“Angela Merkel has delivered a potentially fatal blow to David Cameron’s attempt to cap immigration from the European Union. … The German chancellor told The Sunday Times that she would not support Cameron’s plans to limit freedom of movement within the EU as part of his planned renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with Brussels. … questioned by this newspaper during an EU summit in Brussels, Merkel categorically denied that there was any possibility of Germany supporting any limitations on the freedom of movement — a potentially terminal intervention from Britain’s key ally.” – Sunday Times (£)
> Today: ToryDiary – Cameron, victim of Merkel’s problems
> Yesterday: Dr Lee Rotherham on Comment – The question is not Brexit, but Brentry
“Michael Gove has taken a vicious sideswipe at outgoing EU chief Jose Manuel Barroso over the demand for Britain to pay more money to Brussels. … He compared the £1.7 billion bill, which Downing Street blames on Mr Barroso, to the way Bill Clinton’s staff sabotaged computers when they left the White House in 2001. … The Chief Whip fiercely criticised the EU Commission President, who steps down in the next few weeks, for failing to mention the issue when he visited Downing Street last week.” – Mail on Sunday
And comment:
“Theresa will go to war with her cabinet colleagues and Tory backbenchers today over Britain’s right to keep foreigners accused of terrorism, murder, rape and paedophilia behind bars. … The home secretary is warning that a failure to back Britain’s membership of the European arrest warrant (EAW) system raises a risk that the country would have to release more than 500 people from jail and the prospect that EU partners such as Ireland would refuse to hand over suspected republican terrorists or Islamist jihadists for trial in Britain.” – Sunday Times (£)
“As matters stand, Farage’s party is set to triumph – in which case, welcome to the Conservative Apocalypse. … Three main questions would follow the return of a triumphant Reckless to Westminster – and the consequent turmoil in the Tory ranks. Which of those options would Cameron take? Could any hold the party together? Would any be enough to stave off defections to Ukip – and, worst of all, a vote of no-confidence in him? … Cameron’s best chance lies in the dire weakness of Miliband – and that Conservative MPs, recognising this, will stick with him…” – Paul Goodman, Mail on Sunday
“UKIP is to make a serious attempt to win 100 seats at next year’s general election and will try to oust even Eurosceptic Tories. … At a strategy meeting last week, senior party figures agreed to field candidates in every seat — and run serious campaigns in 100 of them — and not give a free ride to MPs who want to leave the EU. The decision was backed by Douglas Carswell, who became Ukip’s first elected MP earlier this month after defecting from the Tories.” – Sunday Times (£)
And comment:
“Military chiefs have been warned by the Treasury to expect further swingeing defence cuts after the next election, sources revealed this weekend. … The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is braced for cuts of about 7.5% between 2016-17 and 2020-21 as part of a renewed austerity drive, according to several well-informed sources. … The prospect of another budget squeeze has raised fears the army, already at its lowest level since Napoleonic times, will be slashed below 82,000 regular troops. … It is likely to anger senior officers who believe David Cameron gave a commitment in 2010 to increase the defence budget after the election.” – Sunday Times (£)
“Camp Bastion, the once sprawling British base in Afghanistan where the war against the Taliban was waged, is due to close today – eight years after the first UK troops pitched their tents in the Helmand desert. … Following the deaths of 453 British personnel and an outlay of well-over £20 billion, Britain’s largest operational base built anywhere since the Second World War will be handed over to Afghan troops. … It comes as Britain prepares to withdraw entirely from the country by the end of this year.” – Mail on Sunday
And comment:
“The general, who left the military in August, dismissed Britain’s involvement in air strikes and aid drops as ‘futile gestures’. When it comes to dealing with Islamic State, he said: “If you’ve got a terrorist organisation that’s equipped like a state army, albeit a pretty ropey state army, there’s only one thing you can do about it. If you want to get rid of them you’ve got to go and fight them, and that means deploying effective military force to fight them.'” – Independent on Sunday
“Islamic extremists have joined tour groups of Parliament to ‘scope out’ the building for a potential terrorist attack, intelligence sources have told The Mail on Sunday. … The disclosure, in the wake of last week’s gun attack on the Canadian Parliament, last night led to demands by MPs for Speaker John Bercow to restrict the number of visitors to the Commons. … One MP said it was a ‘wake-up call’ which proved plots to blow up Big Ben do ‘not just belong to the realms of Doctor Who’.” – Mail on Sunday
And comment:
“The ban on parents taking their children out of school during term time is to be relaxed under guidelines drawn up by head teachers’ leaders. … After a series of high- profile controversies in which parents have been taken to court and fined, the new guidance spells out clear exemptions where families can take children away from classes. … These include going to family weddings or funerals, recovering after a personal or family crisis, attending a religious event or visiting a relative who is seriously ill. Parents will, however, still be barred from taking advantage of cut-price breaks in term time.” – Sunday Times (£)
“Benefit claimants will be forced to wait for one week before receiving their payments under new rules coming into force tomorrow which will save taxpayers more than £2 million a month. … Unemployed people on Jobseeker’s Allowance currently wait three days before receiving their payments, but this will be extended to seven days from this week. … Ministers calculate that the plan will save £125 million over five years.” – Sunday Telegraph
“Young drivers facing rising costs of taking to the road might well breathe a little easier after the Government announced it was slashing the price of obtaining a licence. … The measure, which will see the cost of provisional licences fall to £34 from £50, was announced by ministers – a cut of 32 per cent. … Other cuts coming into effect on Oct 31 include the costs of renewing a licence online every 10 years, from £20 to £14, and a tachograph card used by businesses to monitor how far staff drive, from £38 to £32.” – Sunday Telegraph
“The childhood memories of Tory Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb, the youngest member of the Cabinet, are rather different to those of David Cameron with his loving, stable family and the playing fields of Eton. … ‘One of my earliest memories is of getting between my mother and father as he came at her with a knife – terrifying,’ says Crabb, talking to me in his Westminster office. … He has had virtually no contact with his father, who is still alive, since the family left in a hurry, even though they still both live in the same part of Pembrokeshire.” – Mail on Sunday
“All adult websites will be expected to check the age of people using them under laws being drawn up by the government. … Pornography sites and those selling guns and other age-restricted material will have to use the same age verification tools that are already in place for gambling websites. … The plans are being drawn up by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in tandem with the Treasury minister Andrea Leadsom, who has responsibility for the bank payments system.” – Sunday Times (£)
“Chris Grayling, a Tory bully boy, announced last week that he would quadruple the maximum jail sentence for internet trolls who spread ‘venom’ on social media or, rather, he fed an old story from March to a naive and punitive media. … Even though internet trolls are among the worst specimens the human race can offer up for inspection, there are many reasons not to nod through yet another hardline restriction of personal freedom.” – Nick Cohen, The Observer
“A ‘Daddy Month’ plan to boost new fathers’ rights to paternity leave was promised by Nick Clegg last night. … The Deputy Prime Minister wants to increase statutory paid paternity leave from two weeks to four. … The pledge came as Mr Clegg lashed out at ‘dinosaur’ critics who opposed his call last week to let fathers share mothers’ parental leave to look after a new child.” – Mail on Sunday
“Nick Clegg’s decision not to reshuffle his Liberal Democrat ministers before the general election – and thereby finally promote a woman to the Cabinet – has been criticised by a leading candidate for the party presidency. … Daisy Cooper last night urged Mr Clegg to rethink his decision. She is one of three candidates, all women, to succeed Tim Farron, MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, to one of the party’s most powerful positions.” – Independent on Sunday
“Ed Davey, the energy secretary, has commissioned a ‘blackout Britain’ report, to assess the growing risk of significant power cuts and how they might undermine the economy. … The study, by the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE), was prompted by growing concern in the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) that the nation could face serious cuts from this winter because of power station closures and fears over the reliability of energy from wind turbines.” – Sunday Times (£)
“Ed Miliband was accused of ‘total cynicism’ last night after he made two sharply contrasting speeches on immigration and race equality in just seven hours. … During a visit to Rochester on Thursday, where Ukip is tipped for a by-election victory next month on an anti-immigration platform, the Labour leader pledged to crack down on immigration if he wins power next year. … But at a meeting with ethnic minority activists in Croydon, South London, a few hours later, he pledged a crackdown on race inequality and consider ‘all-black shortlists’ to recruit more ethnic Labour MPs.” – Mail on Sunday
And comment:
“Working women are more than £3,000 a year worse off than men as they bear the brunt of the wages squeeze. … Shadow equalities minister Gloria De Piero said: ‘We would give 3.9million women a rise by raising the minimum wage, providing 25 hours’ free childcare for parents with three and four-year-olds, scrapping zero hours contracts and tackling the gender pay gap.'” – Sun on Sunday (£)
And comment:
“The Labour party erupted into open civil war as Ed Miliband loyalists and supporters of Johann Lamont, the Scottish Labour leader who resigned this weekend, exchanged accusations and insults. … Following claims from Lamont that colleagues in Westminster had treated Scotland ‘like a branch office of London’, Miliband supporters revealed that she would have faced a coup if she had not stood down. … ‘Ed is relieved she’s gone,’ said one Scottish Labour source.” – The Observer
And comment:
“The row over the NHS in Wales took a dramatic turn last night when two senior doctors were banned after a Mail on Sunday exposé of the cruel abuse of elderly patients. … The pair have been put on ‘restricted duties’ and reported to the General Medical Council disciplinary body, which has the power to strike them off. … In addition, two more nurses have been suspended following this newspaper’s investigation into Glan Clwyd Hospital in Rhyl, North Wales.” – Mail on Sunday
“The cash-strapped NHS is paying GPs £100,000 a year for working only weekends, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. … Dr Sarah Wollaston, a GP and Conservative chair of the Health Select Committee, said: ‘The underlying problem here is the workforce shortfall in general practice, so it’s possible for people to work for agencies for these kind of rates.’ … Fellow select committee member Valerie Vaz, Labour MP for Walsall South, said: ‘I’m astounded at these figures. There are many permanent GPs who are working for much less.’” – Mail on Sunday
And comment:
“Fiona Woolf was under fresh pressure to resign from the Government’s child abuse inquiry last night after The Mail on Sunday uncovered new evidence suggesting undeclared links with Leon Brittan, a key figure at the centre of the scandal. … The under-fire inquiry chairman hosted a VIP drinks reception at which the Tory peer was a guest, official documents indicate, but she did not declare it in a list of possible conflicts of interest.” – Mail on Sunday
And comment:
“The Archbishop of Canterbury has admitted child abuse has been ‘rampant’ in British institutions and that the church’s failure to ‘face the misdeeds of those in its service’ has been ‘inexcusable’. … In his most frank comments yet on historic child abuse, Justin Welby admits there is a ‘very significant legacy of unacknowledged cases’ in the Church of England. … His comments are in a private letter to Marilyn Hawes, whose three sons were allegedly groomed and abused by a Church of England headmaster.” – Sunday Times (£)
“Vast swathes of countryside in southeast England will be destroyed by house-building unless a proposed £50bn high-speed railway is built to rebalance Britain’s economy, Sir David Higgins, who is chairman of the HS2 project, warned this weekend. In an interview with The Sunday Times, Higgins also predicted that a new motorway would have to be ploughed through the Chilterns — where public opposition to the HS2 line is strongest — if the rail project is scrapped.” – Sunday Times (£)
“Comedian Russell Brand is considering running as London Mayor – despite saying that voting is a waste of time. … The controversial comic has told close friends he wants to succeed Boris Johnson when the Tory Mayor’s second term ends in 2016. … Essex-born Brand would stand for the mayoralty on an independent ‘anti-politics’ ticket.” – Mail on Sunday
“Chancellor George Osborne is to be guest of honour at a ‘Downton Abbey’ party fundraiser — after the Tories were mocked for being out of touch. … Guests in white tie and tails will pay £145 to mingle with show creator Julian Fellowes.” – Sun on Sunday (£)
“Mr Pickles gets dozens of emails every month from fans in Russia — home of the communists’ Hammer & Sickle flag. … In one seen by The Sun on Sunday, a Russian called Anna tells the 62-year-old Communities Secretary: ‘I have great respect for your dedication to your country. … I will be very happy if you can send me your autograph. I will treasure it always.'” – Sun on Sunday (£)
“One is a Machiavellian figure ruthlessly controlling the levers of power; the other is Peter Mandelson. … The former Labour minister, nicknamed the Prince of Darkness, is to be played in a Channel 4 drama by the actor who portrays Sherlock Holmes’s menacing brother Mycroft in the BBC series about the fictional detective.” – Sunday Times (£)
“The former Conservative party chairman is in talks about a screen version of his children’s book, Ben’s Story. The book tells how a talking dog, Ben, helps a 14-year-old boy called Sam discover the truth about the death of his father. … ‘With a bit of luck it will go into production next year,’ says Lord Tebbit. ‘It’s a bit of a departure, but even former cabinet ministers have to earn a crust.'” – Sunday Times (£)