7pm Jonathan Isaby on CentreRight: Some holiday reading for the avid politico
4.45pm WATCH: Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown appears on GMTV to urge the British public to help the DEC appeal for Pakistan (and bats away the question at the end about his view of the Government)
2.30pm Alex Deane on CentreRight: Is it time to tear down the Information Commissioner's Office and start again?
12.30pm Tory Diary: Warsi to ex-Labour Ministers – hand back your severance pay Updated with attack video added at 1pm
11.45am Local government: Trafford joins spending transparency revolution
9.45am Steve Baker MP on CentreRight: On economic forecasting and double dip recession
ToryDiary: If it's to work, Osborne's spending scaleback will need Cameron's full support
Martin Parsons on Platform: The scale of the Christian voting community
ConHome's Twenty Questions for the Class of 2010… answered today by Selby and Ainsty's new MP, Nigel Adams
ThinkTankCentral: Localis ideas which have been adopted by the Government
David Cameron and Chris Grayling defend plan to use credit rating agencies to help catch benefit cheats…
"David Cameron has said he will use the private sector to help him launch an "uncompromising" clampdown on fraudulent benefit claims… He pledged to use "modern and new methods" to make sure taxpayers' money is not misspent. The Prime Minister said reducing the £5.2bn annual cost of fraud and error would be the "first and deepest" in a series of public spending cuts." – Sky News
"Chris Grayling, the welfare minister, yesterday defended plans to use credit ratings agencies to help the government catch people cheating the benefit system. He said the government should be free to use information that is publicly available and that is already used by commercial organisations to identify those claiming benefits fraudulently." – The Guardian
"As welcome as any savings will be, cleaning up the system will always be a sideshow. The real prize will be the radical reforms proposed by Iain Duncan Smith to rebalance the welfare system to ensure that it will always be more worthwhile to work than to live on benefit." – Daily Telegraph editorial
…as civil liberties campaigners raise their concerns
"Philip Booth, of the group NO2ID, which campaigns against the ‘ database state’, condemned the use of private credit agencies as a ‘recipe for snooping’. He added: ‘This is a significant blanket intrusion into private financial information.’ Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil liberties group Liberty, said she had no objection in principle to the Government accessing people’s credit histories in the same way as banks and building societies do. But she warned there was a danger that offering private firms a bounty to identify cheats could provide a ‘perverse incentive’ that would lead to innocent people being investigated." – Daily Mail
"Alex Deane, of Big Brother Watch, said: "Mining private data on a routine basis on the off-chance of catching people out is a disproportionate invasion of privacy." – The Sun
> Yesterday's ToryDiary: The Coalition's crackdown on welfare abuse is welcome but Cameron needs to focus on the three pathways out of poverty
> WATCH: David Cameron explains his welfare crackdown
Cameron urges banks to step up lending
"David Cameron said on Tuesday his government was looking at a variety of proposals for boosting bank lending to businesses, saying it was a major focus for the three-month-old coalition. Ministers have repeatedly voiced frustration that banks are not lending more to British firms to boost the recovery from a deep recession." – Reuters
I'm middle class, says David Cameron
"Cameron claimed yesterday that he and wife Samantha were members of the “sharp-elbowed middle class.” He hinted they were just like other Britons, despite their privileged backgrounds. The claim came in Manchester at his latest PM Direct question and answer session with the public when he was asked about fears that the Government will slash Sure Start centres, set up by Labour to help young families." – Daily Express
PM backs ban on cheap booze – Manchester Evening News
Michael White reviews yesterday's PM Direct session in Manchester
"When Tony Blair sought out hostile voters he called it his "masochism strategy". But Blair's tormentors were usually angry, about Iraq or civil liberties, vocally disappointed with a government from which they had expected too much. Cameron is luckier. He starts from lower levels of expectation and can still blame Labour's legacy ("very good at spending money") or the compromises of coalition with the unmentioned Lib Dems. I'm afraid we've had to put that policy into review, he said more than once." – Michael White in The Guardian
Matthew Taylor: David Cameron must heed the lessons of New Labour – FT (£)
Prison population 'to be lower than predicted'…
"The prison population in England and Wales is projected to be lower than previously expected by 2015, even without reforms proposed by the Government. Projections suggest it will rise each year until it reaches 88,700 in 2014, before dropping to 88,600 in 2015 and 88,500 in 2016, the Ministry of Justice said." – Daily Telegraph
…as Ministry of Justice faces £2 billion of cuts
"Thousands of jobs are at risk as the Ministry of Justice cuts £2 billion from its £9 billion budget for running prisons, probation services, courts and legal aid. Jails will escape the worst of the cutbacks because of fears that job losses could undermine stability and lead to disturbances by prisoners. But the £2.2 billion-a-year legal aid bill and courts administration are earmarked for huge cuts by Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary." – The Times (£)
Record rise in older workers condemned to long-term unemployment – Daily Mail
Boris Johnson warns Government against cutting spending on employment – City AM
Cabinet Secretary to quit "before the next election"
"Britain's most senior civil servant, Sir Gus O'Donnell, has decided to quit before the next general election, giving David Cameron the chance to appoint a successor, it was reported last night. Mr Cameron would like to score a historic first by appointing a woman as his successor, it was claimed – although he may find that a challenge given how male-dominated the top of the Civil Service is." – The Independent
"If O'Donnell stays on as long as is now expected, he will have served seven years under three different prime ministers – the longest for the holder of his office." – The Guardian
Business facing a wave of green taxes
"Thousands of British businesses will be liable for significant fines and charges under a new government “green tax” scheme. Companies that fail to register their energy use by next month will be hit with fines that could reach £45,000 under the little-known rules… Greg Barker, the energy and climate change minister, who is overseeing the scheme said yesterday: “I understand the original complexity of the scheme may have deterred some organisations and I want to hear suggestions as to how we can make the scheme simpler in the future.” – Daily Telegraph
Lib Dem minister tells councils to go easier on parking sanctions…
"Parking wardens, wheel clampers and council bureaucrats must stop treating drivers as cash cows, a minister has ordered. Signalling an end to the draconian practices which took root under the last government, Norman Baker said motorists must be treated with a softer touch. Pregnant women should be forgiven if they flout parking rules while struggling to the shops." – Daily Mail
…as it emerges that Vince Cable runs the smallest ministerial office
"Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat business secretary, runs the smallest ministerial private office, a league table of ministerial costs has revealed, possibly reflecting his uncertain status in the government. Cable has only six people working in his private office, half the number of staff working for Caroline Spelman in the arguably less important Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Cable also has a third of the staff that William Hague, the foreign secretary, can command." – The Guardian
Ann Widdecombe: Government should have scrapped free milk
"Anne Milton, the Health Minister, was right to say that the free school milk scheme, which costs £50million a year, is too expensive and produces no evidence of benefits to children. School milk dates from a scheme implemented in 1940 and 70 years later it has virtually no relevance. We live in an affluent society by comparison with an age when Britons were on rations and there was no welfare state to help genuine poverty." – Ann Widdecombe in the Daily Express
> Monday's ToryDiary: Stopping free milk would have been a 'duck house cut'
Damian Green "shocked" at migrant camp in Peterborough
"Unemployed migrants have set up more than a dozen squatting “camps” in one city, creating pressures on local services, it was claimed. Workers have been found sleeping rough in 15 squalid dens in woodland and beauty spots across Peterborough, Cambs, locals say… Damian Green, the Immigration Minister, labelled the situation "shocking". – Daily Telegraph
David Miliband is no Blairite, concludes Daniel Finkelstein
"With Blair goes Blairism and so too go the Blairites. Look at David Miliband’s pronouncements in what passes for his manifesto. He wants a High Pay Commission, a living wage and employee representatives to sit on company pay boards. He believes that the bank levy should be doubled, that charitable status for private schools should be removed and that a mansion tax should be introduced. There would also be an “active industrial policy”, “private sector reform” and closing “the class gap in education”. There isn’t a single item that cuts in the other direction." – Daniel Finkelstein in The Times (£)
The candidates to be Labour Party leader have yet to define the questions their party needs to address – Times (£) editorial
Simon Jenkins: As Cameron gets radical, the left dozes on planet 1945
"The British left is a disgrace. In order to stabilise public finances, the coalition prime minister, David Cameron, clearly intends to challenge the ideological basis of our public services. Few corners are to be immune. The Liberal Democrats are riding the tiger. The left is nowhere. Like an arthritic Colonel Blimp, it merely cries, "Yah boo. All is well. The old ways are best." – Simon Jenkins in The Guardian
Millions face 25% cut in pensions as inflation rules for final salary schemes are changed – Daily Mail
"Offensive" police anti-terrorism ad banned – Reuters
British government pays US lobbying firm to improve transatlantic relations – Daily Telegraph
Cato Institute says US right could learn from Cameron and Clegg – The Guardian
And finally… If you want to read a politician's mind, watch the hand with which he is gesticulating
"If you want to know when a politician is burying bad news, here is a handy hint. A study of body language has found leaders tend to signal good news by pointing with their dominant hand – but gesture gloomy tidings with their weaker hand. It means a right-handed politician, such as Nick Clegg, will wave his right hand when passing on positive news, while a left-hander – such as David Cameron – will gesture with his left." – Daily Mail
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