‘David Cameron is likely to come under pressure to repeat a pledge not to fight the next election after senior Conservatives said that they believe he will stand again because the “lure of power will be too strong”. Ahead of the general election, Mr Cameron vowed not to serve more than two terms as Prime Minister. However, senior figures in the party have now told the Telegraph that they now believe Mr Cameron is planning to U-turn on his promise not to fight another election in the wake of the Conservatives’ unexpected majority victory over Labour.’ – Daily Telegraph
>Today: ToryDiary: Cameron shouldn’t fight the 2020 election as Prime Minister – because he’s promised not to do so
‘Ministers were accused last night of spouting ‘hot air’ over a crackdown on illegal foreign workers as it emerged the number of arrests has plummeted. Immigration Minister James Brokenshire announced a wave of raids this autumn targeting building sites, care homes and cleaning contractors that employ non-EU citizens who do not have permission to be in Britain…But figures revealed the number of people actually arrested in swoops has halved in just a year – undermining his tough rhetoric.’ – Daily Mail
>Yesterday: Ralph Buckle on Comment: The Government is wrong. We need more students from the Commonwealth to stay and work in Britain.
‘The ‘vast’ scale of health tourism in the NHS is being covered up by hospital bosses, whistleblowers have told the Mail. The managers say they are told to disguise the true number abusing the health service by bosses who ‘don’t want to know’ – and are branded racist if they speak out. Foreign patients can use NHS-issued cards to obtain treatment abroad, funded by UK taxpayers, the Mail revealed yesterday. But it emerged last night that the Government has known about ‘concerns’ over EHIC card fraud for months – yet failed to act and still issues more than five million a year.’ – Daily Mail
‘We owe it to young people to ensure that the qualifications they sit match the standards of the highest performing systems around the world. In the past, the grades students received were inflating. In 1994, the first year in which the A* was awarded at GCSE, 13% of grades were either A* or A – this proportion increased to 23% by 2010. Despite this apparent improvement, real standards were stagnating. In tests taken by 15- and 16-year-olds in 2012, before our education reforms had been implemented, England was the only country in the OECD in which the literacy and numeracy skills of young people were no better than those of their grandparents’ generation.’ – Nick Gibb MP, Daily Telegraph
>Yesterday: John Bald on Local Government: Ofsted isn’t working
‘Michelle Mone, one of Scotland’s best-known businesswomen, is to become the prime minister’s “entrepreneur tsar” and will be given a seat in the House of Lords. The founder of the Ultimo lingerie brand has been asked by the government to carry out a review to encourage new businesses in areas of high unemployment. She will make her recommendations next year.’ – FT
‘The government could postpone plans to hold a Commons vote on the bombing of Islamic State militants in Syria. Ministers are said to be concerned about winning the backing of the Labour party, with one leadership candidate ruling out intervention and two others expressing doubts. While a vote had been pencilled in for shortly after a new leader of the opposition is elected in September, it may now be pushed back until later in the year.’ – The Times (£)
‘Jeremy Corbyn is heading for a “knockout victory” in the Labour leadership race after almost doubling his lead over rival candidates, according to a new poll. The hard-left candidate is 32 points ahead of his nearest rival, up from 17 points three weeks ago. A YouGov poll for The Times gives him 53 per cent of first-preference votes, an increase of ten points, meaning that he would win the contest in one round.’ – The Times (£)
>Today: Chris Grayling MP’s column: It’s Groundhog Day in the Labour Party
>Yesterday: WATCH: Channel 4 pins Corbyn down on Clause IV
‘Government should borrow and spend a bit more on railways, motorways, broadband and housing. Indeed, rarely has there been a better opportunity to do so. The average interest rate on government bonds is down to a record low of 1.5 per cent. The average maturity on UK bonds is almost 18 years — compared with about five years in the US and Germany. In other words, should the government borrow for big projects today it could fix those low rates for the best part of two decades.’ – Ed Conway, The Times (£)
‘UKIP is demanding 12 seats in the House of Lords amid claims that David Cameron is ignoring the democratic will of voters. The Eurosceptic party won 3.8million votes at the election in May – the third largest share of votes of any party – but it has not been invited to nominate any peers.’ – Daily Mail
>Yesterday: ToryDiary: Lord Scruton. Lady Lea. Lord Johnson. The Conservative peers we need.
‘Officials breach data rules at least four times a day, often involving the confidential details – including medical records – of countless adults and children. The ‘shockingly lax attitudes’ that local authorities show towards protecting private records is exposed in a study by the civil liberties group Big Brother Watch. The privacy campaigners found councils committed 4,236 data breaches between April 2011 and April 2014, compared to 1,035 times in the previous three years – a dramatic four-fold increase. In many cases, a single breach would involve the disappearance, theft or inappropriate sharing of the personal information of hundreds or thousands of people.’ – Daily Mail
‘The EU is spending more than £500million a year promoting itself amid growing concern that it could have an “insidious” impact on the result of Britain’s referendum. The analysis by Business for Britain, the Eurosceptic campaign, found that the EU has produced thousands of publications, videos and information campaigns to promote its values. The spending includes more than 100 publications, over 1,000 videos as well as cartoons, colouring books and other educational materials intended to promote EU values to children.’ – Daily Telegraph
>Today: The Deep End: Never mind the Eurozone, the money markets can’t be trusted anywhere
‘Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, who was Heath’s principal private secretary, said that Heath was “almost completely, if not completely asexual”. In a letter to The Times he wrote: “I worked closely with Edward Heath while he was prime minister, and remained a friend for the rest of his life. In 35 years of knowing him, I never detected a whiff of sexuality, in relation to women, men or children.”’ – The Times (£)
‘The fleeing lefties will say that London changed, not them. The truth is that they did, too. For people who live by the idea of progress, they have acquired a talent for looking back. If the right ever had a monopoly on nostalgia, it no longer does. Every poison pen letter against what London has become implicitly romanticises the 1970s version of the city, when Hampstead was affordable to public-sector professionals and the East End had no Michelin stars and everything was so captivatingly earthy that more people left than arrived year after year.’ – Janan Ganesh, FT
>Today: Richard Tracey AM on Local Government: Reflections on leaving the London Assembly