6.45pm ToryDiary: Andrew Tyrie's bank reform balancing act has successes – and wobbles, too
6pm WATCH: David Cameron and Ed Miliband go head to head on bank regulation
4.15pm Nick de Bois MP on Comment: The use of police cautions is out of hand – they should return to being final warnings
2.45pm ToryDiary: "Prime Minister's questions is a perpetual assault by Mr Cameron on the Labour Party, of a kind which a gifted desk officer in the Conservative Research Department of the late 1980s might make. It is a professional performance, but also a rather mean-spirited and constricted one." – PMQs: David Cameron and Lynton Crosby set out to destroy the Labour Party
1pm ToryDiary: Conservative support rises among the young – presenting an opportunity we must seize
11am ToryDiary: An invitation from Grant Shapps to sponsor James Wharton's EU referendum bill
9.45am Henry Hill's Red, White and Blue column: Villiers to G8 protesters – let's see you make it to remote Fermanagh
ToryDiary: The BBC has been outpaced by reality, and has become unsustainable
Columnist Stephan Shakespeare on new polling about the Prime Minister and London's Mayor: "When we look at the words the Johnson-likers use to describe themselves, we find ‘individualistic,
knowledgeable, disorganised’, versus Cameron-likers seeing themselves
as ‘friendly, organised and hardworking’. Stephen Fry & Eddie Izzard v the England Rugby Team – yes, it's Boris v Cameron
Greg Clark MP's weekly Letter from a Treasury Minister: Who Bolckow and Vaughan were, and why we need successors for them today
Evan Price on Comment: The state should not decide who represents you in court
Yesterday, ethnic minority members. Today, older and young people. Majority Conservatism's series on the challenge of winning a Future Majority continues. Max Chambers: To win, Cameron must make a game-changing offer to the young middle-classes
MPsETC: Bluebirds soar in double demolition
Councillor John Moss on Local Government: Scrap rent control for local tenants
The Deep End: Post-war America: When capitalism was nice
At the G8 summit in County Fermanagh, the West tries to engineer a coup in Damascus…
“President Assad’s henchmen would be allowed a
role in a rebuilt Syria,
world leaders said yesterday in an attempt to encourage a coup against the
dictator. Senior figures in the military, security services, and across the
Government would survive after Assad had gone, G8 leaders promised at the close
of the summit in Northern Ireland…David Cameron said that the G8 wanted to
persuade Assad loyalists who knew “in their hearts” that he must go that Syria
would not collapse into hopeless instability without him” – The Times
(£)
…but Putin refuses to bow to G8 pressure to cut
Assad adrift…
“Peace talks aimed at bringing and end to the
bloody slaughter in Syria are unlikely to take place soon after world leaders
failed to make a swift breakthrough. Hopes that both sides could meet in Geneva
next month appeared to be dashed today after an isolated President Putin stood
up to pressure from all other seven G8 leaders” – The Times
(£)
…while Cameron secures a global tax crackdown on secretive
firms…
"David Cameron has ordered a
crackdown on secretive firms and trusts as he heralded an historic global deal
to stop tax avoidance. The news came as a Number 10’s tax adviser
warned that African countries are losing twice as much in avoided tax as they
are getting in aid from the West” – Daily
Telegraph
…and journalists watching from afar detect tensions, rivalries and downright loathing
“Officially, it
has been the greatest diplomatic shindig in the world. Unofficially? A stewpot
of bubbling tensions, rivalries and downright loathing. G8 they call it.
G-hate, more like. Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin sat next to each other in
one of the little ‘bilaterals’ which have been held at the G8 summit in County
Fermanagh. Boxing gloves, please! Did two chaps ever look less thrilled to see
one another?” – Quentin Letts, Daily
Mail
> Yesterday:
Daniel Finkelstein: We must never forget our debt to America
"British people owe a huge debt to the United States that we don’t often talk about and can easily forget. And these two anniversaries provide a moment for thanks. The proper understanding of Soviet communism that has been achieved after the fall of the Berlin Wall demonstrates that fear of Soviet expansion was not fanciful and that their ambitions did extend to the subverting of Western democracy. And it also shows the poverty and oppression that would have followed had they been successful." – The Times (£)
Miller's child porn summit: £1 million – but no "opt in" porn filters
“Britain's
internet giants have agreed to put extra money into the fight against sickening
child abuse images – but are refusing to install automatic filters that would
force users to ‘opt in’ to online pornography. At a Westminster summit, the top
four internet service providers pledged an additional £1million over four years
to the Internet Watch Foundation, a charity which works to remove indecent
images from the web. Firms including BT, TalkTalk, Facebook and Google signed a
‘zero tolerance’ agreement on child abuse images at the summit, hailed by
Culture Secretary Maria Miller as a triumph” – Daily
Mail
Britain should
reap the rewards of GM crops
“In a speech tomorrow, Owen Paterson, the Environment Secretary,
will call for a renewed debate about the use of GM, which is severely
restricted in the European Union…around the world more than 170 million
hectares of land are under GM crops, sustained by 16 million farmers in 28
countries, with no reports of apparent damage to health or the environment…Mr
Paterson’s attempt, therefore, to get the EU to reopen this subject is
eminently sensible, yet it has provoked outrage among eco-campaigners” – Philip
Johnson, Daily
Telegraph
Banking 1) Banking Commission raps Osborne over interference with nationalised banks
“The
UK government has ‘interfered’ in the running of the part-nationalised banks in
a manner that is ‘clearly not acceptable’, a sweeping parliamentary review into
the failings of the British banking system has concluded. The
rebuke, prompted by government pressure on Royal Bank of Scotland over bonus
payouts and regulatory capital increases, comes only days after the bank’s
chief executive, Stephen Hester, was ousted following
Treasury pressure” – Financial
Times
Banking 2) Osborne to set out plans for nationalised banks in his Mansion House speech this evening
"The Chancellor will use a speech at the Mansion House this evening to indicate that the sale of the Government's 40 per cent stake in Lloyds can start before 2015. And he made clear that offloading the 81 per cent stake in RBS can only begin if taxpayers will get their money back. Mr Osborne also confirmed that he had played a key role in ousting RBS chief executive Stephen Hester because he wanted a new man in place to guide privatisation."
Latest Cameron-Boris poll: 30 per cent would back Cameron-led Tories at next election, 36 per cent Boris-led Tories
"Supporters of Boris Johnson prefer Jeremy Clarkson, Jimmy Carr and the rock band Muse, while backers of David Cameron like Margaret Thatcher, Prince William and listening to Just a Minute on BBC Radio 4, research shows. The survey also suggested that 30 per cent of voters would back the Conservatives at the next election if Mr Cameron is in charge, compared with 36 per cent if the Mayor of London takes over, according to an analysis by the polling company YouGov." – The Times (£)
> Today: Columnist Stephan Shakespeare – Stephen Fry & Eddie Izzard v the England Rugby Team – yes, it's Boris v Cameron
Latest Generation X poll: the Conservatives double their support among the youngest cohort of voters
"Pollster Bobby Duffy, who is leading Ipsos MORI's work on generational analysis, said many in Generation Y seemed to have a more individualised outlook. "They believe people need to take greater personal responsibility rather than looking to the state – perhaps reflecting the fact that they have had less support themselves than other recent generations. "The Conservative position on many aspects of policy therefore appeals more directly to this sense of stopping 'something for nothing'," Duffy said, adding a proviso that the extent of Tory support from the young shouldn't be exaggerated." – The Guardian
Cover-up over 16 baby deaths at Morecambe
Bay hospitals
“Health bosses
are today accused of covering up their failure to investigate a hospital where
up to 16 babies died through neglect. Despite multiple warnings about Morecambe
Bay hospitals, a Care Quality Commission inspection gave the trust the
all-clear in 2010. Even when a CQC official produced a dossier showing the
inspection was flawed, bosses told him to destroy it to protect the
commission’s reputation” – Daily
Mail
Plans for open primaries abandoned,
Sarah Wollaston claims
"Plans to introduce 'open primaries' in 200 parliamentary seats before the next general election are being abandoned
because David Cameron believes they lead to 'awkward' MPs in the Commons, a
Tory backbencher has claimed. Dr Sarah Wollaston, the MP for Totnes, said
that she believed that Downing Street had shelved the idea of open primaries
over fears that they may favour ‘outspoken’ candidates” – Daily
Telegraph
God goes but
Queen remains as Guides adapt Promise
“Girl Guiding has severed its ties with God and country — at the heart of the
movement since it was founded more than a century ago — after a radical
rewriting of its historic ‘Promise’ that is designed to appeal to a new
generation of members. From now on, Guides will pledge ‘to be true to
myself and develop my beliefs’ instead of ‘to love my God’. ‘My country’ has
been replaced by ‘my community’. But the Queen survived the cull, so girls will
still promise to ‘serve’ her and subsequent monarchs when they take their oath”
– The Times
(£)
Fury as union
boss accuses Kate Middleton of “having babies to get state handouts”
“The leader of
one of Labour’s biggest union backers sparked fury tonight after likening Kate
Middleton to ‘young women having babies to get state handouts’. Unison boss
Dave Prentis took aim at the heavily pregnant Duchess of Cambridge in a speech
attacking government cuts to welfare. Labour leader Ed Miliband was urged to
distance himself from the ‘outrageous’ attack just weeks before she is due to
give birth” – Daily
Mail
News
in brief
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