ToryDiary: "New kid on the block" - David Cameron - enjoys a perfect start on the international stage
Also on ToryDiary: Gove and Hunt plan 'Schools Olympics' in bid to revive UK sport
Nigel Jones on Platform: How long will the Coalition last? History suggests that a Liberal split is likely
Bring Council staff contracts into the open says Mark Wallace on Local government blog.
Chris Grayling will take claimants off higher rate of benefits if tests reveal they are fit to do some work - Guardian
"Incapacity benefit, which is worth between £68.95 and £91.40 a week, is paid to individuals under retirement age who are judged to be too ill to work. The length of time claimants have been too ill to work determines their level of benefit." - Times (£)
"Chris Grayling and Lord Freud, the employment and welfare reform ministers, are to launch a charm offensive in the City to get big financial institutions to invest hundreds of millions in the government’s welfare-to-work programme." - FT
Daily Mail: Moving the jobless from unemployment blackspots is a smart move
"Iain Duncan Smith's proposal to give unemployed workers help to resettle, and perhaps ensure they are put at the top of the council housing list in their new location, should be applauded by all as a common sense approach to a delicate problem." - Daily Mail leader
> Yesterday's ToryDiary: Iain Duncan Smith wants to help council tenants escape jobless cities
Theresa May to unveil migrant cap today after concessions to Vince Cable "The clampdown is said to have been watered down in heated Cabinet debates led by the Lib Dem’s Business Secretary Vince Cable. Home Secretary Theresa May has denied this and will today announce that only 24,100 workers from outside the EU will be allowed into the UK in the next nine months." - Express
"Clamping down on workers is illogical. They provide the most unambiguous economic benefit to the UK. The cap threatens to deprive global industries of the skills they need, undermining the idea that the UK is “open for business”. It also fits poorly with the coalition’s foreign policy aims – of establishing closer relationships with rising powers such as Brazil and India." - FT leader
Lord Lawson leads calls to end ringfencing of NHS budget - Daily Mail
"Care on the NHS is already being affected by redundancies, recruitment freezes and service cutbacks despite the Government’s pledge to protect frontline healthcare from severe curbs on spending, new research suggests. Many hospitals are planning job cuts, while access to some treatments is being restricted in an attempt to save money, according to a survey by the British Medical Association of local staff organisations." - Times (£)
Tories will veto EU scheme to stop sale of eggs by the dozen - Daily Mail
Four Liberal Democrat MPs protest against VAT hike to 20% - Guardian
Cable rejects call from Lib Dems to rethink VAT plans - Independent
> A YouGov poll found that 52% of voters opposed the VAT increase, 38% supported it
Crime Prevention Minister James Brokenshire will fast-track bans on new 'woof woof' drugs - The Sun
Paul Maynard: Protect special schools
"Britain's first MP with cerebral palsy has made an impassioned plea to the Government not to close special schools in its overhaul of the education system. Paul Maynard, the Conservative MP for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, said he hopes to inspire other people with disabilities to pursue a career in politics. Mr Maynard believes he is the first MP to spend time in a special school, where he received speech therapy for two years and physiotherapy to help him walk. In an interview with The Independent, he said he had faced ignorance about his condition from a young age, but had been determined to rise above the taunts. "There will always be people who will use it against you and you have to learn to deal with that," he said."
Salmond delays plans to hold referendum on Scottish independence until next year - Times (£)
Kevin Rudd's demise is a warning to Labour's leadership candidates who threaten taxes on 'the rich' - Times leader (£)The unhappy existence of an ex-Prime Minister - Julian Glover in The Guardian
The majority of violent inner-city crime is committed by black men, against black men"One black politician said the black community needed to face up to major challenges. Shaun Bailey, a Tory election candidate in London and charity worker, said: 'The community has to look at itself and say that, at the end of the day, these figures suggest we are heavily - not casually - involved in violent crime. We are also involved in crime against ourselves - and we regularly attack each other.'" - Daily Mail
Wolfgang Münchau: Only a closer union can save the eurozone"The eurozone will need to commit itself to a full-blown fiscal union and proper political institutions that give binding macroeconomic instructions to member states for budgetary policy, financial policy and structural policies. The public and private sector imbalances are so immense that they are not self-correcting. And you have to be very naive to think that peer pressure is going to resolve anything." - Wolfgang Münchau in the FT
And finally... Merkel apologises for disallowed goal "The German chancellor watched the second half of the World Cup game with the prime minister while attending the G20 summit in Toronto, Canada. ‘Angela Merkel conceded that the second goal was definitely in and said sorry,’ said a source close to the prime minister." - Metro
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