Politics live blog - Tuesday 18 January
Rolling coverage of all the day's political developments as they happen
12.35pm: 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 three columns that are particularly interesting.
Mary Riddell in the Daily Telegraph says relations between Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband are improving.
Mr Miliband's concession on Andrew Marr that he might do business with Mr Clegg were he to be "the sinner who repenteth" hardly constitutes a love-in, especially given the bad blood of recent months. But the deputy prime minister is said, in private, to be responding warmly. Clegg allies assure me that Mr Miliband "has hugely moderated his tone". Though nothing has been decided, Mr Clegg is also open to sharing a pro-AV platform with his rival. "It would almost be odd if they did not," says one friend.
Mr Clegg, who is hoping to work closely with Labour's Liam Byrne on developing social impact bonds, a financial tool to pay for projects such as rehabilitating ex-offenders, also talks regularly to Mr Miliband, who favours collaboration on Lords reform. "They should speak, and they do speak," says a Cleggite.
Philip Stephens in the Financial Times (subscription) says David Cameron is moving too fast with NHS reform.
For their part, colleagues of the prime minister contrast Mr Blair's timidity with Margaret Thatcher's boundless energy. Some go on to argue that voters will eventually thank the government for the "creative" chaos engendered by the scale and speed of its reforms.
This is a! second misreading of history. For most of the time the then Mrs Thatcher proceeded at a deliberate pace, as attuned to the politics of the possible as to her own radical ambitions. Only towards the end, when hubris set in, did she throw caution, and her premiership, to the wind by introducing the poll tax. It would be hard to imagine a crueller irony were the NHS to turn out to be Mr Cameron's poll tax.
Steve Richards in the Independent says the NHS reform plans mark the end of the NHS.
Over the past few weeks it has become something of a clich to describe the plansfor the NHS either enthusiastically or dismissively as a revolution. For once the clich merits persistent repetition. Mr Cameron's crusade goes well beyond putting taxpayers' billions into the hands of GPs, some of whom have enough to worry about already. As Nigel Edwards, acting chief executive of the NHS Confederation, noted in yesterday's Financial Times: "By 2014, the NHS will no longer be a system which still contains many of the characteristics of an organisation ... Instead it will be a regulated industry ... The Secretary of State will no longer have the power to intervene in NHS organisations which will stand or fail on their own ... there will be no power for the secretary of state to prop them up, or intervene if something goes badly wrong ... And unless a service is designated as protected, it will also be possible for a hospital or other healthcare provider simply to stop providing a service or operating a site from which it can no longer make money". Approve or disapprove, the policy marks the end of the NHS.
12.03pm: Ministers are considering using a rare procedural device to effectively "guillotine" the debate on the parliamentary voting system and constituencies bill in the House of Lords. I thought that it was impossible to guillotine legislation ! in the L ords, and the rules don't allow ministers to allocate a set number of hours or days for debate, as they can in the Commons. But there is a rule that allows a peer to demand that a matter gets put to a vote if he or she feels that the debate has gone on for too long. Lord Trefgarne, a Tory peer, did this at 11.38pm last night. In technical terms, he moved "that the question be now put". Lady Hayman, the Lord Speaker, said that under the rules she had to remind Trefgarne that this was "a most exceptional procedure" and that it was only acceptable "in circumstances where it is felt to be the only means of ensuring the proper conduct of the business of the House". But Trefgarne insisted on putting the matter to the vote. The government won, and peers move on to debate the next amendment.
So why isn't the government using this procedure to speed up the debate? Answer: it's not really considered "the done thing". Peers might view it as an abuse of the House. But I've just been told by a government source that ministers are not ruling it out. "Decisions are being taken hour by hour," I was told. "We will always discuss all procedures available to us. It would be a real shame if he had to go down this extreme route because of the very extreme tactics of the opposition."
12.00pm: Plans to give motorists living in rural areas a discount on fuel duty in the March Budget have been shelved, the BBC is reporting. Here's an extract from Ross Hawkins' story.
Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander announced plans for a pilot scheme in October.
But a Treasury source said "informal discussions" were still taking place between EU and British officials.
The UK needs EU permission to charge different fuel duty rates around the country. Ministers hope to make a formal request after the Budget.
11.51am: In the Lo! rds Labo ur peers have urged the government to split the parliamentary voting system and constituencies bill, so that the section authorising the referendum on the alternative vote can become law in time for it be be held, as planned, on 5 May. But the prime minister's spokesman told the lobby this morning that the cabinet was not going to accept this proposal. The government wants the whole bill, including the sections reducing the size of the House of Commons, to become law at the same time.
11.21am: The Home Office has now released the details of its plans to restrict the sale of cheap alcohol. As my colleagues Alan Travis and Adam Gabbatt report, Professor Ian Gilmore, chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance UK, has said the move "will have no effect at all on the health of this nation" because it does not go far enough.
10.58am: It's not often that you get the chance to watch a filibuster. The House of Commons has adopted procedures that make it impossible for MPs to hold up government legislation (but not backbench legislation) just by talking ad nauseam. And in the Lords such tactics are rare. But Labour peers have been filibustering on the parliamentary voting system and constituencies bill and they are still in action. You can watch it live on the parliamentary website, or read the Hansard from last night. I would not recommend it - it is exceedingly boring - but it's a parliamentary collector's item.
10.47am: The Pakistan Taliban has today been made a banned organisation by Theresa May, the home secretary. She has said this in a statement.
I have laid an order which will proscribe Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan. Proscr! iption i s a tough but necessary power to tackle terrorism and is not a course of action we take lightly. Proscription means that membership of Tehrik-e Taliban [the Pakistan Taliban] will become a criminal offence, and the organisation will not be able to lawfully operate in the UK, including by raising funds.
10.42am: Boris Johnson has published his report explaining why he thinks there should be more airport capacity in London and the south east. In an interview on the Today programme, he explained why he thought London would lose out without another runway or airport. The quote is from PoliticsHome.
If you look at what's happening around the world, our economic competitors are putting in more runways and they are gaining an advantage over us. The key point I want to get across is that we can't just carry on and do absolutely nothing because 20 years ago Heathrow was the number one airport in the world, no question. lt has now slipped to seventh ...
One statistic which should chill business people in the City and the country is London's airport can send just five flights to China a day, Paris sends 11, Frankfurt sends 10. What we're losing is not just the potential for tens of thousands of jobs in the aviation sector, we're losing the chance to expose our business people, our markets, to growing markets in Asia and Latin America.
10.05am: They're still going strong in the House of Lords. As Allegra Stratton reports, they bedded down for a sleepover because the debate on the parliamentary voting system and constituencies bill was going to go through the night. It did. At 9am, after 17 hours of debate, Labour's Lord Falconer called of a vote on whether they should adjourn. Many peers had! day job s to go to, he said. But the government wants to get the bill through the Lords and Falconer's move was defeated by 146 to 69, majority 77. The debate is still going on. As I write, Lord Prescott is on his feet.
Elsewhere in Westminster it's a patchy day. Here's what's on the agenda.
10am: Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, hosts a seminar on increasing aviation capacity in the capital.
10.30am: Sir David Nicholson, NHS chief executive, gives evidence to the Commons public accounts committee about NHS productivity.
10.30am: Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, gives evidence to the Commons justice committee.
1.15pm: Nick Herbert, the police minister, gives evidence to the home affairs committee. The session will mostly be about police finances, but Herbert will also be asked about the use of undercover officers to spy on environmental protesters.
2.30pm: Nick Clegg answers deputy prime minister's questions in the Commons.
3pm: The Iraq inquiry starts its third round of hearings, with Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy, the former chief of the air staff, giving evidence.
I'm a bit late starting today but, as usual, I'll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you all the best politics from the web. I'll also post a lunchtime summary at around 1pm, and an afternoon one at about 4pm.
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