“…it seems the UK will almost certainly be forced to pay something extra after the Commission suggested it could withhold our £3billion-a-year rebate. … Mr Cameron said: ‘Britain will not be paying 2billion euros to anyone on December 1 and we reject this scale of payment. We will be challenging this.’ … But later a spokesman said that in the past, Britain had been happy to pay sums of ‘the low hundreds of millions’ – indicating that the UK may end up paying a similar amount this time.” – Daily Mail
And comment:
> Yesterday: Lord Ashcroft on Comment – The Tories draw level with Labour in my weekly poll
“IRA terrorists will be able to skip justice just by crossing into Ireland if Britain ducks out of EU arrest laws, Dublin has warned. … The Irish Government has written to the Home Secretary to insist that Britain’s opt out from the European Arrest Warrant would spell a return to the dark days of the Troubles. … Under its constitution, Irish judges will have no choice but to refuse to hand over terror suspects as their offence is deemed a ‘political offence’.” – The Sun (£)
“David Cameron has hit back at critics of a £7billion high-speed rail link across northern England – insisting it will make a ‘massive difference’. … The PM said he was a ‘passionate’ believer in the project and Britain should catch up with technology in other countries. … Mr Cameron said: ‘These sorts of decisions — plans that can make a massive difference to the future of our country — I think really matter. … They’re not always popular, HS2 is not always popular. But I profoundly believe they are right.'” – The Sun (£)
And comment:
> Today: ToryDiary – Railways. What the North needs is local plans, better trains and faster journeys – quickly
“Fitness fanatic Dean Farley, 28, charged into the Prime Minister outside Leeds Civic Hall yesterday. … Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan Howe has ordered an investigation as MPs and security experts pointed out that Mr Cameron could have been stabbed or killed. Although he was uninjured, police faced withering criticism. … Tory MP Mark Pritchard called for a full inquiry. ‘Met Police close protection officers are some of the best in the world, but what if the protester had been carrying a knife?’ he said.” – Daily Mail
And comment:
“Michael Fallon has been forced by Downing Street to take to the airwaves to withdraw his claims that British towns are being ‘swamped’ by immigrants and their residents are ‘under siege’. … The defence secretary said on television and radio that he had been careless and had used words he would not usually use when defending David Cameron’s plans for a renegotiation with the EU over the freedom of movement of workers. However, he stood by the thrust of his argument – that mass immigration from Europe is putting pressure on local services in many British towns.” – The Guardian
And comment:
> Today: ConservativeHome’s latest monthly survey – Immigration policy. How restrictive? An amnesty for illegals or not? Defy the EU?
“Specific parts of Britain ARE being swamped by migrants, David Blunkett insists today. … Writing in the Daily Mail, the former Labour Home Secretary backs claims made by Defence Secretary Michael Fallon. … Mr Blunkett says politicians cannot simply avoid the issue and Mr Fallon was right to ‘voice the concerns of ordinary voters’. … He warns of increasing public fears about immigration and says those who claim a large influx of migrants does not create problems are living in a ‘fantasy land’.” – Daily Mail
Read David Blunkett’s Daily Mail article in full
“More than 200,000 people plan to cash in all their retirement savings next year, with one in five using part of the windfall to fund a holiday, according to the first detailed study of the impact of new pension reforms. … Both the scale and consequences of the reforms are revealed for the first time today in research by Ipsos Mori. It suggests that 12 per cent of those eligible are planning to cash in their entire pension pot next year. … This flood of savings withdrawals would hand the Treasury a windfall of up to £1.6 billion in tax, according to calculations by Hargreaves Lansdown, which commissioned the poll.” – The Times (£)
“George Osborne has agreed to lend £100 million to the Northern Ireland executive to help pay off its debts, in a timely olive branch to the unionists. … The deal was brokered with the Democratic Unionist party after the executive refused to implement welfare reforms to bring down spending. … The chancellor agreed to lend the cash, to be repaid next year, to bridge a funding crisis on the condition that the executive agrees its 2014-15 budget by the end of October.” – The Times (£)
“The justice secretary, Chris Grayling, has suffered a defeat in a key House of Lords vote on his plans to curtail access to judicial review, which would have made it harder to challenge government decisions in court. … Peers voted by 247 to 181, a majority of 66, to ensure that the judges keep their discretion over whether they can hear judicial review applications after a warning from a former lord chief justice, Lord Woolf, that the alternative amounted to an ‘elective dictatorship’.” – The Guardian
“Eric Pickles has slapped down an attempt by cash-strapped local authorities to levy a ‘Tesco tax’ on large retailers to help support local economies. … The secretary of state for communities and local government said the proposal, which was backed by 20 local authories and led by Derby city council, was a ‘lazy’ solution to the problem of ailing high streets. ‘Imposing new, additional taxes on supermarkets and larger shops will ultimately push up the price of food and the cost of living, hitting low-income families the hardest,’ he wrote in a letter to Derby city council.” – The Guardian
“Politicians would be forced to keep election promises if MPs could be sacked by voters, Zac Goldsmith has said during a debate on Coalition recall proposals. … The Tory backbencher said the Liberal Democrats would never have pledged to scrap tuition fees if they knew voters could punish them individually for U-turning after the election. … Mr Goldsmith, a key proponent of recall, said MPs would have to be ‘much more careful’ about public promises in the run-up to elections if Parliament gave voters powers to hold MPs to account.” – Daily Telegraph
“Olympic rower James Cracknell has applied for a safe Tory seat – after being pipped to his dream constituency by Boris Johnson. … The double gold medallist will now fight to be selected in leafy Bexhill and Battle, East Sussex, in a tough contest for the Conservative nomination next month. … It comes after he withdrew his CV for the plum seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip when the London Mayor applied.” – The Sun (£)
“Fury has erupted after it emerged public sector fatcats will be able to hang on to their golden goodbyes — as long as they don’t get another job for a year. … Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander will announce that in future, they will be forced to hand back some of the cash if they take up a new job in the same part of the public sector within 12 months. … But critics say the new rules are too weak because it will allow departing bosses to simply go on a year’s gardening leave and keep their cash.” – The Sun (£)
And comment:
“Gordon Brown has ruled out a bid to become the new leader of Scottish Labour, dashing the hopes of supporters who believed the former UK prime minister could revive the fortunes of the once-mighty party in Scotland. … Mr Brown’s decision not to contest the leadership means Jim Murphy, member of the UK parliament and Labour’s shadow international development secretary, is seen as the most likely successor to Johann Lamont after her acrimonious resignation last week.” – Financial Times
“Families who have saved hard to own their own home would be punished under Labour’s ‘mansion tax’ plans, a major insurer has warned. … Chief executive of Legal and General, Nigel Wilson, said the party was ‘pandering to the politics of envy’. … He fears that Ed Miliband’s pledge to impose a tax on homes worth more than £2 million would exacerbate the housing shortage and make it hard for first-time buyers to get a foot on the property ladder.” – Daily Mail
“A brawl-shame MP has been arrested for the fourth time in three years. … Speaker John Bercow was told by cops of Eric Joyce’s latest run-in — and his officials sent a circular to MPs. … The ex-Army Major, 54, was arrested in Scotland. … Details of his latest brush with the law were unclear last night.” – The Sun (£)
“The woman charged with cleaning up the City of London has launched a stinging attack on ‘outrageous’ behaviour in the financial markets. … Bank of England Deputy Governor Nemat Shafik said last night that more could be done to punish traders following ‘a series of appalling cases of misconduct’ over recent years. … The 52-year-old highlighted ‘truly shocking evidence’ of traders manipulating the prices of everything from gold and oil to lead and coffee, as well as fixing interest rates and currencies.” – Daily Mail
“In the Global Gender Gap Report, published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Britain has dropped eight spots to 26th place – lagging behind Latvia, Burundi, South Africa, Rwanda and Nicaragua. … The report, which covered 142 countries, looked at how nations distribute access to healthcare, education, political participation and resources and opportunities between women and men. … The UK was ranked ninth in the first report in 2006 and has dropped through the ranking ever since. It is believed changes in income estimates are behind the fall.” – Daily Mail
And comment:
“Is becoming an academy going out of fashion? Have we perhaps seen peak academisation? The number of schools in England that are converting seems to be slowing, with new academy conversions in the secondary sector dropping dramatically, Education Guardian can reveal. … The total number of new academies in the year to 1 October was 889, a fall of 11% compared with the same period in 2012‑13. In the secondary sector, only 125 schools became academies over the period, compared with 215 in 2012-13, 436 in 2011‑12 and 707 in 2010-11.” – The Guardian
And comment:
> Today: Rebecca Coulson’s column – We must reconsider the purpose and nature of university education
> Yesterday:
“A leaked staff memo at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) appears to show the government is still struggling to roll out its flagship welfare programme, universal credit (UC), across the UK. … The memo, seen by the Guardian and titled: ‘Ideas please: Sinking’, appears to be a plea from a jobcentre manager to her staff for solutions to tackle an ever-growing workload brought about by the new system for delivering social security to more than 7 million people.” – The Guardian
“Overstretched GPs have been given the green light to strike thousands of patients from their lists. … So far, 25 surgeries across England have been granted approval by NHS bosses to shrink their catchment areas as they cannot cope. … Some practices have already removed as many as 1,500 patients from their lists, including elderly widows, amputees, young mothers and – in one case – all the residents of a care home. … A further ten surgeries have applied this year to cut their registers and are awaiting approval.” – Daily Mail
“The police watchdog has given West Midlands police six weeks to improve child protection after inspectors found a range of concerns, including warning of a ‘general lack of understanding’ by staff about the extent of child sexual exploitation. … A report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) identified a weak response to difficult, complex or prolonged child protection cases and concluded that heavy workloads meant staff in child abuse investigation teams were unable to manage their investigations effectively.” – The Guardian
And comment:
> Today: Paul Goodman on Comment – Tory Reform 2) Theresa May: Victorian Values in a Modern Setting
“The Archbishop of Canterbury has told how he ‘broke down completely’ after hearing from victims of Church abuse – as he warned of more scandals set to be uncovered. … The Most Rev Justin Welby said the Church of England had ‘failed terribly’ but was now taking the issue ‘as seriously as we can’. … He also warned politicians to be careful over language on immigration – saying clergy were seeing an ‘upsurge of minor racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Islamic’ sentiment.” – The Sun (£)
“The family of teen jihadist Mehdi Hassan, killed in Syria, has blamed the government for making it hard for IS fighters to return. … The 19-year-old was killed in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani after joining up with four pals in October 2013. … Speaking to ITV News after gruesome pictures of his body emerged on social media, Mehdi’s uncle Muslim Khan said: ‘If the British government helped them to come back, I think all of them would come back.'” – The Sun (£)
“Nearly seven in ten people believe the military campaign in Afghanistan has not been ‘worthwhile’ for Britain. … As the last British troops left Camp Bastion yesterday, a poll suggested the majority of the public are sceptical of the claims of politicians and generals that the 13-year conflict has made both Afghanistan and the UK safer from terrorism. … The research, for BBC news, found 68 per cent thought it had not been worthwhile and 42 per cent believed the UK was actually ‘less safe’ now than when the war began in 2001.” – Daily Mail
And comment:
> Today: Garvan Walshe’s column – Enough gloom – five things Britain can do to make the world more secure
“It seems like only yesterday that Pippa Middleton was crowned Britain’s most eligible woman, beating her own sister Kate to top Tatler’s annual Little Black Book list. … Six years on, however, and Pippa, 31, has failed to make it even into the top 100. Worse still, she has been usurped by 75-year-old Baroness Rawlings.” – Sebastian Shakespeare, Daily Mail