“‘I’m not going to give a particular timetable, because as I’ve said from the start, wherever and whenever U.S. personnel and facilities are threatened, it’s my obligation, my responsibility as Commander-in-Chief, to make sure that they are protected,’ Obama said. … ‘I don’t think we are going to solve this problem in weeks,’ the President said, noting that rebuilding Iraq ‘is going to be a long-term project.’ … The U.S. president said that he spoke on the phone this morning with United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande and both leaders said they would join the U.S. in providing humanitarian aid to Iraqi refugees.” – Mail on Sunday
And comment:
> Yesterday:
“A hard core of pro-Boris Tory MPs are privately vowing to force the Prime Minister to quit if he tries to form a second Coalition with the Lib Dems. … The Friends Of Boris (FOBs) then expect their man to sweep to victory in a party leadership contest before calling a second Election during the honeymoon period to capitalise on his popularity. … The FOBs believe that up to 100 Tory MPs would vote with Labour against the Queen’s Speech of a second Coalition – enough in a hung Parliament to kill the agreement at birth and force Mr Cameron to resign, they say.” – Mail on Sunday
“Today Boris Johnson pitches to be the next Conservative leader, making clear that he is ready to lead his party after six years running London. … In an interview with The Sunday Times, the capital’s mayor reveals for the first time that he decided to take his current job to ‘show what I can do’ and says he now has the ‘ruthless energy’ to succeed David Cameron. … In his clearest signal that he is planning to succeed the prime minister as Tory leader, Johnson admits that he ran for mayor to burnish his CV. He said: ‘I thought: how could I rapidly acquire massive administrative experience? How can I show what I can do?'” – Sunday Times (£)
Read the Sunday Times’ interview with Boris in full (£)
“Tory politics over the next year or two may turn out to be more like Mutiny On The Bounty, with Cameron as Captain Bligh and Boris as Fletcher Christian, the leader of the mutineers. … But the time for this parting of the ways has not yet come. Cameron and Osborne have the chance to achieve in 2015 the victory which eluded them in 2010. Any Conservative who disrupts the General Election campaign will not be forgiven.” – Andrew Gimson, Mail on Sunday
And further comment:
“David Cameron cannot win a majority at the next general election because the Tories have neglected ethnic minority voters, Britain’s first female Muslim cabinet minister warns today. … Baroness Warsi says party bosses are failing to face ‘electoral reality’ by ignoring non-white voters and it is now ‘too late’ to hope that they will support the Conservatives next year in the numbers needed to win outright. … She also lashes out at the coterie of ‘public school’ allies around Cameron who dismissed her as ‘a brown, working-class woman’ who was ‘not good enough’ to be a minister, branding them the ‘bitchiest’ people she has known.” – Sunday Times (£)
“Then she adds: ‘The electoral reality is that we will not win outright Conservative majorities until we start attracting more of the ethnic vote. This issue is not linked to a particular ethnic vote. It is a broader issue about the party being open to a broader range of views and experiences.’ … She is also intriguingly complimentary about Boris Johnson, contrasting him indirectly with Cameron – and perhaps opening the door to another possible leader.” – Independent on Sunday
> Today: ToryDiary – Warsi gets one thing right – and everything else wrong
“David Cameron has vetoed plans to raise the cost of firearms licences, despite the agreement of the police and the Home Office. … The prime minister, who has hunted stags on his stepfather-in-law’s 20,000-acre shooting estate, has refused to sign off on proposals to raise the gun licence fee from £50 to £88. … The decision has surprised civil servants, ministers and the police and provoked a further rift between No 10 and the Home Office.” – Sunday Times (£)
“Millions of holidaymakers crossing the English Channel face long delays under ‘unworkable’ new immigration laws, travel chiefs warned yesterday. … Home Secretary Theresa May wants ferry and rail firms to carry out stringent exit checks to improve border security and identify illegal immigrants. … Staff at firms including Eurostar, Eurotunnel and P&O face taking on the role of border guards by scanning all passports and checking that photographs match the passengers before they board.” – Mail on Sunday
“Russian spies will break into the hotel rooms of visiting British businessmen, tap their phones and hack their laptops, according to a stark warning from the Foreign Office. … An updated risk assessment published last week alerts travellers that Vladimir Putin’s agents could follow or film them, search their cars and offices or approach their staff. … The new guide adds that corruption is ‘endemic’ in Russia and there is a ‘high threat’ from terrorism as well as ‘human rights’ breaches.” – Mail on Sunday
“Iain Duncan Smith will signal a new war on welfare tomorrow when he argues that his crackdown on benefits is slashing unemployment. … The Work and Pensions Secretary – who is engaged in a behind the scenes battle with No 10 over the stringency of Tory benefits policies in the election manifesto – will use a hard-hitting speech to call for a further toughening in policies. … It comes as Whitehall sources say benefits policies will form a key part of the party’s Election manifesto, including the idea of lowering the £26,000 cap on benefits to bring it closer into line with the average take-home pay of about £18,000, and a plan to limit to two the number of children for whom benefits can be claimed.” – Mail on Sunday
“A leading Tory will this week call for Scottish MPs to be banished from the Commons chamber for several days each week to end “lopsided devolution” that gives Scots more rights than the English. … John Redwood, the former cabinet minister, will use a speech on Tuesday to argue that there is ‘no way’ voters in England will tolerate further devolution of tax powers to Edinburgh unless they get an English parliament. … He will call for MPs in England to sit for part of the week in the House of Commons without their Scottish and Welsh counterparts to discuss English-only issues.” – Sunday Times (£)
And comment:
> Yesterday:
“Victims are fed up with being dismissed and treated with zero respect. … This week we have seen yet again a victim’s family let down in the most shocking way. … Two parents relived the anguish of their son’s murder by putting it into a victim personal statement. Their words were then dismissed by a parole board judge as being of no importance. … I want to see everyone in the justice system getting a better grip on why this statement is so important. It must be considered with the respect and humanity that victims deserve and explained to them in an honest way.” – Baroness Newlove, The Sun on Sunday (£)
“Allies of Vince Cable reacted furiously last night over a Liberal Democrat ‘whispering campaign’ suggesting that he is on the brink of walking out of the Coalition. … The Mail on Sunday has been told by two well-placed sources within the party that the 71-year-old Business Secretary is considering leaving the Cabinet immediately after the party’s autumn conference. … One source close to leader Nick Clegg insisted: ‘He wants to step aside from the grind of office and take up an Election campaigning role in which he would woo back disaffected Lib Dems.’” – Mail on Sunday
“More than 20,000 homes could be heated by drawing energy from just 40 urban rivers and estuaries, from the Tyne in Newcastle down to the Stour in Bournemouth, according to new government research. … The Energy Secretary, Ed Davey, wants to see quick development of water-source heat pumps. These draw residual heat from rivers, which is then fed into local networks or single buildings to provide a low-carbon form of energy.” – Independent on Sunday
“Relations between the brothers are said to be effectively non-existent. Do they still talk? ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to go into it with you. But at a personal level, it’s not something you can come away from’. … ‘Both Ed and I want the other to succeed,” he said. “Strongly, passionately. And we also both work hard to keep personal lines open and private. I’m focused in succeeding in my job … and I want him to succeed in his job. And I’m sure it’s the same for him.'” – The Observer
“Royal Navy top brass were last night accused by women MPs of ‘disgraceful’ sexual prejudice over their treatment of a female warship captain stripped of her command after allegations of an affair with a male officer. … Gisela Stuart, a member of the Commons Defence Select Committee, told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I am wondering that if she had been a man and it had been the other way around whether the [military] machinery would have managed to move with such speed.’” – Mail on Sunday
“More than 600 Sure Start centres for families with young children have been shut or merged since the coalition came to power, according to a Labour Party survey of local authorities released today. … The party claims that as a result of council funding cuts, Sure Start centres have been shutting at the rate of three a week, while many others have been forced to reduce the services they offered.” – Independent on Sunday
“C Wing’s squalor is shameful. Food falls off plates on stairs going up to landings and stays rotting on the floor. Little wonder there is always a queue outside the bars of the medical room. … The door opens and a guard hands me a dozen letters, emails and Christmas cards forwarded from Belmarsh. … I was certain when in Belmarsh that mail was being withheld as an extra punishment for prisoners. Now I am getting my Christmas cards three weeks late. I get a Season’s Greetings card from Tony Blair and Cherie. ‘Thinking of you,’ writes Tony, and I know his hand so it’s for real. Bless.” – Denis MacShane, Mail on Sunday
“More than 15% of Ed Miliband’s MPs are set to quit parliament before the next election, raising fears among senior Labour figures of a ‘brain drain’. Thirty Labour MPs – 15 with ministerial experience – have announced that they are leaving, despite polls suggesting that the party will form the next government. … A senior Labour party source said it expected at least 10 more of its MPs to stand down before the election, pushing the proportion of those leaving to 15.5% of the parliamentary party.” – The Observer
“Nigel Farage was facing a storm of protest last night after one of his MEPs was revealed to have coached Ukip candidates to emulate Hitler. … Bill Etheridge described the Nazi dictator as a ‘magnetic and forceful public speaker’ who ‘achieved a great deal’ – and said the candidates should copy the rhetorical style deployed by Hitler at the Nuremberg rallies. … Mr Farage is on the brink of formally confirming his intention to stand for Parliament in the Kent seat of Thanet South.” – Mail on Sunday
“The elderly and vulnerable were failed by a watchdog set up to protect them because it feared legal threats from owners of care homes, it has admitted. … The head of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) said it has too often ‘backed off’ from making attempts to close unsafe homes and “tended not to fight back” when was legally challenged. … David Prior, chairman of CQC, made the disclosures as the regulator vowed to change its approach, to be ‘much more robust’ in taking on poor providers of care.” – Sunday Telegraph
And comment:
“Some of Britain’s worst doctors have been allowed to carry on practising despite making fatal medical errors and engaging in criminal behaviour, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. … In spite of such failings as overlooking cancer symptoms, botching operations and kerb-crawling, they have been effectively let off with a slap on the wrist. … Cases included: A surgeon who threw a scalpel across an operating theatre during an operation.” – Mail on Sunday
“Five head teachers who suffered bullying at the hands of hardline Muslim governors in Birmingham have warned of a ‘second layer’ of extremists plotting to take over state schools in the city. … Providing striking accounts of the intimidation that they claimed they had been subjected to during the so-called Trojan Horse affair, the group urged Nicky Morgan, the new education secretary, to support further investigations into the Islamification of schools in Birmingham.” – Sunday Times (£)
“A revolutionary shake-up of the secondary school timetable will mean pupils spend three years, instead of the current two, studying for GCSEs in crucial subjects such as maths and English … Many schools are expected to begin GCSE studies when pupils are 13, in response to government education reforms that have made exams harder.” – Independent on Sunday
“He is meant to be helping to save the planet. Yet Lord Prescott has clocked up more than 40,000 air miles in five months – all while travelling to and from climate change conferences. … Since February the ex-Deputy Prime Minister and former Environment Secretary has attended all-expenses paid summits in Europe, North America, India and China. … The circumference of the globe is about 25,000 miles, meaning the former Hull East MP has travelled around the world almost twice in less than six months.” – Mail on Sunday