ToryDiary: So will the Government act on a broad front or a narrower one? Will we have local taxes or Treasury centralism? Liberal optimism or Tory caution? Hannan or Osborne? Paul Goodman concludes that Osborne is taking the Tories in the right strategic direction.
ToryDiary: Coalition may modify benefits cap, welfare minister Lord Freud signals cap may not apply in "exceptional circumstances"
Andrew RT Davies AM on Comment: Why I want to lead the Welsh Assembly Conservatives
Lord Boswell of Aynho on Comment: Today's GAVI conference in London highlights David Cameron's global leadership on international development issues
ThinkTankCentral: Alison Evans of the Overseas Development Institute gives a broad welcome to Andrew Mitchell's approach at DfID
Local government: Will Labour offer policy substance on tackling Council estate worklessness?
Gazette: Fatherhood beckons for neighbouring Warwickshire Tory MPs
David Cameron will today be forced to appeal for help from his newest MPs to head off a backbench revolt over his watered down health reforms - Telegraph
- Clegg to tell Lib Dems that he has won 11 of 13 NHS battles - BBC
- Tory MP Nick de Bois accuses Lib Dems of "kindergarten politics" - Guardian
Telegraph: If necessary, Government should pass law requiring weekly bin collections
"The Government is in a quandary because it believes in letting local councils have more freedom. But if they are not going to exercise it responsibly ministers should consider a new law making weekly collections once again an explicit requirement of councils. They should certainly no longer be offered extra money to perform a task that they are already paid for. It has become a characteristic of public services in this country that we are charged more for less. It is high time that councils were run for the benefit of the taxpayer and not for the convenience of thei r staff." - Telegraph leader
> Yesterday's Local government blog: No U-Turn on weekly bin collections
David Cameron will pledge as much as £500 million to the funding of life-saving vaccines for the world’s poorest children today in his most high-profile intervention on overseas aid since becoming Prime Minister - Times (£)
Osborne not doing enough to promote growth says 'Voice of the City' survey - City AM
Climate change faces axe from the classroom in bid to strip science back to basics - Daily Mail
"Tim Oates, whose wide-ranging review of the curriculum for five- to 16-year-olds will be published later this year, said it should be up to schools to decide whether – and how – to teach climate change, and other topics about the effect scientific processes have on our lives. In an interview with the Guardian, Oates called for the national curriculum "to get back to the science in science". "We have believed that we need to keep the national curriculum up to date with topical issues, but oxidation and gravity don't date," he said. "We are not taking it back 100 years; we are taking it back to the core stuff. The curriculum has become narrowly instrumentalist."" - Guardian
- "The chickens are slowly coming home to roost." - John Redwood reflects on the economic costs of Britain's climate policies.
Why doesn’t Rowan Williams speak out about illiteracy, immigration and the undemocratic rule of Brussels? - Norman Tebbit in The Telegraph
A network of canals is needed to carry water from the wet North to the dry South - Boris Johnson in The Telegraph
Chris Patten promises to protect BBC World Service in face of cuts - Guardian
In big speech Ed Miliband will attack both the rich and welfare claimants who "rip off" Britain
"Ed Miliband will say a future Labour government would require companies to publish the pay gap between their boardrooms and the average earnings of their workers. He will say that welfare must reward people who make a contribution to society, by arguing that, for instance, people who work or volunteer should get priority on council house waiting lists." - BBC
The Times (£) has details of Labour's welfare crackdown: "A huge “listening exercise” by Labour on welfare, which involved making contact with more than four million people, suggested that the public wanted the party to be much tougher with benefit cheats and those who can work but choose not to. Liam Byrne, the Shadow Welfare Minister, will set out the rest of the plans today. They will include compulsory interviews and workshops for teenagers whose parents have not held down jobs. Failure to comply will result in a reduction in benefits."
Would David Miliband have been a better leader of Labour?
"Had David won instead, there would have been many more banana photos and geeky insults. By now, wistful MPs would be saying that Ed spoke human, unlike his big brother. Labour would still have fantasised about the brother over the water whichever one was in charge. In fact, the differences between the two are nothing like as great as the romantics would have us think." - Mary Ann Sieghart in The Independent
- "Ed needs David back at some point; for if Ed can't win back his own brother, how can he win back anyone else?" - Jackie Ashley in The Guardian
Give inmates real jobs and they can start to repay their debt to our society - Blair Gibbs in The Telegraph
"98% [of prisoners] now enjoy privileges, such as bedroom TV and gym facilities, which are meant to be reserved for the best behaved." - Daily Mail
Three big public sector strikes loom
"As many as 750,000 teachers, civil servants and other public sector employees could take part in the walkout over job cuts, pay levels and pension reductions. Results of ballots for the strike, which is expected to happen on June 30, will be announced by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) and National Union of Teachers (NUT) on Tuesday, and by the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) on Wednesday." - Telegraph
'We don't need two Scottish independence referendums' says Lord Steel
"The former Liberal leader and Lib Dem peer said having two votes on separatism was "unnecessary", after party colleague and Scottish Secretary Michael Moore said the electorate would need to vote in two referendums before Scotland could become independent." - Scotsman
SNP delight at Cameron establishing Cabinet committee to defend Union: “At the Holyrood election, the Tories got their lowest share of the vote in Scotland ever – even worse than the 1997 wipeout – so the idea of the Tory leader in London leading the No campaign is a pretty disastrous start.” - Quoted in the Herald
ToryDiary:
- Vote Blue, Go Green, Go Bust. Coalition accused of anti-manufacturing energy policies.
- Too many U-turns and the Government will have trouble inspiring the confidence of its own MPs, let alone the public
- The deserving poor suffer most when the welfare state makes no demands of the undeserving
- David Cameron is like a Mazda MX5; slick, good at snappy U-turns but doesn't sell well in the North
Comment: Andrew Haldenby: Cameron is in danger of letting the NHS go backwards
Also in Comment: Robert Halfon MP: The Taxpayers' Alliance should embrace the unions
WATCH:
- Lord Strathclyde: First elections to a reformed Lords could be in May 2015
- Nick Clegg claims NHS reform victory after concessions made to Lib Dems
LeftWatch: "Labour doesn't need a strategist. It need a psychiatrist."
Also on LeftWatch: General Secretary of Unison urges Ed Miliband to stop making "reasonable statements"
On the Local government blog Harry Phibbs is convinced there is NO U-TURN ON WEEKLY BIN COLLECTIONS
Gazette: Lord Howard of Lympne becomes a Companion of Honour in the Queen's Birthday honours list
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