stand as an anti-windfarm candidate in the Corby byelection, even though the MP was the official agent for the Tory campaign in the constituency.

After speaking to Heaton-Harris and watching the video evidence, Tory officials said they wanted to focus on the big issues, but admitted he had been silly.

Ministers have been accused of "hiding inconvenient truths" about the spread of the deadly fungus threatening Britain's ash trees.

The criticism stems from changes made to the "scientific facts" published by the government about ash dieback, which emphasised the role of the wind in spreading the disease over the role of infected trees imported from continental Europe. Ministers can do nothing to stop the wind blowing spores across the country, but have been attacked for taking too long to ban the import and movement of infected ash trees.

Scientists have used a novel technique to probe the nature of dark energy some 10 billion years into the past. They hope it will bring them closer to an explanation for the strange force that appears to be driving the Universe apart at an accelerating rate.

The method relies on bright but distant objects known as quasars to map the spread of hydrogen gas clouds in space.

The 3D distribution of these clouds can be used as a tracer for the influence of dark energy through time.

A scholarly paper describing the approach has been submitted to the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics and posted on the arXiv.org preprint site.

A few hardy souls sit on Downhills Park's benches, reading or watching squirrels scamper through multicoloured piles of leaves. Parents and toddlers wrapped up in hats and scarves are braving the playground while pupils from Wisdom School nearby are using the park for their PE class, a run that has collapsed into a walk for many of the giggling teenage girls. Downhills is a well-loved green space in densely populated Haringey, one of London's more deprived areas.

"This park is my lungs," said dog walker and health worker Elizabeth Bell, 62. "I come here most days because it's peaceful and cheers me up to see the colour in the trees and the little ones playing. It lets you breathe again. Not many people round here have gardens, and if they do they're filled with wheelie bins and recycling bins. This is our giant garden. We need it for our health – mental and physical."