The romance isn't dead on Downing Street

Rhoda Klapp

It's good to see that such thinking is going on. You couldn't guess from their output. It doesn't matter what the suggestions actually are, they are presumably intended to start a discussion. Like, if Cameron can bomb a regime he has diplomatic relations with, why can't he impose the least restrictions on a migrant worker? Like, do we really need all those regulations. If we cannot (through trepidation) scrap EU laws, can we revise them to un-gold-plate them, to implement the least restrictive version found in any EU country. Or discover a legal fault in our implementation so they need to be recast? Perhaps if the PM and his crowd were to suggest moving on any apparatchik who keeps saying things cannot be done? Maybe reward enterprise in the CS rather than inertia? Oh well, Rhoda can dream.

Walsingham's Ghost

"Steve asked why the PM had to obey the [EU] law, said one Whitehall insider of a meeting in March to discuss the government’s growth strategy. Jeremy had to explain that if David Cameron breaks the law he could be put in prison."

Can we test this theory, please? - Have we really sunk for low as to believe this nonsense?

It sounds utter 'bolleaux' to me, but any excuse to invade Belgium (via France of course) would be most welcome - it's been far too long...

WG

YorkshireLad

And this Hilton guy gets paid for coming up with this drivel? Where do I sign on?

TGF UKIP

I was, at first, slightly gobsmacked that one of the teenagers appeared to have been allowed to not just mention my mate The Mole, but to actually write something less than flattering about him. Then, though, I read on and was gratified to see that what the post amounted to was nowt more than a bit more Steve H spinning from his subjects at the Speccie.

Your editor will be pleased with you, Pete.

Barry Bilge

"Vince Cable, for instance, has been quick to chide Hilton's thinking on maternity leave today, saying that, "Steve Hilton is a fine blue skies thinker but this is, I'm afraid, not part of what we're going to do.""

Pity. It's a sensible step in many respects. Is Vince really for loading up employment with more and more rules, regulations and taxation?

The substantial encroachment of the State into what was previously the private territory of employers, employees and unions has been costly and unhelpful, especially in these seemingly dire economically straits. It (and health and safety requirements) has also denuded unions of their main reason for being. A major step of retreat by the State would be welcomed by many.

That someone in the middle of Westminster is prepared to think these things isn't enough. People need to act on them.

rosie

Vince also spoke witheringly of tax cuts bringing in more revenue - proved on both sides of the Altantic - as "Voodoo Economics", then had to back down under questioning from Martha Kearney! "Well, just unfunded tax cuts then..." I wonder whether Polly and co will now challenge his racist language.

Perry, the Heartless Tory Romantic

Peter, I believe someone has fed you this nonsense, - or you have partaken of strong liquor.

Why, - the H2B is an Iron Fist that punches through the EUSSR claptrap, who waves away stupid laws, and who strides through the quagmire of red tape that besets our land. And one could find no better proof than his edict on the wine gum or liqueur chocy issues.

He is, in every way, a Champion of England! And he will vanquish our Foes!!

Cynic

The easiest way to ditch all the EU albatros regulation is to up and leave the Empire. Can we please have an English summer? Just think - we'll get our fishing waters back, we can still trade with Europe without paying a fortune for the privilege of importing far more than we export to the EU and we can make our own laws as well as deport foreign criminals. What's not to like?

Dimoto

Perhaps Cameron should have explained to the jumped-up bureaucrat Heywood, that his job is to assist the government in preventing EU legislation from further distorting the UK labour market, and not to be the EU's local little helper.
Perhaps reminding him who pays his salary might help.

Hoskin takes cheap-shot stories from the EU loving FT and uses fantasy musings from the clueless Steve Richards .... ever had an original thought yourself Mr Hoskin ?

Norman Dee

we are probably the only country in Europe that actually obeys all the EU laws, the EU doesn't obey it's own laws, so why should we worry ? Just say "as for EU economic laws we assumed they were merely for guidance"

Despoir

I don't want blue skies bloody thinking from a bunch of nerks who think that fiddling with the country is some kind of sixth form caper.

I want serious, considered policies based on realism and experience of life and high politics. These clowns are a bloody shower.

Stan Wright

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the present government is among the looniest Britain has had in decades.

daniel maris

If Steve Hilton is the "blue skies" thinker then that explains why we've been rained on by piss poor policies for the last year and a bit.

FvH

The war is between Ed Llewelyn and Hilton not Heywood and Hilton
The FT knife job was EL's retaliation after Hilton tried to put him in the frame re: Coulson/Murdoch

Rhoda Klapp

Some of you do not seem to understand what blue skies thinking is meant to do. It's to trigger a debate without self-imposed boundaries. If the debate goes 'what if we got rid of maternity leave?' - 'Oh no, we couldn't possibly do that!', then it is not a debate at all. If it went, well, 'a lot of firms have to hire temps and kep jobs open for women who are obliged to say they will return when they don't really plan to, which hurts everybody, could we do it better?' then that is the kind of thing we should look at. The idea is not necessarily to implement the blue sky plans, but to use the freedom of the debate to explore better solutions. To leak a list of those discussion points in this way and with this spin is creepily dishonest. To publicise the leak with no attempt to put it in perspective is no better.

Sam J

@Rhoda: Agree in principle, but what they appear to be doing here is a paying a complete moron (sunburst technology? I remember when it was called Opal Fruits) to express the idea in a completely moronic way.

Then the Opposition can bury it immediately, and anyone who wants to argue that women should be able to compete equally with men in the jobs market, instead of being effectively excluded from the productive sector and only able to beg to be allowed to fill some fat gropey socialist's quota, has to explain why they agree with the complete moron.

'Blue-sky thinking' is not a job description, anyone with a bit of imagination can do it. If Cameron wants new ideas on cutting red tape, then he should get some company directors and experts in the room and leave them alone with some coffee and biscuits. Instead he has chosen to employ someone who knows absolutely nothing and will therefore say absolutely anything.

Rhoda Klapp

Sam J, my case would look better if anything coming out of Drowning street ever made any sense at all, or they could think of any solution which might somehow involve drawing back the frontiers of the state.

Matthew

I couldn't agree with Rhoda more. We are in a whopping great big financial pickle folks. We're not the only ones. There are some amazingly scarey debt levels out there, and doing things "as we have always done them" will not get us out of the mess we are in. I think some "off the wall" thinking is exactly what we need.

Andy Carpark

No 10 = boo.com redux

rosie

I'm mystified too about why you are all being so bitchy about an obviously good idea, olng overdue. The PM doesn't need to get business people in to tell him this maternity leave scam needs fixing, and someone has to get the debate going in our PC dictatorship, even if they don't actually dare put their head over the parapet.

Hexhamgeezer

'Jeremy had to explain that if David Cameron breaks the law he could be put in prison.'"

....and that Jeremy would be in the vanguard of ensuring he would be put there.

An attitude utterly absent throughout the rest of Europe.

Fcking Laughable. I'm not sure this exchange could really have happened or is Hilton so fcking stupid that he hasn't noticed the serial disregard every European institution and government has for its own laws? Hasn't Jezza or Hilton noticed the way Lisbon and Euro rules are being treat with contempt already (bailouts anyone?) Or trade and takeover rules, or stuff all the way down to the likes of food production and hygiene regulation.

Heywood is the one that should be banged up and the likes of Hilton sacked for cowardice in the face of fire.

Mark

I have a radical, cutting edge piece of blue sky thinking - the government could try to abide by its manifesto promises...

Dimoto

Sam J:
"'Blue-sky thinking' is not a job description, anyone with a bit of imagination can do it. If Cameron wants new ideas on cutting red tape, then he should get some company directors and experts in the room and leave them alone with some coffee and biscuits. Instead he has chosen to employ someone who knows absolutely nothing and will therefore say absolutely anything".

Sam, the directors are usually the ones who feel their responsibility is to enforce new regulations, to the letter, without worrying too much about the cost and inconvenience.

If you put some senior operating execs in the room with the tea and biscuits, you might get somewhere (but I doubt they would eat the bickies).