Politics live blog - Monday 24 January
Rolling coverage of all the day's political developments as they happen
12.33pm: Sir Richard Lambert, the outgoing CBI director general, has accused the government of not doing enough to promote growth. He made the comments in a speech which the Labour party will welcome because it shows the de facto head of Britain's business community echoing, almost word for word, one of the main complaints the opposition has been making about the government. (Lambert is also critical of Labour's record, but it expect the party will ignore that.) It's a heavy speech, but it's quite readable too and it's on the CBI website. Here are the main points.
Lambert said the government was not going enough to promote growth.
The coalition Government needs to test every policy initiative against a single question: will this help or hinder the process of investment and job creation in the private sector? But it's by no means firing on all cylinders in this important respect.
For a start, it has yet to set out its vision of what a successfully growing economy would look like. The Growth White Paper that was expected last autumn never materialised, and the impression was given that there simply weren't enough good ideas around to justify such a publication. Rather than a big picture of the kind of economic eco-system that the Government wants to champion, we are left with a few rather vague ideas about the scope for supporting a number of predictable sectors, and the promise that more ideas will be forthcoming at the time of the spring budget.
He accused the government of adopting too many anti-business policies. As examples, he cited the immigration cap, the localism agenca ("which has thrown an extra level of uncertainty into the planning system"), the abolition of the default retirement age, the conversion of the carbon reduction commitment into a tax, the cancellation of the third runway at Heathrow and the bribery legislation.
The politics t! hat are behind many of these initiatives are clear enough. But it's odd that the government should be willing to push aside short-term political considerations when it comes to making spending cuts, but not when it's addressing the growth agenda.
He criticised the government for not making a commitment to cut personal taxes for high earners.
[The government} set out a pathway for the future direction of tax policy, providing a clear sense of the way in which corporate taxes would move lower over the next few years. Why doesn't it now set out a similar roadmap for personal taxes? After the tax increases of the past year, the take-home pay of a UK executive now ranks way below that of someone receiving similar compensation in just about all competitor jurisdictions.
This is a problem, and not just for the City of London. Business investment in the UK will suffer if highly-paid individuals drift elsewhere for tax reasons.
He accused the business department of under-peforming.
Perhaps it's time in this context for a hard look at the role of the department of business. Understandably enough, it's been preoccupied in recent months with the dramas of the higher education system, which makes up a very large share of its budget. But we need a department that is seriously knowledgeable about and very closely engaged in everyday business needs. Less of a talking shop, more of an action-oriented growth champion. That's what's required right now.
And he rejected Ed Miliband's claim that Labour did not spend too much when it was in power.
The tax and spending policies of the last government created a substantial structural deficit a hole in the budget that had to be tackled irrespective of what happened to the economic cycle.
12.24pm: World food prices could increase substantially over the next 40 years, leading to more hunger, an official report says today. It has been published by Foresight, the government's futures think t! ank. The re are more details on the department for business's website.
11.44am: I'm just back from the Downing Street lobby briefing. Here's what we've learnt - or haven't learnt - from the prime minister's spokesman.
David Cameron's meeting with James Murdoch over the Christmas period (see 10.51am) had "absolutely no bearing" on the decision about whether to allow News Corporation's bid for BSkyB. The spokesman would not say whether Cameron and Murdoch discussed the bid when they met at Rebekah Brooks's house. But he said Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, would be following a "very clear process" when he dealt with the bid. He would be acting in a quasi-judicial capacity and it would be "his decision alone". Anything the prime minister might have said to Murdoch would have had "absolutely no bearing on that decision".
The spokesman would not say whether Cameron would meet Rupert Murdoch when Murdoch visits London this week.
Downing Street is not backing calls for an independent inquiry into the Metropolitan Police's handling of the phone-hacking affair. "If there are complaints about the Metropolitan Police, then the first place that those complaints should be directed is to commissioner of the Metropolitan Police," said the spokesman.
The spokesman played down suggestions in the Times (see 10.30am) that the Big Society idea is in crisis. It has been argued that government cuts will undermine the voluntary sector. But the spokesman said three quarters of charities do not receive money from the government. He also said that plans to modernise the public services - for example, through the Work Programme, or the rehabilitation of offenders - would create "significant opportunities" for voluntary groups.!
< strong> David Cameron has no plans to get a cat. The spokesman told us this in response to a question about a rat being seen in Downing Street for a second time.
10.51am: You can read all today's Guardian politics stories here. And all the politics stories filed yesterday, including some in today's paper, are here.
As for the rest of the papers, here are the articles I found most interesting.
Andrew Grice in the Independent says the BBC has banned the use of the word "reform" to describe the government's plans for a referendum on changing the voting system.
In an internal BBC memo leaked to The Independent, Ric Bailey, the corporation's chief political adviser, says: "Please can we make sure that we don't describe this in our own scripts, headlines, etc as the referendum on 'electoral reform'. When the [BBC's] Guidance is published ahead of the referendum period, it will make clear that, in the context of the referendum, that is not an impartial term 'reform' explicitly contains a definition of 'improvement'."
"This is ridiculous, but consistent, behaviour from the management of the BBC," said Paul Sinclair, the director of communications for the 'Yes' campaign, set up to lobby for a switch from the current first-past-the-post system to the alternative vote (AV).
"If BBC managers are suggesting that by using the word 'reform' in 'electoral reform' they are implicitly recommending it to viewers and listeners, then by their own standards they have spent the last week advocating the Government's NHS reforms and the Government's education reforms before that because that is what they have called th! e measur es."
Andrew Grice in the Independent says that David Cameron had dinner with James Murdoch at the home of Rebekah Brooks over the Christmas holiday period.
The Independent has learnt that James Murdoch, son of Rupert and chairman of News Corporation in Europe and Asia, attended a private dinner with Mr Cameron just days after the Prime Minister stripped Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Business Secretary, of responsibility for the crucial decision on whether News Corp should be allowed to buy the 61 per cent of BSkyB it does not already own.
Mr Cameron and his wife Samantha were present at the dinner held at the home of Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International, in Churchill, Oxfordshire.
Cameron aides had previously argued that Ms Brooks was a constituent of the Prime Minister, who represents Witney in Oxfordshire. The disclosure that James Murdoch was present provoked calls last night for the Cabinet Secretary to intervene, amid claims that it raised questions about Mr Cameron's judgement.
John Hayes, the skills minister, tells the Financial Times (subscription) that only "a very small amount of money" will be available to pay for the scheme that will replace the education maintenance allowance.
"Obviously, we are still discussing [EMA]," said Mr Hayes. "I have argued very strongly that it is absolutely right that the least advantaged should not be worse off as a result of the changes."
The benefit, which was paid to 16 to 18-year-olds who remain in full-time education from low-income families, is being abolished. It will be replaced with a scheme of about one-tenth the cost.
Max Hastings in the Financial Times (subscription) says prime ministers! should not waste too much time courting journalists.
The most important function of a Downing Street communications chief is to convey an impression of grip, authority and competence: journalists are acutely sensitive to perceived fumbling and weakness. As Mr Major's premiership degenerated, he lavished ever more hours upon privately and counterproductively wooing editors and proprietors. I once told Bill Deedes, veteran journalist and former politician, that I had spent 90 minutes the previous evening with Mr Major. "Too long," he observed sagely. "No prime minister should have more than 45 minutes for any journalist."
Ed Balls in the Daily Mirror says the Tories are propagating four myths about the economy.
The Tories say that because Labour was not tough enough in regulating the banks, the economic crisis is our fault.
They forget that every time the Labour government tried to tighten regulation, it was the Tories who protested we were strangling enterprise with red tape, and David Cameron who accused Gordon Brown of being The Great Regulator.
Of course we should have been tougher, but the truth is that however tough our regulation was in London we couldn't have stopped British banks investing in American banks which were up to their necks in bad mortgages.
Mary Ann Sieghart in the Independent says Balls will be a disaster for Labour.
So what is Ed Balls's problem? It's mainly one of arrogance, born perhaps of insecurity. Like Gordon Brown, he believes he's intellectually superior to almost everyone around him. He believes he's tougher and more driven, and despises others for what he sees as their weakness. And that includes Ed Miliband. "He just has contempt for him really,"! says on e former Cabinet colleague ...
Some [shadow cabinet members] get on with Balls perfectly well. Others have distinct reservations. "He and I have found that the best way of getting on is just not to talk to one another," said one yesterday. "I don't think Ed and I have ever had a proper conversation." If this bodes ill for Balls's colleagues, though, what about his leader?
Harry Mount in the Daily Telegraph on the BBC2 documentary going out this week, "Posh and Posher Why Public Schoolboys Run Britain".
The wisest contributor to the TV debate is R W Johnson, emeritus fellow in politics at Magdalen College, Oxford, who taught both William Hague and Chris Huhne, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary. "You have a highly selective institution," he says of Magdalen, which has educated more members of the Cabinet (five) than there are women in the Cabinet. "You get very good people; you teach them as hard as you can. It's not that surprising they do well."
Now I'm off to the Downing Street lobby briefing. I'll post again after 11.30am.
10.30am: I'll post a full round-up of the papers soon, but first I'll post what we've learnt about the Times splash. It is headlined, "Big society in crisis as economy weakens" and it says David Cameron's advisers are worried that the big society idea is becoming a liability.
David Cameron's closest advisers have raised the alarm over the direction of the much-vaunted Big Society initiative amid concerns that the label is harming the Government.
Steve Hilton, the Prime Minister's director of strategy, has privately made clear his worries that the Big Society message is being drowned out by Labour and cash-starved charities that are defining his project in a negative light.
Philip Blond, the head of the think-tank credited with helping to create the idea, told The Times that cutbacks were happening faster than voluntary gro! ups coul d fill the gap, and that not all government departments were pulling their weight on the issue ...
No 10, the Cabinet Office and government departments have left the concept drifting aimlessly, with overlapping definitions, according to Tory sources.
The label has been used by ministers in recent months to describe their policy on devolution from Whitehall, greater use of the voluntary sector, the transparency agenda, plans to mutualise the Post Office and the National Citizenship Service.
But my colleague Hlne Mulholland has been speaking to Philip Blond this morning and he says that the comments included in the article were lifted from an unpublished opinion piece and were "widely out of kilter" with the overall article he had submitted. Blond dismissed suggestions that he had been involved in "crisis talks" with Hilton over the issue, as suggested by today's report.
I do no think it [The Big Society] is in crisis. I never said that. The big society is the best idea in British politics. I think Ed Miliband's adaptation of it is great and right for the Labour party and that means there is a centre ground in British politics. What I am interested in is creating the infrastructure. It depends on the economic base as well as a voluntary base.
10.16am: Chris Grayling, the employment minister, has today launched a new work experience initiative. People aged between 18 and 21 will be able to do work experience for up to eight weeks without losing benefits, instead of just two weeks as they can now. Jobcentre Plus staff will also gather information about work experience opportunities and make this available to young jobseekers. There are more details on a press release which should be on the Department for Work and Pensions' website shortly.
9.46am: "Feminists are now among the most obnoxious bigots," according to the Tory MP Dominic Raab. He makes the claim in an article that he has written for PoliticsHome claiming that in many respects men, not women, are now the victims of discrimination in the workplace.
According to research for the Institute for Economic Affairs, women in their twenties earn 1% more than men, single women a shade more. Gay men earn more than straight men, lesbian women more than heterosexual women. Does that sound like a society riddled with discrimination? In fact, the gender pay gap also reflects the higher numbers of women in work in Britain compared to other European countries. Keeping women out of work is one of the easiest ways to bridge the gap: Swaziland and Sir Lanka have the lowest pay gaps. Meanwhile, pay is just one of the terms of employment. Men work longer hours, enjoy their jobs less, commute further and are more likely to get the sack.
9.12am: More on David Davis. (See 8.48am.) Benedict Brogan says on his blog that, although quasi-rebellious outbursts from Davis are now routine, David Cameron should remember that Davis does pose a serious threat.
What is more significant is the way [Davis] has labelled Team Dave as a bunch of rich kids at a time when the parliamentary party is nursing a range of grievances and doubts and is looking for a way to channel them. It is too much to hope that his colleagues will overnight drop their objections to Mr Davis, but he is increasingly articulating a form of earthy, populist Conservatism that many MPs feel they do not hear enough from the Government and they might start to like it. Which is why No10 cannot afford to dismiss him any more: he is a threat.
8.48am: Last night David Davis (pictured, left) said that there was now no one in David Cameron's inner circle with real experience of working class life. Davis, who was bought up on a council estate himself, made the comment a! s he spo ke about the resignation of Andy Coulson. Davis said Coulson's loss was particularly regrettable because Coulson did have an ordinary background and as a result brought a "gritty" mindset to Tory thinking. We've quoted Davis in the paper today, but his quotes are worth reporting in full. This is what he told BBC Radio 5 Live.
One of the criticisms that is often levelled at [David Cameron and his senior team] is that they don't have a sense of what a large part of the country, the poorer part of the country, what their views and priorities are and Andy Coulson always brought that to the table. There he was, an Essex boy, council house lad, made his own way in the world and frankly never minced words. It is said, I don't know with what truth, that it was him that persuaded Cameron to put immigration into one of his earlier conference speeches. So, he was somebody who brought that gritty, slightly tough but necessary mindset to the Conservative leadership's thinking. There's no doubt in my mind that David and George [Osborne] both care about those issues - about the issues that matter to ordinary people. But they are who are they are - they come from their own background, they don't actually come from backgrounds where they had to scrape for the last penny at the end of the week.
Davis said that without Coulson in Downing Street there would be no-one from his sort of background in Cameron's inner circle and that it would be more difficult to make key policies - such as free schools - work in poorer parts of the country. "Those are the areas that you are going to need not just intellectual insight but also emotional insight and need to know exactly what people suffer in that particular lifestyle and it's going to be reduced by the removal of Andy, which is why, for me, it's really one of the most regrettable outcomes of the government so far," Davis said.
8.23am: At the end of last we! ek we ha d a good reason to thank the God of News. We had three huge political stories within 24 hours, and two of them - the resignations of Alan Johnson and Andy Coulson - came out of the blue. But today it looks as if the deity is being a lot less bountiful. Newswise, it's pretty thin. Here's what I can find on the agenda.
10.30am: The trial of Lord Taylor of Warwick continues. Taylor denies making false expense claims.
2.30pm: Theresa May, the home secretary, and Yvette Cooper, the new shadow home secretary, clash for the first time at Home Office questions.
3pm: Peers start the 12th day of committee stage debate on the parliamentary voting system and constituencies bill.
Never mind. I'm sure it will pick up. I'll be looking at the top political stories in the papers in a moment. As usual, I'll also be covering all the breaking political news, and bringing you the best politics from the web. I'll post a lunchtime summary at around 1pm, and an afternoon one at about 4pm.
Comments