The Prime Minister has backed the proposal for a new independent service to sign workers’ long-term sicknotes, instead of GPs. The plan, which Pete wrote about at the weekend, is aimed at ensuring that people on sick pay or sickness-related benefits really are too ill to work. Cameron describes how it would work in today’s
The Evening Standard has the scoop: ‘Companies House filings show James Murdoch has stepped down from the boards of both News Group Newspapers Limited, publisher of The Sun, and Times Newspapers Limited, which operates The Times and Sunday Times.’ Of course, James Murdoch remains executive chairman of News International, of which both those companies are
PMQs 23rd November
Mitt Romney, the clear favourite to win the Republican presidential nomination, has released the first television ad of his 2012 campaign. Even though his immediate battle is against fellow Republicans – in the latest CNN poll, he trails Newt Gingrich by four points – here Romney’s attack is aimed squarely at Obama. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3a7FC0Jkv8 The Obama
Despite – or perhaps because of – the recession, pensioner employment has increased dramtically over the past few years. In his Telegraph column today, Fraser remarks on this important but largely ignored trend in Britain’s workforce. ‘A million jobs have been lost since the Great Recession began’, he says, ‘but the number of pension-aged people in
Yesterday, George Osborne announced the sale of Northern Rock to Virgin Money. Here, to mark the occasion, is the piece Allister Heath wrote on the bailout of the bank in 2007: Northern Rock: morally hazardous, Allister Heath, 29 September 2007 First we heard about ‘sub-prime mortgages’; then it was ‘collateralised debt obligations’; now it’s the
In his cover story for last week’s Spectator, Fraser described how the Frankfurt Group – which he dubbed ‘a new EU hit squad’ – has begun imposing it’s will on Greece and Italy. In the European Parliament on Wednesday night, Ukip leader Nigel Farage made the same case against them – and quite forecefully, too:
We’ve got two interventions by high-profile European politicians in the British papers this morning. In the FT, German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle lays out Germany’s stance, providing a taste of what David Cameron can expect when he meets Angela Merkel in Berlin today. He begins by underscoring the importance of keeping the eurozone together: ‘The
The UK can now claim to be No.1 in Europe… for inflation. Further to Tuesday’s figures, the EU has now updated its own spreadsheet. And this is what it shows: We’ve been hovering around the top for a year or so, but now we’ve finally touched the summit. Let’s see if we start to plummet
Another day, another downgrade. This time, it’s the Bank of England saying it now expects GDP to grow by only around 1 per cent in 2011 and 2012. In one sense, this is just one organisation’s forecast and tells us nothing more or less about where the economy’s headed than anyone else’s. Thankfully, the Treasury
It’s not every day a video of House of Lords business goes viral, but over the last couple of days that’s exactly what we’ve seen. Here it is, for any CoffeeHousers who may have missed it, a clip of Baroness Trumpington giving Lord King of Bridgwater a decidedly unpeerlike gesture: The Baroness, who worked at
Yesterday saw three national polls and three different leaders in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Politico’s Battleground poll (conducted early last week) shows Herman Cain leading Mitt Romney by two points. CNN’s latest (conducted over the weekend) has Romney narrowly leading Newt Gingrich, with Cain down in third. Most eye-catching of all is
Francis Maude presents himself as a man trying to help the unions out in today’s Financial Times. Some unions say they have to go ahead with strikes on November 30 – even though negotiations on pension changes are still going on – or else they’d lose their mandate for any future strikes and have to
Rick Perry’s doing his best to turn his excurciating “oops” moment last night to his advantage. Alex said it was the end of his campaign, but Perry certainly doesn’t see it that way. On NBC’s Today show, he quipped: ‘There are so many agencies out there, that I’m like many Americans and we would like
During Murdoch’s appearance before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which has just concluded:
Things haven’t been looking particularly good for the Obama 2012 campaign of late. Half the country disapproves of his performance so far, the economy’s very weak and Mitt Romney’s grip on the Republican nomination is tightening. And the last two sets of November elections have seen the electorate move towards the Republicans. In 2009, they
Silvio Berlusconi no longer has the support of the majority of Italy’s MPs. That big budget vote was passed an hour ago, but only because 321 of the 630 members of the lower house didn’t vote. Just 308 supported the Prime Minister, leaving him eight votes short of a majority and suggesting he’d lose a
Reports of Silvio Berlusconi’s imminent resignation yesterday may have been exaggerated, but it remains to be seen how greatly. He faces a big test today, in the form of a crucial vote on the Italian budget. Berlusconi has proved adept at surviving such confidence votes throughout his time as Prime Minister, but today’s opposition may
So soon after taking on the right over the European Union, David Cameron didn’t want to be seeing negative headlines on another of their hot-button issues. But that’s just what he’s woken up to this morning, thanks to the revelations that the Home Secretary authorised the relaxation of border checks. As James said, May’s performance
Don’t be too hard on the Independent leader writer and proof readers. Ed or David Miliband? It’s an easy mistake to make. John Humphrys got it wrong on the Today programme back in May, and even Ed’s own deputy, Harriet Harman, slipped up. “I hope we will have David, er, Ed, Ed Miliband elected as
