Newslinks for Thursday 11th July 2013

5.45pm Ben Walker on ThinkTankCentral: "Some 40 per of people who leave Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) will reclaim benefits within six months and 60 per cent will reclaim benefits within two years. Put simply, JCP fails to monitor how many people they are actually helping into work." Is the Jobcentre up to the job?

3.30pm WATCH: Osborne - deficit reduction can be achieved without further tax rises

3pm Brooks Newmark MP on Comment: Remembering Srebrenica - and supporting the work of the ICMP

2pm Christopher Howarth on Comment says that the blundering of David Miliband and the maneuvering of the Liberal Democrats has left the Conservatives with a deadly choice. No more co-operation on extradition. Or more powers for the EU.  If we opt back into the European Arrest Warrant, we will cede more authority to the ECJ

11am Andrew Lilico on Comment: When a bank goes bust, should insured deposits be more protected than uninsured deposits?

9.30am Local Government: Hampshire Lib Dem councillor defects to Conservatives

Tory Diary: We, the voters, have chosen taxpayer-subsidised parties and politicians. So we must make the most of it

Profile: Danny Alexander, by Andrew Gimson: The Coalition pillar who might yet succeed Nick Clegg

Joe Baron on Comment: We must support Gove's reforms and allow me – at last! – to be a real teacher

Local Government's Unite Week continues: Unite Councillors Network championing the far left in our town halls

Majority Conservatism: Paul Uppal MP writes the fourth part in this week's series on broadening the appeal of the Party. The long road to winning support from ethnic minority voters

MPsETC:

• Bluebirds maintain their unbeaten streak, reports Andy Johnson
• Martin Callanan MEP gives his monthly report from the European Parliament. A Croatian detective. A budget deal. Good work by Syed Kamall - and a Duff proposal

The Deep End: Young people can’t afford to get on to the housing ladder, but why would they want to and why should we care?

Politics and Money 1) MPs "to receive 12 per cent pay rise"

"The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) is expected to announce that backbench MPs will in future be paid £75,000 and that will then rise automatically every year in line with average earnings. But the pay rise will offset that increase with a crackdown on perks such as meals on expenses and an end to their generous final salary pensions. The regulator, who took over control of MPs’ pay from Parliament in 2010, will argue that, overall, the new package will only cost the taxpayer a few hundred thousand pounds a year more." - The Independent

• MPs’ free meals perk to be axed - Daily Express
• Tory wives are in no mood to let their husbands turn down a pay rise - James Kirkup, Daily Telegraph

Politics and Money 2) Miliband opens up second front on the Conservatives by threatening outside interests

"Labour candidates at the next election will be barred from holding directorships and consultancies and will be forbidden from earning more than about £10,000 a year above their MP’s salary. Mr Miliband announced the limits on second jobs as part of efforts to turn the tables on David Cameron over who bankrolls political parties and the cost of politics. Both posed as the taxpayers’ champion as they prepared for a public backlash against proposals published today to give MPs an above-inflation pay rise." - The Times (£)

• GMB says Miliband plan could bankrupt Labour - The Sun
• Adonis launches Labour review of growth plans - The Guardian
• Cameron thinks Miliband will be ousted claim - Daily Mail

Politics and Money 3): Miliband opens up third front on the Tories by suggesting a donations caps. Cameron rejects it.

"Cameron rejected the £5,000 cap on donations on the grounds that taxpayers would have to make up the difference in funding. "I don't see why the result of a trade union scandal should be every taxpayer in the country paying for Labour," Cameron said.Tory sources pointed out that the 2011 Kelly review on party funding had suggested that a £10,000 cap on union and individual donations would have meant Tory income falling on average by 76% annually between 2001 and 2010, while Labour would have lost 91% of its income." - The Guardian

Politics and Money 4) PMQs plumbs new depths of shame

"There follows a full transcript of the session. Speaker: “Questions to the Prime Minister.” Hon members: “RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!” - Michael Deacon, Daily Telegraph

• "What a racket. Sometimes my wife listens to her car stereo at top volume and forgets to alter it back to normal when she switches off the engine. That means that when I climb in the next morning still a bit dozy from my slumbers and turn the key – WHAM – I am suddenly hit in the ears by the late Vladimir Horowitz thumping out Schumann at maximum belt. It was that bad in the Commons yesterday." - Quentin Letts, Daily Mail
• Hague calls Labour MP Cathy Jamieson a "stupid, stupid woman" during PMQs - Daily Express
• Nigel Dodds thrown out of Commons chamber over parades comment - Belfast Telegraph
• PMQs wall of noise - Financial Times
• Tribal tripe - Sun Editorial

Steve Richards: Voters won't pay for state funding

"The issue that sparked yesterday’s exchanges should alarm both leaders. Voters are disdainful of politics and will not pay for state funding of parties. The current arrangements are the alternative, ones that generate endless rows about the donors of parties. The rows fuel voters’ disillusionment. There is no way around this until voters choose to contemplate the horrendous alternative to party politics and reflect on who they wish to make decisions other than despised elected politicians." - The Independent

• People have lost interest in party politics - Zoe Williams, The Guardian

> Today:

• Tory Diary - We, the voters, have chosen taxpayer-subsidised parties and politicians. So we must make the most of it
• Local Government: Unite Councillors Network championing the far left in our town halls

> Yesterday:

• Andrew Gimson's PMQs sketch: David Cameron reinvents himself at PMQs as the most brutal street fighter in the Commons 
• LeftWatch: Strong Miliband, taking on the unions? Or Weak Miliband, incapable of doing so? Which will it be?
• Local Government: Introducing Cllr Lisa Forbes, Labour's - sorry Unite's - candidate for Peterborough

Tory MPs planning to wear BBB - "Bollocked by Bercow" - badges in the Chamber

"Those understood to have been approached about joining the revolt include ministers Michael Gove, Simon Burns and Anna Soubry, former minister Tim Loughton and backbenchers Jason McCartney, Simon Kirby and Ian Liddell-Grainger.  MP Sheryll Murray has been asked to make ‘BBB’ badges in time for next week, one of the rebels told the Daily Mail." - Daily Mail

Ministers keep options open on Royal Mail sell-off

"Vince Cable, business secretary, said Royal Mail’s 150,000 UK employees would be eligible for a free 10 per cent stake in the delivery company as he confirmed the government would sell off a majority holding in this financial year. He also said the public would be able to buy shares in a retail offer, available through stockbrokers and direct from the government through a special website. The retail offer will be seen by some as harking back to the glory days of privatisation of the gas, electricity and telecoms industries under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s." - Financial Times

• Unions say they will strike over Royal Mail sell-off - Daily Express
• A long-awaited delivery for Royal Mail - John McDermott, Financial Times
• Royal Mail must modernise to deliver - Daily Telegraph Editorial
• How we can deliver a first-class post - Daily Mail Editorial
• "The Government is right to press ahead with privatisation of Royal Mail" - Times Editorial (£)
• Sell Royal Mail to save it - Daily Express

> Yesterday: ToryDiary - Royal Mail privatisation gets back on track under Michael Fallon's guiding hand

Universal Credit under pressure

"Mr Duncan Smith was grilled by the Work and Pensions Committee yesterday on their progress in implementing the new benefit. They announced that Jobcentres will put new claimants on to Universal Credit from October in six more areas - Hammersmith, Rugby, Inverness, Harrogate, Bath and Shotton. It is currently being tested in two areas, with a further two starting later this month…Mr Duncan Smith told the committee that he “personally disliked” the way payday lenders appeared to target benefit claimants and that further action might be needed to clamp down on the companies." - The Independent

• Slow rollout for universal credit fuels political row - Financial Times

Government ready to declare Trident bases UK territory if Scotland goes independent

"In a move that sparked an angry reaction from the SNP, which vowed to rid Scotland of nuclear weapons as quickly as possible after a yes vote, the government is looking at ensuring that the Faslane base on Gare Loch in Argyll and Bute could have the same status as the British sovereign military bases in Cyprus. The move would be designed to ensure that the Trident fleet would continue to have access to the open seas via the Firth of Clyde. Under Britain's "continuous at sea deterrent", at least one Vanguard submarine armed with 16 Trident nuclear missiles is on patrol at sea at any one time." - The Guardian

Cuts at MI5, MI6 and GCHQ are terror risk, says Rifkind...

"The committee, led by ex-Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, said: “The agencies have said they are ‘fairly confident’ that operational capabilities will be protected. The Committee does not share that confidence.” George Osborne announced a 3 per cent hike for spooks in 2015. But the new budget is still only a fraction of the 12 per cent overall cut to the agencies’ joint finances since 2011. Syrian extremists represent “the most worrying terrorist threat” to the UK, the ISC revealed." - The Sun

…And Nicholson warns of NHS funding gap

"A £30bn funding gap will open up in the NHS over the next seven years without “radical” changes, including more centralisation of hospital services, the chief executive of NHS England has warned. The feared gap – equivalent to almost a third of today’s NHS budget, and the annual running cost of about 75 hospitals – is the product of NHS England’s assumption that while the NHS budget will increase only about 2 per cent each year, the demands on the health service and its costs will increase by nearer 6.5 per cent a year."
 - Financial Times

• Bronglais Hospital patients told: Bring your own pillows - Wales Online
• No cure to spending paradox - Matt Ridley, The Times (£)

Barker announces local right to veto solar farms

"After promising to empower local communities to oppose onshore wind farms, a minister announced last night that sprawling fields of solar panels will also be curbed because they are ‘increasingly controversial’. Energy minister Greg Barker said: ‘Solar has a big bright future in the UK, but not in any place and not at any price. I want UK solar targeted on industrial roofs, homes and on brownfield sites, not on our beautiful countryside." - Daily Mail

MPs press BBC to name 150 managers given big payoffs

"Steve Barclay, a Conservative member of the committee, responded that it was investigating misuse of public money by the BBC and was not an issue involving the corporation’s editorial independence. Speaking afterwards, Mr Barclay said: “Lord Patten’s reaction suggested . . . a priority to protect the privacy of overpaid BBC bosses rather than looking after the interests of licence fee payers.” The former BBC boss Mark Thompson was effectively accused of misleading the BBC Trust over the million-pound severance package paid to his deputy." - The Times (£)

"Just one in ten quangos has been abolished"

"Despite the Government’s attempts to reduce the size of the state, over the past three years new quangos have been created almost as fast as old ones were being shut down. The findings undermine the Coalition’s election pledge to shut down unnecessary public bodies. Out of around 900 quangos, just 199 are classified as being ‘no longer a public body’." - Daily Mail

• It’s not the thin end of the wedge, Sir Humphrey - Hayden Phillips, The Times (£)

News in Brief

• Number of EU immigrants to Britain during Labour years 'was underestimated by half a million' - Daily Mail
• Obama donors get top embassy jobs - The Guardian
• Ministerial veto over FOI letters is 'troublesome' and 'constitutional aberration', says Lord Chief Justice - Daily Telegraph
• Firms say economic recovery has begun in Scotland - Scotsman
• 100 foot tyre piles are stacked in Belfast for the 12th - Daily Mail
• House prices rise by £2000 a month - Daily Express
• Qatada's cell - The Sun
• Cricket: Australia fight back - The Independent
• Families face debt timebomb - The Times (£)
• One in three houses belong to pensioners as younger generations are frozen out of market - Daily Mail

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