“The EU referendum battle took an astonishing new twist last night after officials caved in to demands to come clean about the true scale of mass immigration. The U-turn – a major victory for the Daily Mail – sets the stage for the potentially explosive figures to be published just one month before the June 23 vote.” – Daily Mail
Comment:
Editorial:
>Today:
>Yesterday:
“The state will take control of Tata’s pension liabilities of up to £2 billion in a bid to save Britain’s beleaguered steel industry, Sajid Javid suggested yesterday. The Business Secretary said the Government was ready to step in with financial support to persuade investors to buy the threatened steelworks at Port Talbot and other stricken plants.” – Daily Mail
Economy:
“The Conservative Government is sensibly trying to make amends for Miliband’s folly, and to cut the costs of energy for industry – but at every turn we have the problem of the EU, and the objections of Brussels to anything that looks like state aids.” – Daily Telegraph
>Yesterday: Video: WATCH: Javid – “I will do everything I can to keep Port Talbot open”
“A senior Tory backbencher has attacked George Osborne over his plans to force all state schools to become academies. Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 committee, said the policy could lead to the creation of ‘new and distant bureaucracies’ rather than delivering greater freedom and autonomy for schools. And he singled out one effect of the reforms – the removal of parents from governing bodies – for particular criticism.” – Daily Mail
>Today: John Nash in Comment: Our school reforms. We want parents to be more involved in their children’s education – not less.
>Yesterday: ToryDiary: The PIP row and IDS’s resignation. Almost two out of three party member respondents to our survey blame Osborne.
“A senior Conservative MP has attacked Jeremy Hunt’s “entirely unreasonable” tactics in pursuit of an “unachievable” seven-day NHS, claiming he misrepresented evidence to win public support in his long-running dispute with junior doctors. Revealing the depths of the Tory divide on the NHS, Dr Sarah Wollaston, the chair of the Commons health select committee, dismissed Hunt’s argument that more doctors working weekends would reduce hospital fatalities.” – The Guardian
“The Department of Health and the BMA have spent so long shouting at cross purposes that they have forgotten their common purpose. In using them as pawns, both sides have lost sight of patients, the very people both claim to want to protect.” – The Guardian
“But with critics denouncing it as a totalitarian assault on parents’ rights, opponents of the SNP hope the issue might help to chip away at its popularity as it romps toward what polls say will be a landslide win. “The SNP wants to appoint a state guardian for every child, over the heads of parents, and against the wishes of the majority of this country,” said Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, which abstained in the 2014 vote.” – FT
Editorial:
“Former international development secretary Andrew Mitchell last night joined demands for the department to pay back almost £200 million of foreign aid. The ministry yesterday admitted it had mistakenly spent £172 million more than it should have done last year – with UK taxpayers’ money.” – Daily Mail
“Former Tory MPs, party donors and the Prime Minister’s late father were named last night in a huge leak of millions of documents exposing the use of offshore tax regimes by the world’s richest people… It was reported that six members of the House of Lords, three former Conservative MPs and dozens of donors to British political parties have been shown to have had offshore assets.” – Daily Mail
” About 1,000 Muslim prisoners are at risk of being radicalised in British jails as part of ‘terrorist academies’. Lord Falconer has warned the number is higher than those who have travelled to fight in the Middle East and Syria.” – Daily Mail
Comment:
“Arlene Foster will launch her first manifesto as DUP leader in West Belfast today – a constituency usually regarded as a political wasteland for unionism… While it might seem an unlikely place for the DUP to cause an upset, Diane Dodds won her 2003 West Belfast seat with 2,544 votes – a 7.7% share.” – Belfast Telegraph
“A battered Donald Trump is trailing Ted Cruz as the Republican rivals steam towards tomorrow’s Wisconsin primary, a contest that the Texas senator is hoping will reshape the race for the White House. Mr Cruz, a conservative firebrand who has become the unlikely champion of the Republican establishment by default, leads Mr Trump in Wisconsin by 43 per cent to 37 per cent, according to a CBS poll published yesterday.” – The Times (£)