Over at the FT’s Westminster blog, Jim Pickard picks up on an important comment from Stephen Timms, the Treasury minister, speaking at a committee meeting this morning. Timms suggests that Treasury hasn’t ruled out a public sector pay freeze, as recommended by the Audit Commission’s Steve Bundred. Here are the minister’s words: “It’s certain
So David Cameron has said that Andy Coulson’s job isn’t endangered by the News of the World wire-tapping allegations in this morning’s Guardian, and you can see where the Tory leader is coming from. After all, there are very few – if any – new revelations about Coulson in the Guardian piece. We already knew
Brown’s away at the G8, so it’s a Harman-Hague-Cable match at PMQs today. Stay tuned for live coverage from 1200. 1202: Here we go. Harman leads with condolences for the servicemen killed in Afghanistan over the past week. She adds condolences to those killed in the fire in Camberwell. The first question comes from Malcolm
Hm. Seems like Alan Johnson has chosen the day that Gordon’s away in Italy to write another comment piece on voting reform. Like his article for the Times a few months ago, it pushes the AV+ version of proportional representation. And, like his Times article, it goes out of its way to mention Brown (“I
The thing that jumps out from Nick Clegg’s speech on families today is how aggressively – if, ultimately, unconvincingly – it sets about attacking the Tories. Yes, he also criticises Labour – but the attack on the Tories comes first and is more bitter in tone. Here’s a snippet: “David Cameron’s social policy is focused
The question of whether or not to freeze public sector pay has had a fair bit of airtime over the past few days. In his interview at the weekend, Alistair Darling seemed to take a hard-line on the issue – and most outlets wrote it up as him not ruling out a freeze. But, via
So, what does today hold in store for Gordon Brown? Howabout another 10p tax rebellion marshalled, as always, by Frank Field? A bunch of around 30 Labour rebels have prepared an amendment to the Finance Bill, by which the last Budget couldn’t pass into law until everyone who lost out from the 10p tax fiasco
How peculiar. After all the economic optimism coming out of government recently, all the talk of recovery by the end of the year, Brown’s going to warn that the worst of the recession may be yet to come in his meetings with G8 leaders this week. The Times has the full story here, but this
Wow, that really was something. Just like last year’s Wimbledon final, Roger Federer’s 5-7 7-6 7-6 3-6 16-14 victory over Andy Roddick has to go down as one of the greatest, and most nerve-wracking, contests in tennis history. A spectacular way for Federer to claim his fifteenth Grand Slam title, breaking Pete Sampras’s record in
It’s public spending time again, dear CoffeeHousers, with a couple of eye-catching articles in today’s papers. The first is a comment piece by Steve Bundred, chief exec of the Audit Commission, on the necessity for extensive spending cuts. If you recall, Bundred claimed a few days ago that health and education shouldn’t be ring-fenced from
Tim Montgomerie flags up this passage from Andrew Rawsley’s column today: “Mr Osborne raised some eyebrows at a recent private meeting in the City when he was heard to remark that ‘40% of my time is spent on economics’ – meaning that most of his hours are spent on campaigns and tactics. Mr Osborne seemed
I’m just catching up with the latest New Yorker over brunch, and would recommend that CoffeeHousers read their eyewitness account of the Tehran protests: it captures the scale and sweep of the opposition to Ahmadinejad, as well as the brutality of the state response. Elsewhere, the latest news coming out of the country makes for
Over at the Beeb website, Mark Easton flags up a new Ipsos MORI poll on public spending; you can view the whole thing here. There are plenty of eye-catching results in there. For instance, most people strongly agree that many public services are a waste of money and can be cut, while 40 percent of
Great spot by Paul Waugh, who’s got evidence of the latest Miliband cock-up over at his blog. Basically, Miliband told the Commons earlier this week that British aid to India would be decreased and eventually stopped because “India is becoming a richer country”. But now he’s had to sneak out a complete retraction, which even
I think it’s fair to say that the Dear Leader is out of his comfort zone here: Hat-tip: Paul Waugh
Given the speculation that’s whirling around Westminster about plots to oust Brown in the autumn, it’s worth noting this passage from Steve Richards’ article for the latest New Statesman: “The most significant change since the hopelessly disparate attempted coup last month is how the rest of the cabinet relate to Brown, Mandelson and Balls, the
Interviewed in today’s Indy, Alistair Darling’s “get real” warning to the bankers seems to be grabbing the headlines – but his comments on public spending rather jumped out at me. After Peter Mandelson said that there wouldn’t be a spending review before the next general election, there were rumblings that Darling was actually still thinking
More from PoliticsHome. UPDATE: Paul Waugh has a copy of the original complaint.
If you’re stuck for something to do during this sweltering afternoon, then it’s well worth flicking through David Cameron’s speech to the Local Government Association earlier. Aside from a few mentions of handing “much more power” to local governments (which could be taken as merely transferring power from one bureaucracy to another), it’s a good
With Brown shifting his position on spending by the minute, it’s worth highlighting this snippet from today’s Guardian: “Treasury ministers, in particular, believe they can look at whether there will be a need for cuts at the time of the pre-budget report in the autumn. They intend to use the report to show the scale