Newslinks for Saturday 30th June 2012

8.30pm ToryDiary: ZIG! Yesterday, Cameron opposed In-Out referendum. ZAG! Tomorrow, Cameron praises renegotiation referendum

3.15pm ToryDiary: Government orders independent review of inter-banking lending rate abuses

Noon ToryDiary: How we could still be given an in/out EU referendum by David Cameron

ToryDiary: The lady wasn't for turning. But the gentleman is. And, as Lord Lawson argues, this risks the Government's credibility.

Tobias Ellwood MP on Comment: The modern soldier is also an aid worker, a classroom builder, a fireman - as well as a fighter.  As the transformation now sweeping the army will help prove. 

MPsETC: Song written by David Morris MP performed for Armed Forces Day

Local Government: Cambridgeshire takes action to reduce flooding

WATCH: Allister Heath says he can't defend the bankers this time

David Cameron re-signals his opposition to an In-Out EU referendum.  But he doesn't rule out a poll on renegotiation.

Mr Cameron did not rule out some sort of vote on European issues eventually, but insisted that he would not give the British people the option of leaving the EU outright. "I completely understand why some people want an in/out referendum, why they wanted it yesterday, why they want it today,” he said. "Some people just want to get out: I completely understand that but I don't share that view, I don't think that's the right thing to do.” - Daily Telegraph

• "David Cameron placed himself on a collision course with the Tory right when he mounted a passionate defence of Britain's membership of the EU and rejected out of hand an "in or out" referendum..."The problem with an in/out referendum is that it only gives people those two choices. You can stay either in with all the status quo or you can get out. Most people in Britain want a government that stands up and fights within Europe .." Guardian
• "Hours after 100 Tory MPs demanded that he legislate for a referendum because “the cost of membership is too high”, the Prime Minister told his party that greater engagement was important and that Britain was already winning key arguments. - The Times (£)
• "His decision yesterday to explicitly rule out an In/Out referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union will shake the faith of millions about whether he has the right stuff to save our country. Mr Cameron claimed most Britons agree with him that Britain should remain inside the EU. The opinion polls do not bear him out. If he is confident of his case then why does he not hold a referendum to prove his point?" - Daily Express leader
• "Many Tories are worried that increasingly Eurosceptic voters could switch to the UK Independence Party unless the Prime Minister toughens his stance. There are also fears that Ed Miliband could offer an opportunistic pledge to hold a referendum in order to outflank the Tories." - Daily Mail
• "David Cameron says he has secured from eurozone leaders "explicit commitments" to protect the EU single market....he said nothing the eurozone does to stabilise its currency should impact on the single market." - BBC

>Yesterday:

• WATCH: As Cameron rules out an EU referendum that's In/Out, John Baron MP explains why over 100 Conservative MPs want an EU referendum of some kind
• Syed Kamall MEP: Britain and Europe are at a fork in the road - and our withdrawal may soon be in the offing

Ed Miliband seeks to outflank Downing Street by calling for a public inquiry on banking

"Labour leader Ed Miliband has called for a public inquiry into banking after a series of scandals in the sector." - BBC

• "But Cameron declined to endorse the call by Ed Balls for a "proper, independent, arm's length inquiry" to be held into Britain's banking industry. "I never reject anything Ed Balls says," he joked after he was asked by the Guardian whether he endorsed the shadow chancellor's view." - Guardian
• For over the past five years, we have witnessed an unprecedented public crisis in the great pillars of state: the banks, the police and Parliament. Why? Because in more and more cases, naked greed seems to have been the driving force for many self-serving individuals in these institutions - George Carey, Daily Mail
  That said, the real crisis we are facing is not a financial but a moral one. And it is a direct result of the something-for-nothing culture which is poisoning our society.
• "Barclays are bankers. We hate bankers. Whatever it is they’re said to have done, we’re pretty sure it was dreadful and they’re undoubtedly guilty of doing it. The whole lot of them. We started being angry with them even before the exact nature of their dark deeds was revealed." - Matthew Parris The Times(£)
• "Ed Miliband believes the public want those who caused economic hardship and misery grilled under oath. He’s wrong. What they want is for the guilty men and women to have their collars felt. To spend millions of pounds of public money forensically examining what went wrong would be folly. It could also convince thousands of excellent bankers, needed to aid the recovery, to leave the UK altogether." The Sun Says
• "How ripe that the bankers continue to have the same open access to Downing Street enjoyed by the union barons in the 1970s, successfully lobbying to preserve their bonuses and water down the Vickers’ plan for banking reform. Indeed, the more billions the British taxpayer has spent on bailing out the banks, the more contemptuously their executives have treated the public." - Daily Mail leader

Miliband sings the Red Flag - but just two verses - Daily Mail

>Yesterday:

• WATCH: Mervyn King: "Something went very wrong with the British banking industry and we need to put it right."
• ToryDiary: It's time for MPs to scrag the bankers
• Columnist Bruce Anderson:  Wrong, Ed Balls, wrong.  It was the Old Boy System that kept the City clean
• WATCH:  City AM editor Allister Heath on "a disaster for the City's reputation"

Lord Lawson says there are too many U-turns

"The U-turn on the charities tax, he said, was worth making because it was a mistake. But the pasties, caravans etc? ‘The other things, if it had been me, I would have carried on with. I think they're perfectly justifiable and the idea that you might be in disarray or retreat is not something that you want anybody to think.’....once decided, certain decisions ought to be adhered to. ‘If I had been in his shoes I would not have deferred the petrol tax. I think it is now essential that, in January, he does do it.’ " - Fraser Nelson Coffee House

Egypt's new Muslim Brotherhood President takes oath of office - Sky News

Charles Moore argues that the army is shrinking and "trying to look modern, the Tories played down defence" 

"The MoD these days is a demoralised department with too many second-rate officials and little ability to fulfil its historic role as the United Kingdom’s strategic military headquarters. Few politicians today have a background in defence. Many take it for granted. Some are even actively hostile." - Daily Telegraph

• Battalions with foreign bias face axe in Army cuts - Daily Telegraph
• Thousands expected to turn out for armed forces day - BBC

>Yesterday on Comment: Housing Minister Grant Shapps MP:  Armed forces must be at the front of the housing queue

Government study exposes respondents views on porn - The Independent

No pleasing some people, or rather Sun People: the newspaper names George Osborne as its "villain of the week"

"The Sun was delighted when the Chancellor finally pulled the above U-turn on fuel duty this week. But it was the duplicitousness with which he did it that wins him our weekly wooden spoon. ...Osborne then entirely disappeared from view, Macavity-syle, to dispatch woefully under-briefed junior Treasury minister Chloe Smith to be flayed alive on that night’s TV shows, notably by Newsnight’s Jeremy Paxman." - The Sun

‘Safety net’ in draft Bill on assisted suicide - The Times (£)

The Guardian profiles the Conservative MP fuel duty campaigners as "The Tory rebels who put principles before party loyalty"

"Nuttall is no bleeding-heart liberal: he's a Tory MP, steeped in an older and more rugged strain of Conservatism than that of his current leader. "I just like to stand up for everybody who believes in free enterprise and freedom of choice and giving people the opportunity to improve themselves, by giving them a choice without government dictating to them," he says. "I never had the chance to go to grammar school, but I am the opposite of all those socialists like my predecessor, who went to Bury grammar school but wanted to abolish it." - The Guardian

• These Tory women are narcissists, not feminists - Tanya Gold, The Guardian

Tory peer calls for ban on smoking in cars - Scotsman

Graeme Archer is left angry by Ed Miliband's "depersonalised nostra culpa on immigration"

"The fury arises from the way Labour treated those who voiced disquiet about the rapidity and the extent of the changes. Murmur your concern over primary schools where most children didn’t speak English at home; worse, notice that you were the only native English speaker on your bus – and the Left called you racist." - Daily Telegraph

Britain tops EU asylum list - Daily Mail

Lord Prescott's office lavished spending on hotels and in restaurants all around the world

"Charlie Elphicke, a Conservative MP, said: “These figures show that his office was too casual with taxpayers’ money and now he is standing to be a police commissioner. How do we know he will be effective with the police budget and more careful with public money in future. He needs to explain whether this spending at Links of London and the London Eye was for public or personal benefit.” - Daily Telegraph

>Yesterday on Local government:

• Coming to the heart of England - the largest open primary seen outside the capital
• Theresa May and Nick Herbert must stand firm on police reform

Simon Heffer praises David Cameron showing "real Tory values" on eduaction and welfare - Daily Mail

Commons committee calls for it be easier to sack MPs with forced by-elections - BBC

Donations flood in for Romney after Obama court victory - Independent

And finally...

1)"Get me my lawyer!  Get me my expensive American lawyer" - Tony Blair interview, Financial Times (£)

2) Could Blair return as Prime Minister? - Guardian

2) Beware his leadership ambitions - Patrick O'Flynn, Daily Express

 

 

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