“David Cameron on Monday embarked on a round of telephone diplomacy to urge European leaders to learn the lessons of the populist uprising against Brussels in European elections and to abandon ‘business as usual’…he wants them to reject calls for the veteran Eurozone fixer Jean-Claude Juncker to be installed as European Commission president. European leaders are due to meet over dinner on Tuesday” – Financial Times
>Today:
>Yesterday: Edward Leigh MP on Comment: The lesson of these Euro-elections: Modernisation has failed. Get back to real conservatism. End the coalition now
“Nigel Farage has piled more pressure on Ed Miliband to change tack on Europe and immigration by promising to step up his assault on Labour’s heartlands. A triumphant Mr Farage celebrated his victory in the European elections by announcing that he would launch his party’s manifesto in Doncaster, Mr Miliband’s constituency, where Ukip topped the poll” – The Times (£)
“Predictions that UKIP will fade away are a case of wishful thinking. It is now crystal clear that the party really does have the potential to cause chaos in 2015…To see why, it helps to understand what matters most about these results, at least in terms of the general election. For, while Ukip’s European triumph has stolen the headlines, their less dramatic advances at local level will ultimately be more important” – Robert Ford and Ian Warren, Daily Telegraph
>Yesterday:
“Mr Farage should be careful what he wishes for. His party has become Britain’s latest repository of protest votes, but this appeal would be destroyed if people saw it wielding any actual power. Just ask Nick Clegg. Joining the House of Commons could suffocate Ukip as much as joining the coalition has damaged the Lib Dems” – Rachel Sylvester, The Times (£)
“He doesn’t get a lot of sleep, he doesn’t get a lot of rest, he lives on adrenaline a lot, he doesn’t eat regular meals, now I am beginning to sound like his mother, and he smokes and he drinks too much…There is not much time for a family life – but we watch him on the telly when we want to see him” – Kirsten Farage, Daily Telegraph
“‘The party I founded has become a Frankenstein’s monster,’ sighs Alan Sked. ‘When I was leader, we wouldn’t send MEPs to Europe because we didn’t want to legitimise it. My policy was that if we were forced to take the salaries, we would give them to the National Health Service – they wouldn’t be taken by the party or individuals’” – Guardian
“The electoral oblivion apparently confronting the Liberal Democrats as led by Nick was underscored on Monday by leaked opinion polls in four seats showing that the party will be wiped out. Commissioned by a Lib Dem supporter from ICM and subsequently passed to the Guardian, the polling indicates that the Lib Dem leader would forfeit his own Sheffield Hallam constituency at the next election” – Guardian
“North Sea oil revenues are set to plunge by more than £1 billion, just when Alex Salmond needs them to rise to boost his chances of winning a “yes” vote in September’s independence referendum. Research by The Times has unearthed unpublicised Scottish government figures showing that oil and gas production in 2013-14 has fallen in both volume and in value” – The Times (£)
“I have not banned anything. Nor has anyone else. All we are doing is asking exam boards to broaden – not narrow – the books young people study for GCSE…In English literature, we…set out a core that had to be covered – specifically a whole Shakespeare play, poetry from 1789 including the romantics, a 19th-century novel and some fiction or drama written in the British Isles since 1914” – Michael Gove, Daily Telegraph