“Boris Johnson overshadowed the launch of the campaign to keep Britain in Europe yesterday by declaring the price of exit ‘lower than it’s ever been’. The Mayor of London’s claim flatly contradicted a series of doomladen warnings, that Britain would be poorer, less secure and the streets overrun with criminals, made at the high-profile launch of the Britain Stronger In Europe campaign. ‘We want, in an ideal world, to stay in a reformed European Union but I think the price of getting out is lower than it has ever been…,” Mr Johnson told the BBC during a trip to Osaka, Japan” – The Times (£)
>Today:
“The cross-party campaign to keep Britain in the EU has officially been launched — with the politicians kept firmly in the background. Lord Rose, the former Marks & Spencer chief executive who is to chair the campaign, said it was ‘nonsense’ to suggest it was in some way unpatriotic to campaign for Britain to stay in the union. Membership made the UK stronger and more secure, he argued” – Financial Times
>Yesterday:
“Lord Rose’s chairmanship got off to the worst conceivable start at yesterday’s Central London press conference. What went wrong? The answer, as so often in British public life, is an unmistakable whiff of hypocrisy. Until just a few months ago, Lord Rose was a caustic critic of Britain’s membership of the EU… I believe that if Stuart Rose values his integrity, he must cut his losses and hand in his resignation” – Daily Mail
“David Cameron’s European allies have urged him to produce a detailed wishlist on EU reform within a month if he wants a deal by Christmas, as leaders warn serious political talks cannot start without a sense of his maximum demands. Paris, Berlin and Brussels have become increasingly exasperated by London’s reluctance to spell out its wishes, European diplomats say” – Financial Times
“Nothing has brought out Britain’s talent for half measures like the European project. We were absent at the creation, then we joined, then we voted on whether to leave, then we conceived the single market, then we dodged the single currency, then we pushed the EU’s borders to the east and complained about the consequences, and now we are trying to revise the terms of our membership before voting again on whether to leave. This is perfidy, and it works” – Janan Ganesh, Financial Times
“A cabinet row has broken out between two senior ministers over the fate of a controversial prisons deal with Saudi Arabia. Michael Gove, the lord chancellor and justice secretary, was accused of naivety by Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, over his demand that a £5.9 million deal with Saudi Arabia be scrapped… Mr Gove’s demand to end the deal, which was agreed by his predecessor, won the support of Sajid Javid, the business secretary” – The Times (£)
“A sickly 74-year-old British grandad is facing 350 lashes at a public flogging in Saudi Arabia for having home-made wine. Karl Andree, who has had cancer three times and is asthmatic, has been in jail more than a year. His family in South London are now begging David Cameron to intervene personally to prevent the savage beating. Son Simon said: ‘There is no doubt in our minds that 350 lashes will kill him’” – The Sun (£)
“Some of Whitehall’s most powerful Cabinet ministers are refusing to submit plans for George Osborne’s Spending Review as it emerged that, under current proposals, the total government expenditure will rise. As many as four Cabinet ministers, including Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, and Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, have so far refused to submit to the Treasury plans to cut their departments by as much as 40 per cent” – Daily Telegraph
“I have a confession to make – one so shocking, that my hands are shaking as I type. Last week, I had dinner with Iain Duncan Smith… He was intelligent. He was articulate. He was humane. He was passionately committed to social justice. He was – brace yourself – compassionate” – Dan Hodges, Daily Telegraph
“A former MP became the latest victim of Labour’s child sex abuse ‘witch-hunt’ yesterday. Detectives questioned him for three hours… Tom Watson, who is under fire for his hounding of Tory peer Leon Brittan, demanded a comprehensive investigation… Mr Watson refused to apologise over the ‘vile’ claims about Lord Brittan; to cries of ‘shame’ in the House of Commons he said instead that all MPs had to ‘examine their consciences’” – Daily Mail
“A senior Labour MP described the party’s economic policy as a total shambles last night after shadow chancellor John McDonnell ditched plans to balance Britain’s books just a fortnight after backing the idea. Mr McDonnell sparked anger and disbelief among moderates at a meeting of Labour MPs by ordering them to vote against Tory plans forcing future governments to run a budget surplus. Yesterday’s move came just two weeks after the hard-Left shadow chancellor surprised critics by saying he wanted Labour to show it would ‘live within our means’ by supporting the plans” – Daily Mail
“A dozen retired judges and more than 300 lawyers and academics yesterday condemned the Government for taking too few refugees… The intervention angered ministers and drew fresh criticism of the willingness of judges and lawyers to throw their weight into political arguments. Their claim to speak for ‘the legal community’ was also under scrutiny as it became clear a high proportion of the lawyers came from a small number of Left-wing and liberal barristers’ chambers and solicitors’ firms” – Daily Mail