4pm WATCH: Dominic Raab MP and Jack Straw MP discuss prisoner voting
3.45pm ToryDiary: At long last, Cameron is considering an appeal to aggrieved English voters
2.45pm Andrew Gimson's PMQs sketch on ToryDiary: If the noise at Prime Minister's Questions continues at its
present deafening level, Cameron and Miliband will soon be unable to
hear anything, and be reduced to communicating with each other in sign
language. Or perhaps
they have already gone deaf, which is why each man ignores what the
other has to say. David Cameron reinvents himself at PMQs as the most brutal street fighter in the Commons
11.15am LeftWatch: Strong Miliband, taking on the unions? Or Weak Miliband, incapable of doing so? Which will it be?
9.30am As he launches his latest reform initative, Francis Maude MP writes on Comment: "Transparency, self-criticism and openness are difficult territory for
both Ministers and civil servants. But we need to stay outside of the
comfort zone. The assessment of our reform programme pulls no punches." Fixed-tenure Permanent Secretaries – and much more. Our next steps in civil service reform.
ToryDiary: Royal Mail privatisation gets back on track under Michael Fallon's guiding hand
Henry Hill's Red, White and Blue column: Farage shies away from Northern Ireland pact
In Greg Clark MP's weekly Letter from a Treasury Minister, he writes the third part in this week's series on broadening the appeal of the Party: The key to a Conservative revival lies in our cities
On Comment, Adam Afriyie MP recommends this September's Conservative Renewal Conference: Let’s help to transform the Conservative Party with renewal
Also on Comment: George Freeman MP: London Calling – How Britain must now lead the campaign for European reform
The third post in Local Government's Unite Week: Introducing Cllr Lisa Forbes, Labour's – sorry Unite's – candidate for Peterborough
The Deep End: The long-running left-wing love affair with tyranny
ECHR murderers release ruling sparks inferno on Tory benches…
“The
Strasbourg court stoked a furious response in London by ruling that the UK’s
system, in which the most heinous killers are told that they have no chance of
release, breaches their human rights. David Cameron’s spokesman said that the
Prime Minister was ‘very, very, very, very disappointed’ and that he would not
rule out withdrawing from the court if the Conservatives won the next general
election” – The
Times (£)
…Grayling: Labour and the Liberal Democrats are blocking us from curtailing the court
"Yesterday’s ruling underlines the need for urgent change. We need to curtail the role of the European Court of Human Rights in the UK…But Labour and the Lib Dems will have none of it. They want things to stay as they are. This is mad. I don’t understand them. But they have more votes in Parliament and have said a clear ‘no’ to change." – Chris Grayling, Daily Mail
Editorials:
Comment:
Meanwhile Jacob Rees-Mogg points out that opting in
to EU criminal justice laws would break the coalition agreement…
“When this is done the
Government will need to make a very strong case for the essential nature both
for the specific measure and for the means. This is because any opt-in arguably
breaks the Coalition Agreement. This document promises that the Government
‘will ensure that there is no further transfer of sovereignty or powers over
the course of the next Parliament’” – Daily
Telegraph
> Today: George Freeman MP – London Calling – How Britain must now lead the campaign for European reform
> Yesterday:
…and a former German Chancellor sets out to evade European regulations
“Former German
Chancellor Helmut Schmidt has a stash of 38,000 menthol cigarettes in his home,
because he fears the EU will try to ban them. Lifelong nicotene addict Mr
Schmidt, 94, puffs away on 40 a day and never appears on TV or in public
without a filter tip in his hand or mouth. Friends say he was 'horrified'
to learn that Brussels is currently considering a ban on his only vice. So he
has stashed 200 cartons totalling 38,000 cigarettes of his favourite brand –
Reyno – in his home. Peer Steinbrueck, his old SPD party's candidate standing
against Angela Merkel in this autumn's German general election, revealed his secret
in a bid to derail the 'unbearable regulation frenzy' going on in Brussels” – Daily
Mail
English MPs are set to gain a sweeping new power of veto
“English MPs are to be
given the power to ‘veto’ Westminster laws that do not relate to Scotland,
Wales or Northern Ireland, as part of sweeping constitutional reforms being
drawn up by ministers. Under proposals currently being finalised and expected
to be announced in the autumn, English MPs would be able to reject legislation
on devolved issues such as education, the NHS, transport and the environment,
even if it had been passed by a majority of all MPs in the House of Commons.” – Independent
Miliband prepared to ballot Labour member on his union plans
“Ed Miliband is prepared to go over the heads of
union bosses with a party-wide ballot if they try to block moves supposed to
weaken their hold over Labour before the election. But his hopes of provoking a
defining clash with the organisation that he accused of ‘machine politics’ were
set back yesterday when Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, welcomed changes that curb his
influence. It also emerged that the former Labour general secretary Lord
Whitty, Mr Miliband’s choice to force through reforms aimed at staving off the
worst crisis of his three years in charge, had turned down the job on the
ground that the plans were ‘unworkable’” – The Times
(£)
The Labour leader’s plans receive an editorial
welcome from the Times…
“Mr Miliband should be congratulated and his
speech welcomed. It has always been anomalous that trade union members should
have been assumed to be happy about paying a political levy until they made a
decision to opt out. This was once the cause of an acrimonious political fight
that resulted in the Trades Disputes Act of 1927, requiring trade unionists to
opt in to membership, which Labour then repealed in office. Mr Miliband
yesterday allied himself with Stanley Baldwin against his own party” – Times Editoral (£)
…but the Telegraph thinks he has picked the wrong fight
“If Ed Miliband thought that picking a fight with the unions
would rebrand him as a strong leader, he has made a serious tactical error… He
yearns for a Clause IV moment – a clash with the Labour Left that will leave
him looking like the kind of centrist, bold leader that he thinks voters want. What
he has actually done, however, is to cement popular impressions of Labour as
out of touch and out of date. The coming battle could prove bitter and unseemly.”
– Daily
Telegraph Editorial
Janan Ganesh says that Miliband must renounce
more than Unite’s tactics
“Mr
Miliband’s showdown with Mr McCluskey is stuck in micro-politics: the exact
forms of skulduggery deployed in Falkirk, the mooted tweaks to party rules, the
arcane theology of the union link. The bigger story is Labour’s migration to
the left, a phenomenon that transcends Mr Miliband and Unite. The composition
of the party has changed in recent years. There has been an exodus of the
Labour right” – Financial
Times
Sketches:
> Today: Local Government – Introducing Cllr Lisa Forbes, Labour's – sorry Unite's – candidate for Peterborough
> Yesterday:
Fallon: Royal Mail flotation will give it the
freedom to thrive
“Half of Royal Mail’s revenues already come from parcels, and
last year its parcel volumes increased by more than 6 per cent. But it needs
access to private capital to adapt to new technology and to exploit new
markets. That’s why the Government intends in this financial year to give Royal
Mail access to private investment through a sale of shares.Claims that this is
a rushed process are ridiculous” – Michael Fallon, Daily
Telegraph
> Today: ToryDiary – Royal Mail privatisation gets back on track under Michael Fallon's guiding hand
IMF revises its UK growth forecast upwards
“Signs
that the UK’s economic recovery is gathering pace were endorsed by the
International Monetary Fund on Tuesday when it raised its growth prediction for
2013. The
IMF on Tuesday became the latest forecaster to take a more bullish stance on
the British economy, using an update of its World Economic Outlook to raise its
expectations for growth this year to 0.9 per cent, up from its April estimate
of 0.7 per cent” – Financial
Times
MPs to question Murdoch over phone-hacking
tapes
“Rupert Murdoch
faces being drawn personally into police investigations on the ‘cash for
stories’ scandal that threatens to engulf his media empire. Detectives are
preparing to examine secretly recorded conversations in which he suggests to
journalists he knew about payments to public officials. Senior officers suspect
that the recording ‘may contain evidence of conspiring to commit misconduct in
a public office’.” – Daily
Mail
Time
to fight this tidal wave of filth
“Not by the wildest stretch of imagination could Liz Earle
be considered a fuddy-duddy… So hers is exactly the sort of voice we need
to hear when she says that she took her family away from London to live in the
country because she was fed up with the sexual content of advertising and
wanted to protect her then eight-year-old.
She says that every time we take a
step into the gutter we fail to come out again and that we have lost all notion
of what is acceptable.
Hear! Hear! Liz Earle for PM!” – Ann Widdecombe, Daily
Express
News
in brief
And finally, a statesman needs to be careful
which shades he wears…
“There was a reason that David Cameron took his
mother to Wimbledon instead of his wife, and that reason was his sunglasses…The
sunglasses — or perhaps a better word is ‘shades’, since mid-Nineties eyewear
deserves a mid-Nineties descriptor — struck a bum note in Cameron’s otherwise
smart attire. Thin, black and wraparound, they came from the same lineage as
those other Nineties stalwarts, Oakleys.” – Laura Craik, The Times
(£)
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