Angela Merkel should be made aware during a visit to London this week that the rising tide of Euroscepticism in Britain could cause the country to leave the EU, Tory MPs said…Former Tory minister John Redwood said on Saturday night he would like Cameron to raise the need for cheaper energy and make clear, tactfully, how British people felt about the EU: “I don’t think he should threaten her in any way, but the reality is very simple: either we get a new relationship that makes sense for Britain, or the British people will vote to leave” – Observer
>Yesterday: AECR: Our candidate for the next Commission President? Nobody!
“Mr Cameron urgently needs a big beast in CCHQ, one capable of elegantly bashing Mr Miliband on the airwaves while demolishing the proposition that Britain’s economic recovery should be gambled away on another round of Ed Balls. Such a change would mean reshuffling the enthusiastic Grant Shapps, who now occupies the post of party chairman. The man for the job should be Michael Gove, the Education Secretary. His epic work on school reform is done” – Iain Martin, Sunday Telegraph
“When he was just 31 and the couple had been married for only two years, Grant Shapps was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. His only chance of survival was gruelling chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which would leave him infertile. It’s something that this rising star has chosen not to discuss in any depth in the past. But today, alongside his wife, Grant explains how his brush with death made him the man – and the politician – he is today. ‘My experience has definitely given me more empathy,’ he says. ‘When you’ve been in that hospital bed, you know how it feels for other people who are going through difficult times. You always remember what it was like'” – Sunday Express
“The future of the North Sea oil and gas industry could be put at risk if Scotland votes for independence, David Cameron signals today, as the full weight of the British government is mobilised for the first time in the campaign to keep the United Kingdom together. The Prime Minister and his Cabinet will travel to Aberdeen, the oil and gas capital of Europe, on Monday to campaign en masse against Scottish independence, ahead of the referendum in September. Speaking before the visit, Mr Cameron suggested that central government resources would be essential in future to develop the potential for drilling new oil and gas wells in the North Sea” – Sunday Telegraph
“The debates happened last time only for two reasons. One was that Cameron agreed to them when he was still the underdog… The other was that, once Brown had messed that up and the balance of advantage changed, Cameron’s inexperience and over-confidence meant that he failed to pull the plug…Cameron will not make the same mistake again” – John Rentoul, Independent on Sunday
>Yesterday: ToryDiary – Cameron v Miliband: the three TV debates we need
“Radical plans to cut water, food and fuel bills for low-income families are being considered by the coalition as part of the government’s new child poverty strategy…Details of the draft strategy, which is expected to be unveiled within days by the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, and the Liberal Democrat education minister, David Laws, before being put out for consultation, include reducing the typical energy bill by around £50” – Observer
“If the clergy want a scapegoat for high food prices they should blame the rampant protectionism that scuppered the 2008 world trade talks. And while responsibility can be spread around, the European Union definitely deserves a share. Its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) adds £400 a year to the average British family’s food bill. Yet when was the last time you heard the Rt Revs putting their weight behind free trade or CAP reform?” – Dominic Raab MP, Sunday Telegraph
“Five Metropolitan police officers are to face secret ‘trials’, starting this week, amid claims they colluded to bring down the cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell. The armed protection officers will face disciplinary hearings behind closed doors at Scotland Yard for allegedly lying about their actions in the Plebgate scandal. The Metropolitan police and its commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, have consistently maintained there was no conspiracy. But in an email to Mitchell last week, the IPCC, the independent police watchdog, said there was evidence of collusion” – Sunday Times (£)
“Mental health is one of the areas where the gap between what happens in Whitehall and the rest of Britain seems wider than ever. It should be near the top of the agenda. For too long leading politicians from all parties, including mine, have maintained an almost complete silence about mental health. Although some ministers have at last begun to talk up its importance the reality is that still too often mental health has Cinderella status. Investment in mental health services was cut for the first time in a decade in 2012” – Ed Miliband, Sunday Express
“Following a day of extraordinary drama, Ukraine faces a new and uncertain future after the country’s parliament voted to impeach the president, and Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister, was released from prison. She has pledged to stand in elections in May. As the president, Viktor Yanukovych, fled the capital, and parliament voted to strip him of his powers, he likened the actions of his opponents to those of the Nazis and said he would battle to stay in power. However, those willing to stand by Yanukovych diminished by the hour as his aides fled Ukraine” – Observer
“This nervous-looking schoolboy is House of Commons Speaker John Bercow — appearing on 1970s kids’ TV show Crackerjack. The diminutive Tory MP, now 51, showed his competitiveness as he battled it out aged about ten in a race to scoop up four curtain rings using a broom handle. He only managed to get two on his, and finished last on the show which famously began with the words: ‘It’s Friday, it’s five to five… it’s Crackerjack!’” – Sun on Sunday (£)