Newslinks for Monday 24th June 2013
7pm WATCH: "The best campaign manager" - Boris is interviewed about Lynton Crosby
5pm LeftWatch: "I'm afraid there is no money" - the note itself comes to light
2.15pm LeftWatch: Clegg should be more annoyed than Osborne about Vince's Spending Review games
12.15pm Charlotte Leslie MP on Comment: We need a judge-led inquiry into the NHS - one which goes right to the top. "It should reveal
the relationships and interrelationships between NHS managers, Department of
Health Officials, Secretaries of State and Ministers at the time. It should
look at how appointments were made, and where interests of individuals lay, who
know what and when."
Noon Local Government: What about state land banking?
11am Nathan Gamester on ThinkTankCentral: Andrew Mitchell's case for international aid
We lead this morning with two family-related posts:
- ToryDiary: Your starter for ten. Which minister is responsible for families policy?
- Andrea Leadsom MP on Comment: Why we need a Minister for Families
Jesse Norman's Column: As the election draws nearer, Miliband will be left hanging in the air like Wile E. Coyote
Ed Holmes on Comment: The Work Programme is working – but for the hardest to help unemployed, we need to look elsewhere
Local Government: Boris is also backing the Big Society
The Deep End: The terrible truth about Germany: Nobody knows what they’re doing
Day of Scandals 1: "Rotten culture" has developed in the NHS
"At Morecambe Bay, like Mid Staffs, a rotten culture took hold. Both at the hospital where patients were supposed to be cared for, and the regulator which was supposed to be championing the vulnerable, the elderly, and the sick. Again and again, a desire not to face up to the reality of poor care saw institutional secrecy put ahead of patient safety. This was a shocking betrayal of the public and the overwhelming majority of NHS staff." - Dr Dan Poulter MP, Daily Telegraph
- Pressure mounts on senior NHS officials - Daily Mail
- A system beyond fixing - Melanie Phillips, Daily Mail
- Shocking callousness threatens the NHS' very existence - Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, The Independent
- Burnham and Lansley both risk being mired in CQC scandal - The Times (£)
- Remove the ringfence to modernise the NHS - Thomas Cawston, City AM
- Senior doctors propose NHS top-up fees - The Times (£)
>Yesterday: ToryDiary - How to heal the hospital scandals
>Friday: Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, on Comment: Addressing the silent scandal of our NHS
Day of Scandals 2: Police 'ordered officer to spy on Stephen Lawrence's family'
"A police officer who spent four years living undercover in protest groups has revealed how he participated in an operation to spy on and attempt to "smear" the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, the friend who witnessed his fatal stabbing and campaigners angry at the failure to bring his killers to justice. Peter Francis, a former undercover police officer turned whistleblower, said his superiors wanted him to find "dirt" that could be used against members of the Lawrence family, in the period shortly after Lawrence's racist murder in April 1993." - The Guardian
>Yesterday: Christopher Salmon on Comment - There's no accountability without power. Policing governance had to change.
Day of Scandals 3: SOCA and Leveson let hacking lawyers off scot-free
"Nicola Blackwood, a Tory member of the home affairs select committee, said: ‘It was clear from our inquiry into private investigators that under-regulation meant that hacking and other criminal practices were far from confined to the media. ‘If Soca has had evidence of specific offences since 2008, we need to know exactly what they have been doing about it since then. Who else knew about this? And how did they justify the total exclusion of this evidence from the Leveson report?’" - Daily Mail
- Will Leveson investigate? Don't hold your breath - Richard Littlejohn, Daily May
- Sir Brian's double standards - Daily Mail Leader
Day of Scandals 4: BBC trustee didn't even read whistleblower warning over squandered £100m
"Anthony Fry, chairman of the BBC Trust’s finance committee, promised MPs in 2011 that he would pay very close attention to the Digital Media Initiative (DMI), which by then was already two years late and well over budget. Last month, the project was shut down after wasting £100 million. The revelation that Mr Fry did not read the letter until after the closure of the project raises questions about whether the trust is properly performing its role of scrutinising the BBC on behalf of licence-fee payers." - The Times (£)
Day of Scandals 5: Mugs, "anticipated car accidents" and magicians - defence contractors' wasteful claims
"Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has uncovered a string of startling claims submitted as part of multi-million-pound defence contracts. He said firms had got away with billing the Ministry of Defence for ‘inappropriate activities’ because they did not have to provide a breakdown of what their charges were for. Such profligacy, however, will be squeezed under a spending deal agreed between Mr Hammond and Chancellor George Osborne over the weekend." - Daily Mail
- Civilian jobs to go in MoD cuts - Daily Express
- More money for cyber warfare - Daily Telegraph
- Arts chief gets six-month paid sabbatical - and £100,000 pay-off - Daily Mail
"George Osborne is putting away the instruments of political torture: the chancellor announced a deal had been done last night with all departments signing up to savings worth a total of £11.5bn. The chancellor had made provisions for an “inquisitorial” meeting of the so-called Star Chamber on Monday to extract final budgetary concessions from recalcitrant ministers, but it will not be needed." - FT (£)
- Infrastructure spending to sweeten the deal - The Times (£)
- £2bn for car industry - Daily Express
- Now Ed Balls say he will borrow more - Daily Mail
- Osborne mulls pensioner benefit cuts - Daily Mail
…but can real cuts be achieved?
"On current form, without a template-shattering change to the collection and disbursement of taxpayers’ treasure, Mr Osborne has no chance whatsoever of balancing the state’s books at any time in the foreseeable future. The problem is easy to identify but hard to rectify: the relentless growth of social security. When the welfare state was launched, the idea was that government handed out cash to the unfortunate and deserving during hard times. It seemed reasonable, compassionate, even desirable." - Jeff Randall, Daily Telegraph
- Spending Review is the start, not the end, of austerity - The Times Leader (£)
- Cuts must go deeper - Peter McKay, Daily Mail
- Why not cut the Treasury? - Philip Stevens, FT (£)
- Wise heads urge further tightening - Allister Heath, City AM
May proposes £3000 immigration bonds for "high-risk" migrants - including those from India
"Mrs May said: ‘In the long run we’re interested in a system of bonds that deters overstaying and recovers costs if a foreign national has used our public services.’ Immigration bonds have been repeatedly considered by ministers over the years, but have never been successfully introduced. Labour abandoned its own plans for a £1,000 bond in 2008 amid an outcry from migrant rights groups." - Daily Mail
- A clear signal on immigration - Daily Express Leader
- Thug can't be deported due to "right to a family life" - despite beating his children - The Sun
Tim Montgomerie: Housing shortage is killing opportunity in Britain
"This is in danger of adding up to a new age of privilege and inequality. Those with money and strong families will prosper. Those without either are caught in a terrible fix. Out of stagnant wages they have to find money for rising rents and year after year those already on the housing ladder get further and further ahead. Many of the brightest young people may decide to take their talents abroad where property prices and taxes aren’t so stacked against them." - The Times (£)
Cameron and Clegg reviewing Gove's history curriculum
“The draft is with the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister for their approval. They have to sign off on the entire amended national curriculum. The Prime Minister, as we know, is passionate about people studying British history, but we have involved lots of historians and history teachers in redrafting it.” It was the original draft’s emphasis on British history, or what Mr Gove called “our island story”, that stoked some of the controversy. But of greater concern was the extent and detail, running from the Stone Age to the Glorious Revolution in primary school, and from the late 17th century to the election of Margaret Thatcher for ages 11-14." - The Times (£)
Mayors are good for local democracy
"Ranging from a former seaman to an architect and a policeman dubbed "RoboCop" with some former MPs thrown in, England’s newly installed mayors are enlivening politics in some cities but lack the tax and spending powers to make a real difference. A year after government plans to introduce the role more widely flopped, research from the University of Liverpool, the largest city outside the capital with an elected mayor, has found the post has proved popular – even if its occupant divides opinion." - FT (£)
News in brief
- "Spies spy" is no surprise - Ben Wallace MP, The Times (£)
- New questions for Miliband over lobbyist donations - Daily Mail
- PM writes to Guantanamo detainee's daughter - The Times (£)
- Highways Agency reduces speed limits rather than fix the roads - Daily Mail
- Generation Y move to the right - The Sun
- We should triple the population, says Mark Littlewood - The Times (£)
- Just two homes successfully navigate the Green Deal in six months - Daily Mail
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