“Britain will lead a global fightback against antibiotic-resistant superbugs to prevent the world from being ‘cast back into the dark ages of medicine’, David Cameron is to announce today. … The rise of untreatable bacteria threatens an ‘unthinkable scenario’ where minor infections could once again kill, the prime minister told The Times in a warning about what he described as one of the biggest health threats facing the world.” – The Times (£)
And comment:
“Ministers are seriously considering a change to the law to protect women from ex-partners who publish explicit pictures of them on the internet. … Chris Grayling, the Justice Secretary, told MPs yesterday that the Government was looking to take ‘appropriate action’ to tackle so-called ‘revenge porn’, which he described as a ‘big problem in our society’. … Mr Grayling was speaking after a question in the Commons by Maria Miller, the former culture secretary, who is campaigning for action on revenge porn.” – Daily Mail
And comment:
> Today: The Deep End – If we’re serious about shrinking the state, then we need an alternative to longer prison sentences
“David Cameron has insisted Northern Ireland’s economic recovery is well on course ahead of a meeting with Stormont’s political leaders in London. … The Prime Minister’s positive assessment came a year on from the implementation of a Government-backed stimulus package aimed at cementing political gains made in the post-conflict era. …. ‘It is great news that the long-term economic plan is working for Northern Ireland,’ he said.” – Belfast Telegraph
“David Cameron risks creating more would-be jihadists because of his ‘cack-handed’ review of the Muslim Brotherhood, who were deposed in Egypt last year, a former director of public prosecutions has warned. … Lord Macdonald of River Glaven QC said the investigation in to what was a democratically elected party sent out mixed messages to young Muslims. … In an extraordinary outburst, he warned the move was a ‘double standard’ that could play a ‘full part in the disillusionment and chaos seen in places like Iraq’.” – Daily Telegraph
Read Lord Macdonald’s Daily Telegraph article in full
And comment:
> Today:
“David Cameron is turning to the men in grey suits in his hour of need, urging 1 per cent of Whitehall staff to sign up as reserve troops to plug looming gaps in Britain’s military forces. … The prime minister told his cabinet colleagues on Tuesday they should encourage more departmental staff to join up as reserves, with recruitment lagging well behind target.” – Financial Times
And comment:
“Raising education standards, instilling Britons with a greater sense of national identity and reforming welfare will be at the centre of the Conservative manifesto for next year’s general election. … The party’s high command believes fresh measures on education and welfare will help it woo the less well-off families that Labour leader Ed Miliband has been targeting since his autumn pledge to freeze energy prices.” – Financial Times
“The number of houses started in Britain is expected to fall this year, despite concerted efforts by minister to get building, including passing controversial reforms to the planning system. … The figure will be released in February 2015, three months before the general election, according to documents seen by BBC Newsnight. … Ministers are considering ways to kick-start building on land that already has planning permission, the documents indicate. … They are also considering how to make councils build new houses with the revenues collected from right-to-buy sales.” – Daily Telegraph
“Desperate ministers plan to offer graduates a ‘golden hello’ of up to £10,000 to become maths teachers. … The unprecedented signing-on fees will be lavished on new recruits teaching 16 to 19 year-olds in further education or training colleges. … Skills and Enterprise Minister Matt Hancock will reveal the measure – saying it’s part of a push to put maths and English at the ‘heart of education’.” – The Sun (£)
“Building the engineers of the future” – Matthew Hancock writes for the Daily Telegraph
> Today: John Bald on Local Government – Turning the Tide in Tottenham?
> Yesterday: Sir Andrew Green on Comment – On immigration, the Higher Education lobby is treating us like fools
“They are two of the largest technology companies in the world with a combined market value of £180bn and annual profits of £14bn. … But in a striking case of Goliath accusing David of bullying, the American giants Microsoft and Hewlett Packard have complained that they are being unfairly picked on by the Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude.” – The Independent
“Primary school kids should be weighed every year to help tackle the obesity timebomb, the new chair of the Commons health committee has declared. … Tory MP and former GP Sarah Wollaston told The Sun it was wrong that children are only measured in reception class and in year six. … And she said food companies should charge more for high-sugar drinks to deter kids from guzzling calorie-laden pop.” – The Sun (£)
“The Conservatives will have up to three times as much money as Labour to spend in the run-up to the next election, senior party figures have warned. … Drastic changes to the way Ed Miliband’s party will fight the next election are being made to to minimise the effect of the Tories’ extra millions. … Spending on direct mailings and poster campaigns are being scaled back to focus resources on a string of local campaigns in key seats as well as targeting voters online.” – The Times (£)
“Details of the web of bankers, businesspeople and lobbyists helping the Conservatives’ bid for a second term in power have been exposed as the Guardian reveals key guests at last year’s secretive annual party fundraising dinner. … The 449 attendees at last year’s Thameside event on 24 June had a combined wealth in excess of £11bn, with elite diners sitting at tables costing up to £12,000 each to rub shoulders with David Cameron, Theresa May, Philip Hammond and Boris Johnson, as well as the secretaries of state for health, transport, culture and justice.” – The Guardian
And comment:
“David Cameron will support an attempt to compel Britain by law to spend 0.7 per cent of GDP on foreign aid, after his hand was forced by the Liberal Democrats. … At the last election, all three main parties promised to introduce the law, but the Prime Minister quietly ditched the policy following fierce protests from the right of his party. … However, in a move calculated to provoke a damaging Tory split on the issue, Nick Clegg yesterday endorsed a Private Members’ Bill on the 0.7 target – causing the Conservatives to quickly say their party leadership would support the measure in any Commons vote.” – Daily Mail
“Nick Clegg has defeated an attempt by senior Liberal Democrats to match the Tories by guaranteeing to hold a ‘seductive’ referendum on Britain’s EU membership in the next parliament. The deputy prime minister, who has faced direct calls from ministers for a change of stance on the EU, won the agreement of the Lib Dem parliamentary party to stand by the current policy. This is to hold a referendum only if UK sovereignty is passed to the EU.” – The Guardian
And comment:
> Yesterday:
“Prime Minister’s Questions should be shown live on TV in a prime time slot, Nick Clegg has claimed as he railed against the ‘ridiculous’ spectacle of MPs hollering at each other each week. … The Lib Dem leader said voters should be able to send in questions to be answered by the Prime Minister as he called for an end to the ban on MPs calling each other by their names.” – Daily Mail
“We are heading towards a crucial point in climate negotiations, so when I heard rumours that the Treasury wanted to water down our fourth carbon budget, my Lib Dem colleagues and I took up arms to defend our national interests. Osborne’s ignorance threatens to derail the future of not only our economy, but also our planet.” – Tim Farron, The Independent
“The union bankrolling Labour’s general election campaign wants a new Ministry of Labour to represent the interests of trade unionists if Ed Miliband gets into Downing Street. … Unite is in talks with the party about creating a powerful department headed by a secretary of state, whose role would be ‘batting for 30million working people’, a senior union figure has revealed. … In secret recordings passed to the Daily Mail, Steve Turner said Unite would also press for the repeal of trade union laws including the rule that unions can only call strikes after holding a postal ballot.” – Daily Mail
“We have an England football team of a government, and the reserves are no better. … There has been much talk, in particular about Ed Miliband’s leadership of the Labour party and his inability to connect with voters. Most of it is uninteresting. The government is not dominant; Labour can win under Mr Miliband. What is missing is a sense of direction.” – Maurice Glasman, Financial Times
And comment:
“The Labour party is behind on competence and ahead on vision, and no political party yet owns the future, Jon Cruddas, Labour’s policy review co-ordinator, said in his first public assessment of the state of politics since a tape was revealed in which he denounced ‘the dead hand’ of the Labour leader’s office on policy development. … He said the result of the next election was all to play for, adding ‘the unpredictability of it means it is going to be quite lively’.” – The Guardian
> Yesterday: Lord Ashcroft on Comment – My new poll suggests that Labour would win 17 seats from the Lib Dems were the election held today
“The Labour leader set out the plans in Leeds to rebalance the economy citing figures, drawn from the Centre for Cities thinktank report in January, showing that 80% of private sector jobs between 2010 and 2012 were created in London. … But the cities minister Greg Clark pointed to Office for National Statistics data showing that fewer than one in four additional private sector jobs in the last four years had been created in London.” – The Guardian
“Hypocrticial MPs have quietly frozen cheap booze prices in their bars for another year – at the same time as taking a hefty pay rise, The Sun can reveal. … A pint of beer costs as little as £2.90 in Parliament’s exclusive drinking dens. … As they are still heavily subsidised, taxpayers have to pick up the rest of members’ bills, to the tune of around £7m a year. … But despite repeated promises to reduce their cost burden, senior MPs on the Finance and Services Committee recently decreed how much they charge will be kept on hold until at least May 2015.” – The Sun (£)
“The prospect of a radical review of Britain’s electoral map in 2016 will on Wednesday prompt warnings from senior MPs and peers of ‘mass disruption’ unless the rules of the exercise are changed. … Labour officials say an incoming Ed Miliband government would pull the plug on Mr Cameron’s proposed reforms, enshrined in a 2011 act, not least for reasons of pure political advantage.” – Financial Times
“Although that is just an outside chance, it is now probable that the vote for independence will be large enough to keep the issue alive. John Curtice, the Scotland-based doyen of pollsters, offers an important insight into why matters stand as they are. The key to voters’ preference, he explains, is not whether they feel a strong sense of Scottish identity; the overwhelming majority of Scots do. The question is whether they also feel a strong sense of British identity.” – Financial Times
And news stories: