5.15pm ToryDiary: Conservative members want the Coalition to end shortly before the election (and are opposed to the idea of another afterwards)
4pm LeftWatch: Unite officials, retreads and washed-up Brownites picked in Labour's troubled MEP selections
1.30pm LeftWatch: Exam board insists A-level Politics students give left-wing answers
1pm On Comment, Lord Ashcroft writes about the silent victim of The Sunday Times’s “cash for access exposé”: "Sarah Southern has always maintained a dignified public silence over the events of early last year but, with her permission, I am able to tell her side of events for the first time."
12.45pm Local Government: Council by-election results from yesterday
11.30am Dr Prem Sharma on Comment: UKIP – a truly Conservative government at last?
On ToryDiary, how Boris plans to run the Ultimate Bandwagon Leadership Campaign: "He is the Ulysses of our time, and sees the leadership as his Penelope.The Mayoralty is only Calypso – a stopping-point on the way back to what he sees as his own, as his possession. His competitors are the suitors. He is coming for them with a quiverful of fiery arrows."
Iain Dale's latest column: Just how big is Douglas Alexander's sword?
Chris Skidmore MP on Comment: Three years on, the Academies Act in review
Local Government: Oxfordshire County Council proposes new bus lanes to raise revenue from fines
The Deep End's Heresy of the Week: Atheism has its heretics too
Cameron (and the other party leaders) criticised after new Lords appointments
"The main party leaders were accused last night of polluting politics by cramming the House of Lords with donors, cronies, lobbyists and failed politicians. … David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband face claims of trading honours for millions of pounds in donations. … Even though the three parties have called for a smaller upper house, their 30 appointments send its membership ballooning to 836 – 200 more than the Commons. Taxpayers face a bill for an extra £1.2million a year." – Daily Mail
> Yesterday:
The Prime Minister isn't a gentleman, claims Tom Utley – but Gove is
"I am determined to introduce [my son's teacher fiancée] to the Education Secretary. For I defy anyone to spend 20 minutes in his company without realising that he is a thoroughly good man, driven only by a strong desire to improve the prospects of children who were born, like him, without life’s material advantages. … She will find that far from being Satan, he is a true gentleman. Which is a great deal more than can be said for his boss." – Tom Utley, Daily Mail
"Why bother to fight a reform that is doing so well, and proving so popular with parents and children that lengthy queues for places are forming? The answer is that it is Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, who has achieved all this – and the Left is maddened by his success." – Daily Telegraph editorial
> Yesterday:
Osborne may start selling off Lloyds shares as soon as next week
"The Government is looking at selling the first part of its £20 billion stake in the Lloyds Banking Group as early as next week. … Officials believe that there may be an opportunity to start disposing of its 39 per cent stake in the next few days, after strong half-year results in the first half of 2013 prompted a spike in the share price." – The Times (£)
Simon Jenkins versus Eric Pickles
"Bullying local government is a leitmotif of coalition politics. Pickles wants to cap every tax, decide every planning application, curb any innovation and squeeze every budget. No meadow is safe from his inspectors, no skyline from his towers. He has plenty of money to spend where he can get the credit." – Simon Jenkins, The Guardian
"Nick Clegg has said the murder of Daniel Pelka should be on everyone's conscience" – The Guardian
Clegg embroiled in a jobs row as he opens new wind farm…
"As he officially opened the offshore scheme yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg claimed 30,000 British jobs would be created by the end of the decade by investing in renewable energy. … But local MPs and businessmen said this appeared a hollow promise. … Because turbines for the Centrica scheme off Skegness are made in Denmark, Danish and Swedish workers are being drafted in daily to work on them." – Daily Mail
"David Cameron’s planning minister has been stripped of his responsibility for wind farm policy because his brother works for a major turbine manufacturer." – Daily Telegraph
Foreign wind farm companies to face UK jobs test to win subsidies - Financial Times
> Yesterday on the Deep End: British workers have done their bit for recovery, now British capitalists must do the same
…while the ONS increases its estimates around "zero hour" contracts
"The number of UK workers on zero hours contracts is 25 per cent greater than was thought after the government changed its methodology for calculating the figure. … The Office for National Statistics announced on Thursday that at the end of 2012 some 250,000 people were on such contracts, in which employees are only paid for the time they work and have no guarantee they will be offered any hours." – Financial Times
Labour MP attacks Ed Miliband's leadership as "hesitant and confused"
"George Mudie confessed he was deeply worried about the party’s prospects with the next General Election just 18 months away. … The former minister — a member of the powerful Treasury Select Committee — warned that Labour members across Britain 'have difficulty knowing what we stand for now'" – The Sun (£)
> Yesterday on LeftWatch: What must Labour do next? Our panel offer some advice to Ed Miliband
Sadiq Khan: The Tories can't connect with ordinary people
"These examples signify more than comic incompetence. They chime with the public's view that the Conservatives are desperately and irretrievably out of touch. The reason these problems emerge with such regularity is because David Cameron has not changed, and will not change, his party." – Sadiq Khan, The Guardian
Stella Creasy is profiled in The Guardian, including quotes from ConservativeHome
"Similarly, the influential Tory website ConservativeHome has called her 'Labour's most interesting member of parliament', less for her wide outside interests than for speaking what it called 'no end of good sense' on public spending and the national debt. As 'one of the few genuine Labour stars of the 2010 intake', the website concluded, Conservatives would be wise to be wary of such a skilled political operator." – The Guardian
The private firm that ran a failing hospital but will still make £53 million – thanks to Labour
"Ministers terminated the contract with Clinicenta to run the treatment centre at Lister Hospital in Stevenage after local GPs stopped referring patients to the unit. … The CQC found the unit was not meeting minimum standards. Yet the terms of the contract signed by Labour mean that the Department of Health must pay £53million to Clinicenta, owned by Carillion, to end the deal." – Daily Mail
An independent Scotland would boost its own oil revenues, claims the SNP
"An independent Scotland would be able to increase returns from North Sea oil by working more closely with industry and being more flexible in policy than UK authorities, says the country’s energy minister." – Financial Times
£100 million of extra funding for GCHQ … from the US Government
"The US government gave Britain’s spying centre at GCHQ £100million over three years and apparently expected to influence its work, it was claimed last night. … In return for the secret payments, the eavesdropping agency was expected to ‘pull its weight’, according to documents leaked last night by the fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden." – Daily Mail
And other official secrets: the £1 million payoffs for civil servants
"Bosses at the Serious Fraud Office secretly negotiated ‘irregular’ pay-offs for executives worth £1million by using personal email accounts to cover their tracks, the Daily Mail can reveal. … The clandestine deals for senior civil servants were arranged by a handful of managers at the fraud-busting agency – in part through messages sent from private addresses – to prevent other staff from finding out." – Daily Mail
Recovery will only widen the rich-poor divide, argues Jenni Russell
"Work by the Resolution Foundation think-tank shows that the ten million people on low-to-middle incomes are never going to be able to make up for the losses they ave experienced over the past few years. Their average earnings are now as low as they were ten years ago. These won't return to their pre-recession value until 2023. Headline figures about recovery will mean nothing to this group." – Jenni Russell, The Times (£)
News in brief
And finally 1)… Foot protection
"Commons statues of Margaret Thatcher and Sir Winston Churchill are to be roped off to protect their feet from superstitious MPs. … Traditionally, Tories touch the former Prime Ministers’ feet for good luck as they enter the chamber ahead of a big speech. … Curators warned the statues were 'seriously under threat' from the wear and tear." – The Sun (£)
And finally 2)… What the leaders bought for Prince George
"Downing Street today revealed the Prime Minister and his wife sent the third in line to the throne a selection of books by the celebrated children's author Roald Dahl. … The Prime Minister's gift to welcome the birth of the royal baby was disclosed after Nick Clegg, his Liberal Democrat deputy, said he has given an embroidered cot blanket made by Spanish nuns. … A Labour spokesman confirmed Ed Miliband, the opposition leader, has sent a three-year-old apple tree – a traditional gift for a first-born boy." – Daily Telegraph
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