Newslinks for Wednesday 17th August 2011

5.30pm Laura Sandys MP on Comment: What can you do for your Enterprise Zone? I am off to Sweden!

4.15pm WATCH:

• Is that a UFO flying behind Tom Watson MP?
• David Cameron: I would not employ Andy Coulson now
• Chris Grayling: Unemployment statistics are "obviously a disappointing set of figures"

4pm Alex Deane on Comment: In the Lilico v Dorries debate, an interesting rebuttal comes to mind

3pm Comment: "What is rapidly becoming clear is that this Conservative-led administration is determined to continue with the sorts of policies that have been employed by politicians in this country for decades. But it is the failure of those policies that we are seeing in tragic episodes such as the rioting, the shootings in Norway, and the financial turmoil that Europe currently finds itself in." - Donna Edmunds writes: In Praise of Capitalism

1.45pm ToryDiary: Tory MPs unite to support the tough sentences given to Facebook riot inciters

12.30pm ThinkTankCentral: Matthew Sinclair's new book "Let them eat carbon" exposes the crippling cost of climate change policy

11.45am ConHomeUSA: Obama blames the Tea Party for putting "party before country", Rick Perry's critics only serve to make his economic record look good, and the rest of today's Republican and American political news

ToryDiary: Osborne and Cameron announce new Enterprise Zones

Jake Berry MP on Comment: Booting out looters, muggers and arsonists is the social contract in action

Local Government: Only 1.4% of excluded children get five or more good GCSEs

Jill Kirby on ThinkTankCentral: Better parenting is the best way of preventing crime

WATCH: China prepares for US trade talks

ConHomeUSA WATCH: An onlooker films the full extent of Barack Obama's convoy of buses, police cars, secret service support vehicles and ambulances

George Osborne announces new Enterprise Zones

"David Cameron and George Osborne will unveil plans on Wednesday to create 30,000 jobs in hi-tech industries by doubling the number of enterprise zones." - Daily Mail

• The Sun wishes there was faster progress on the enterprise zones, saying "The zones are welcome, if they ever get going. Mr Osborne says 30,000 jobs should be created - but not until 2015. That should have the Chinese worried." - The Sun Says

Public agencies to carry out review following David Cameron's comments that the Human Rights Act should not be used to undermine personal responsibility - Guardian

Theresa May considers giving police new powers to impose curfews

"New powers allowing police to clear the streets and create "no-go" areas for the public are being considered, the home secretary, Theresa May, has said. May said it was time to consider whether the police needed a power "to impose a general curfew in a particular area" in the aftermath of last week's riots. The home secretary said the government was also contemplating tougher powers to impose curfews on individual teenagers under the age of 16." - Guardian 

• Facebook riot inciters in Cheshire among those to get the toughest jailterms yet - Daily Telegraph
• "Theresa May said police were right not to use rubber or plastic bullets to stop rioters, putting the Home Secretary at odds with the Prime Minister, David Cameron, who had sanctioned their use in a speech to Parliament last week." - The Independent
• "Applications to lead London's force must be in by midday. The BBC understands Strathclyde chief Stephen House, Acting Met Commissioner Tim Godwin, ex-Northern Ireland head Sir Hugh Orde and former Merseyside head Bernard Hogan-Howe all applied." - BBC

> From yesterday's ConservativeHome:

• David Davis MP on Comment: Our police chiefs should have the humility to listen
• Nadine Dorries MP on Comment: We should shut down social media networking sites during a public disturbance
• ToryDiary: Today's Theresa May post-riots speech in full (plus video)
• ToryDiary: An open letter to David Cameron about his speech on the riots

Tories' reaction to riots is 'bonkers', say Liberal Democrat MPs

"Liberal Democrat politicians indicated on Tuesday that they have deep concerns over David Cameron's uncompromising post-riots law-and-order agenda, with the party's home affairs spokeswoman in the Lords telling the Guardian there should be "zero tolerance with zero tolerance". Lady Hamwee, who led the Lords revolt against Tory plans for elected police commissioners earlier this year, said the pledge by the prime minister of zero tolerance on criminality was taking matters too far. Her comment suggests Cameron will meet stiff resistance when parliament returns in September. ... David Ward, MP for Bradford East, described plans to withdraw offenders' benefits as "nuts", and Tessa Munt, the MP for Wells, said the plans were "bonkers, bonkers, bonkers". She said: "Frankly, this all smacks of headline grabbing by Conservatives, not calm, rational policy-making."" - Guardian 

• Ken Livingstone attacks police cuts, and says that the government did "too little too late" to stop the riots - the Telegraph
  

UK rioters will be forced to pay in a deal to reduce reoffending

"All prisoners are to be forced to join a government jobs programme the moment they are released in a drive to end the “dismal cycle” of repeat offending, Nick Clegg has disclosed." - The Times (£)

> From yesterday - WATCH: Nick Clegg announces riot victims' panel: "We need to ensure the treadmill of crime is stopped"

Paul Goodman: It’s hard to believe Cameron’s words will match his actions

"How, then, could his speech this week possibly have been sincere? We must look in two places for the solution. He will have comforted himself with the thought that – as he said about Libya – one shouldn’t do nothing because one can’t do everything (and in this he is correct). Iain Duncan Smith’s ideas could help to curb the criminal gangs. Michael Gove’s drive for academies is starting to bear fruit. Parenting programmes supported by the Centre for Social Justice, where Duncan Smith laboured in Opposition, may turn round some of the 120,000 problem families of which the Prime Minister spoke." - Paul Goodman, in the Daily Telegraph

Daniel Finkelstein: Who says Bill Bratton has nothing to teach us?

"When Mr Bratton became head of New York’s subway police, he put this theory into practice. His force cracked down on fare evasion, a crime that it had previously regarded as too minor to police. The result was the arrest of many serious wanted criminals, the prevention of crime before it happened (those intending to mug people on the train tended not to pay their fare first) and the transmission of a general message that the subway was for the law-abiding. The theory worked. And as commissioner, Mr Bratton applied it more widely and crime plummeted." - Daniel Finkelstein, in the Times (£)

• Our myopic faith in British police supremacy must end - Ian Birrell, in the Guardian

Nick Clegg: 50p tax rate to stay - unless a "mansion tax" is introduced

"In a blow for Tory demands to slash the highest income tax band, the Deputy Prime Minister said he would not sanction a cut for the rich unless the limit at which people beginning to pay income tax is raised to £10,000. But Mr Clegg did suggest he would accept the abolition of the 50p rate in exchange for a so-called 'mansion tax' on those with expensive properties and fresh moves to crackdown on tax avoidance." - Daily Mail

• "Nick Clegg insisted yesterday that if the 50p tax rate for the highest paid is to be scrapped, there will have to be some other way of making sure that people at the top of the income scale pay their fair share." - The Independent

Merkel and Sarkozy announce "economic government for the eurozone" 

"The leaders of France and Germany last night set out a vision of an "economic government for the eurozone" as they vowed to defend the single currency and put an end to the sovereign debt crisis that has plagued the bloc. The French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said more economicintegration of the eurozone's members was the only way to restore confidence in the euro following the bail-outs of debt-ridden countries" - Independent

• Germany and France looked to have failed again to calm feverish financial markets despite unveiling a raft of economic agreements at a summit in Paris. - Daily Telegraph
• "Slowdown undermines Germany’s role as the eurozone saviour" - The Times (£)
• "It was almost a case of goodbye Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy; welcome Merkozy, the new Franco-German super-politician. Yesterday’s summit was classic Euro-fudge: radical and possibly disastrous proposals camouflaged by the fact that some other, equally disastrous proposals, were rejected."- Allister Heath, in City AM
• How to save the euro – kick out Germany - Anatole Kaletsky, in the Times (£)

Simon Heffer: Rise of the Fourth Reich, how Germany is using the financial crisis to conquer Europe

"Frau Merkel called for a ‘stronger coordination of policy’ and ‘a new quality of cooperation’ within the Eurozone. Although she will not yet admit it, this all suggests the first step has been taken towards a fiscal union that  will leave Germany dictating the financial terms for the rest of Europe. ... Where Hitler failed by military means to conquer Europe, modern Germans are succeeding through trade and financial discipline. Welcome to the Fourth Reich." - Simon Heffer, in the Daily Mail

> Yesterday on ToryDiary: The Heffersaurus becomes hi-tech

John Whittingdale: James Murdoch likely to be recalled by MPs over phone hacking

"John Whittingdale, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee, said James Murdoch is likely to be recalled, possibly in October, to explain why the evidence he gave last month has been "contradicted by evidence which we've had from others". Whittingdale added: "James Murdoch is there to respond on behalf of the company and I suspect we will want to put all that to him."" - Guardian

• "News International was accused last night of orchestrating a four-year cover-up over phone hacking after the release of a damning letter from the News of the World’s former royal editor" - Daily Telegraph
• PM hit by cover-up bombshell: Sensational letter claims that Cameron's former press chief Andy Coulson condoned hacking - Daily Mail

> From yesterday - WATCH: Tom Watson MP: Colin Myler, Tom Chrone and James Murdoch all likely to face MPs again over hacking

An average of an 8 per cent increase on rail fares

"Transport campaigners on Tuesday demanded the government back down from plans to shift more of the burden of paying for rail travel towards passengers, after it became clear government-controlled fares would rise by an average of 8 per cent in January." - The FT (£)

> Yesterday on ToryDiary: Villiers: 8% rail fare rise "essential"

Your £1bn a year bill for migrants’ homes - Daily Express

SNP backs away from slashing business tax to 12.5% - The Times (£)

And finally... Ann Widdecombe on David Cameron's inability to re-introduce fox hunting: "you can hear the foxes laughing. Tally, ho, ho, ho, ho!"

"I admit to hooting with mirth when I read in the weekend press that David Cameron now faces difficulties reversing the hunting ban because the new breed of MPs whom he brought in through the A list and at the expense of the old guard whom he despises are actually anti-hunting. Poetic justice was never more pleasing. From the earths of a thousand woods you can hear the foxes laughing. Tally, ho, ho, ho, ho!" - Daily Express

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