Politics live blog – Monday 20 June 2011

Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen 3.57pm: The interview is over. I missed the last couple of minutes, because my Radio 2 feed crashed. I’ll post a summary in a moment. 3.50pm: Wright asks what Cameron admires about Tony Blair. Cameron says, knowing the workload involved, he admires anyone who could do the job as long as Blair did. And he admires some of the reforms Blair carried out. Q: Do you and Nick Clegg make policy on the phone on Sunday nights? No, says Cameron. But they do talk on the phone on Sunday nights. The coalition is working, he says. Q: But Clegg has had to compromise, hasn’t he? Cameron says he has had to compromise too. A Conservative government would be making more progress on immigration control, Cameron says. • Cameron suggests Lib Dems are hampering his attempts to control immigration effectively. I’ll post the full quote shortly. Q: What are you going to do to stimulate the housing market? Cameron explains today’s FirstBuy scheme. (See 1.00pm) 3.46pm: Wright asks if Cameron would ever slow down the cuts. Cameron says plan B, as proposed by Labour, “stands for bankruptcy”. Britain has a deficit on the scale of Greece’s. But it has interest rates at the German level, he says. The economy is growing. “Of course it’s choppy,” he goes on. The last unemployment figures were encouraging. 3.45pm: Wright asks about Libya. Q: Are you trying to kill Gaddafi? Cameron says the coalition is trying to protect the Libyan people. Gaddafi is indiscriminately killing his own people. 3.41pm: Wright asks Cameron for his three favourite dinner guests. Cameron suggests Winston Churchill, Nigella (“I’m very greedy”, says Cameron) and Queen Elizabeth 1. Q: What would you eat? Cameron says he would get Nigella to do the cooking. When pressed, he says he would go for Italian. Q: Favourite movie you’ve seen recently? The Queen’s Speech, says Cameron. Q: Favourite TV? Cameron says he likes murder mysteries. He has been watching Case Histories. And Injustice. He lives TV for relaxation. Q: Do you get much chance for relaxation? Cameron says he does fall asleep in front of the TV. And there’s a lot of travelling in his job. But it’s important to relax. Q: Is the job what you expected? The workload is immense, Cameron says. But he has very talented people working for him. He says he did not anticipate how much time he would spend on national security. He was always taught “do your best”. Q: Did you always want to be PM? No, says Cameron. But he decided he wanted to become an MP after he worked for one. 3.37pm: Wright asks about the health bill U-turn. Cameron says governments are usually unwilling to admit when they have got something wrong. But this would have been a mistake. On this bill, the government had lost the support of “quite reasonable people” in the NHS. Listening to concerns, and responding to them, is “good politics”, he says. 3.32pm: Steve Wright is now asking about public sector pensions. Cameron says Lord Hutton’s report is “a good report”. It’s the basis of the plans the government will adopt. Q: Is there more room for negotiation? Cameron says that, of course, there will be a negotiation about details. But he will be “very firm” in his approach, because public pensions have to be affordable. Public pensions will continue to be very good. Q: So this is not a provocation, as Ed Balls suggested? No, says Cameron. Labour are trying to find their own way forward. Q: Do you fear a winter of discontent? Cameron says: “I don’t want to see any of these things happen.” He wants public sector pensions to be good, he says. But the system must be fair and “sustainable”. He goes on. We are all living longer, thankfully. As a result, the cost of public pension systems is going up. Cameron says he would like to move towards retirement being “more of a process”. (That means people need to give up work gradually, I presume.) 3.30pm: Steve Wright starts by asking Cameron about his typical day. Cameron says he tries to start working on his paperwork at 5.45am. He tries to work for two hours. This morning he went for a run. Q: Why did you do up the flat? Cameron says he wanted to renovate it so that he and his family were happy with it. There was no cost to the taxpayer? Q: Has Larry the cat caught any mice? He has caught three. But he hasn’t caught any in the kitchen (where Cameron saw a mouse). Larry seems to prefer women to men. He was a rescue cat. But he liked Obama. He loves all the women in Number 10. But he’s a bit nervous of the men … Funnily enough, he liked Obama. Obama gave him a stroke and he was alright with Obama. 3.28pm: Steve Wright is just about to start his Radio 2 interview with David Cameron. It was recorded this morning, so it’s not going out live. 3.21pm: The National Union of Teachers has put out a statement accusing Michael Gove of wasting money on a few “trophy schools”. Responding to Gove’s speech earlier today (see 1.00pm), the NUT says most free school applications are of poor quality. This is from Christine Blower , the NUT general secretary. The fact is, in the first round of applications there were 323 applications but only 41 were approved and one of these has dropped out. I think Michael Gove should not be boasting about numbers when it is quite apparent that the quality of these bids is poor, with the majority being rejected. Of course the schools approved are opening in less than a year. They are doing so because they are not subject to the normal controls such as planning and building regulations that would be in place for a regular state school. There has also been a disproportionate amount of help and investment of resources into supporting these few schools by the 100 DfE staff in the Free Schools unit and goodness knows how many Partnership for Schools staff working on finding and funding of Free Schools premises. It is shameful that at a time of huge cuts the government is squandering public money on a few ‘trophy schools’. It should be concentrating on supporting existing state schools which educate the overwhelming majority of pupils, not wasting scarce resources on a few schools which only a tiny minority of pupils will benefit from. 3.17pm: Around half of NHS staff believe patient care will worsen over the next few years, according to a Press Association report. The story is based on the the results of a survey of more than 5,000 NHS staff. One part of the survey, carried out between November and January this year, found 49% think care will deteriorate, compared with 34% in summer 2009. 3.04pm: Here’s an afternoon reading list. • Jonathan Isaby at ConservativeHome says Douglas Hogg, the former Tory MP famous for using his Commons expenses to fund the cleaning of his moat, could return to parliament – as an elected hereditary peer. Hogg, now Viscount Hailsham, is on the register of hereditary peers entitled to stand in these by-elections and the House Magazine reports that in the contest to replace the Earl of Onslow, who died last month, Hailsham “appears to be the frontrunner”. If successful in the by-election (whcih is taking place next month), the former Agriculture Minister’s return to Parliament will be controversial, since it was reported in March that the House of Lords Appointment Commission had recommended against accepting David Cameron’s proposal that he be given a life peerage. • Sunder Katwala at Next Left on five things he’s learnt about Ed Miliband from Ed: The Milibands and the Making of a Labour leader, the new biography from Mehdi Hasan and James MacIntyre. Here’s one extract from the book, about the way Miliband used Tony Blair, Jeremy Paxman and David Beckham to illustrate a point when he was teaching a course on social justice at Havard. Ed used his course to ask questions about a subject that he cared deeply about: inequality. Does it matter? Should it matter? How should it be defined? ‘He didn’t preach to the student but given what they were reading the one thing the course would do is give the students reasons for why inequality mattered, says Martin O’Neill’ [an academic colleague]. In the very first class of his course, Ed played a video to his students of the famous BBC Newsnight interview with Tony Blair in the run-up to the 2001 General Election. Presenter Jeremy Paxman had asked the then Prime Minister six times whether the gap between rich and poor mattered – but, each time, to no avail. Blair’s response was typically evasive: ‘It’s not a burning ambition for me to make sure that David Beckham earns less money”. • Mike Smithson at PoliticalBetting on why he thinks leadership ratings are a better guide to election results than party preference polls. • Craig Woodhouse at the Standard says that Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, used his Twitter feed to congratulate Rory McIlroy on winning the wrong golf tournament. Hunt said he has won the Masters, not the Open. • George Eaton at the Staggers says that Boris Johnson’s Telegraph column about Greece contains an Ed Balls endorsement. “The trouble is that the Greek austerity measures are making the economy worse.” It’s a point that Ed Balls and others have made frequently in recent months but it’s not one that you’ll hear from George Osborne, for the simple reason that it contradicts his claim that spending cuts are a precondition for growth. • Benedict Brogan on his Telegraph blog says that although Brian Haw, the peace protester who has died, was “a stranger to reason”, he was also proof that our democracy is in robust health. There was something dogged and admirable in the way he stuck it out, a permanent two fingers to those who tried to dislodge him. His views were ridiculous, but the way he managed to defy the combined might of Parliament, Westminster council, Boris Johnson and the organisers of the royal wedding had something almost epic about it. If his decade in Parliament Square proved anything, it’s that our democracy is in robust good health – can you imagine any other G8 country where the powers that be would have tolerated him for so long? 2.28pm: At least two government backbenchers have been speaking out about the government’s plans to raise the state pension age for women to 65 from 2018. Here’s Jenny Willott , the Lib Dem MP. I think the issue with this particular proposal is that there is a very small number of people who are going to be really hard hit, and I think it just doesn’t seem to be fair that the burden isn’t being shared more broadly across a wider group of people. What I’d like to see is the government thinking about how the same – probably the same amount of money, possibly slightly less – could be saved, but in a way that spreads the burden a bit more evenly across society. And here’s James Gray , the Conservative backbencher. I very much agree with the government and the overall thrust of what they’re doing in the bill – I’ll be voting for the bill this evening. But there’s a detail within it which is that there’s a large group of women who were born in 1954 – in particular those who were born in the month of March 1954 – are going to be unfairly disadvantaged compared to all other women. That seems to me to be absolutely wrong and I’m calling on the government simply to have a look at that little cohort of it and say “actually is this right? What can we do to put it better?” I’ve taken the quotes from PoliticsHome. Willott and Gray both said they would be voting with the government when the pensions bill gets its second reading in the Commons tonight. The problem for ministers will come later, when MPs get the chance to vote against specific measures in the bill at report stage. 2.12pm: We’ll hear Steve Wright’s David Cameron interview at about 3.25pm, Wright says. So down goes the volume on Radio 2. And up goes the volume of Sky. Why listen to Lady Gaga when you could be listening to Joey Jones? (There are, of course, plenty of good answers to that one.) 2.07pm: Mark Hoban, the Treasury minister, will be answering the urgent question about Greece at 3.30pm. Labour’s Gisela Stuart (a Eurosceptic) has tabled it. I’m tuned into Radio 2, but there’s no sign of David Cameron yet. (See 11.32am.) Still, it has its compensations. They’re playing Lady Gaga …. 1.35pm: There will be an urgent question in the Commons at 3.30pm on Greece and the prospect of Britain contributing to a bailout, Paul Waugh reports on Twitter. 1.00pm: Here’s a lunchtime summary. • Grant Shapps, the housing minister, has launched FirstBuy, a scheme designed to allow first-time buyers to buy a property with a 75% mortgage. Under the terms of the deal, the government and housebuilders will offer a 20% equity loan, repaid on resale of the property, and buyers will need a 5% deposit. Shapps said this would help more than 10,000 first-time buyers over the next two years. “With 80 per cent of young first-time buyers depending on parental help, I am determined that we pull out all the stops to help those who want to take their first steps onto the property ladder,” Shapps said. “FirstBuy will do just that – a government-backed scheme making £500 million available to offer a valuable alternative to the Bank of Mum and Dad.” • Downing Street has said that the government will go ahead with its plan to raise the state pension age for women to 65 by 2018. The prime minister’s spokesman quoted Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, as saying that the timetable will stand. Labour want the state pension age for men and women to be equalised instead in 2020, as orginally planned. (See 11.32am and 12.41pm.) • Michael Gove, the education secretary, has said that it would be a “good thing” if free schools were to poach pupils from other state schools. He said that that 281 groups have applied to set up free schools in 2012. Some 32 proposals are already being taken forward, and 24 of those groups are aiming to open schools in September this year. In a speech to Policy Exchange, Gove said: “Our critics said it was impossible to open a school in little more than a year. Several will open this September … The rationing of good schools must end. Our reforms are about creating a generation of world-class schools, free from meddling and prescription, that provide more children with the type of education previously reserved for the rich.” At the event Gove said that he would consider sending his own children to a free school and that Ed Vaizey, the arts minister, is sending his son to the new Ark Conway Primary free school in Shepherd’s Bush from September. According to PoliticsHome, when Gove as asked what he thought about the prospect of free schools poaching pupils from other state schools, he replied: “It’s a good thing”. • Boris Johnson, the Tory mayor of London, has attacked Kenneth Clarke’s plans to cut the length of jail sentences . “Soft is the perfect way to enjoy French cheese but not how we should approach punishing criminals,” Johnson wrote in an article in the Sun “It’s time to stop offering shorter sentences and get-out clauses”. 12.41pm: Labour want the government to equalise the state pension age for men and women in 2020, not 2018. According to PoliticsHome, this is what Rachel Reeves , the shadow pensions minister, told BBC News. Now under the proposals the state pension age is being equalised by 2020. Now we would support an increase in the state pension age at a faster rate, but no changes until 2020 because that gives people the time they need to prepare. It also means that no-one would have to work for more than a year longer and it also means that an equal number of men and women would be affected and we believe that changes could be made that save the same amount of money that the Government is proposing but spread across a wider number of people and I think that’s the right way to go forward. Reeves has also written a piece for Left Foot Forward explaining why she thinks the government’s plans are unfair. For more information about this issue, a 27-page briefing note from the House of Commons library (pdf). 12.12pm: The Department of Health has just published its full, 66-page response to the NHS Future Forum report (pdf) published last week, explaining in detail the changes that will be made to the health bill. It has also issued a press release from Andrew Lansley about the document. Lansley says he is introducing a “duty of candour”. This means NHS providers will be under a contractual obligation to be open and transparent about admitting mistakes. Sounds like a good idea. Do you think it’ll catch on at Westminster, or even in the newspaper industry? 11.32am: I’m back from the lobby, and the sum of human knowledge has not greatly expanded, I’m afraid to report. (That is not intended as a criticism. In government PR, the ability to keep things boring is a prized skill.) Anyway, here’s what came up. • David Cameron is going to be on Radio 2′s Steve Wright show today at 2pm. • Downing Street played down the prospects of the plans to raise the state pension age for women to 65 by 2018 being watered down. There are suggestions in the Financial Times (subscription) and in the Daily Mail that this will happen. But the prime minister’s spokesman read out the statement Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, issued yesterday. “We will stand by the 2018 and 2020 timetable,” Duncan Smith said. Cameron defended the government’s plans at PMQs last week, the spokesman said. • Kenneth Clarke’s revised plans to reform sentencing rules could be published this week, the prime minister’s spokesman said. • Downing Street played down the prospect of Britain contributing to a second Greek bailout. “There’s no proposition on the table that would involve us,” said the prime minister’s spokesman. • The prime minister’s spokesman defended the government’s “red tape challenge”. Asked about the Guardian story saying Chris Huhne, the energy secretary, attacked “rightwing ideologues” and “deregulation zealots” for including environmental provisions in the list of regulations subject to review, the spokesman said reviewing regulation was an important part of the government’s growth strategy. “Generally we take the view that regulation is not always the answer [to every problem],” he said. • Cameron has congratulated Rory McIlroy, the Northern Ireland golfer, on winning the US Open. ”Congratulations to Rory McIlroy on a tremendous win at the US Open and his first major title,” Cameron said in a statement. “At just 22, the youngest US Open Champion for 88 years, he has already shown himself to be at the top of his sport. He’s an incredible talent and clearly has a very exciting career ahead of him.” 10.53am: I’m off to the lobby briefing. I’ll post again after 11.30am. 10.21am: At the weekend, reading about the Unison threat to mount the largest campaign of sustained strike action since 1926 over the government’s plans to reform public sector pensions, I found myself wondering where public opinion stands on all this. Luckily, there are some answers in the lastest YouGov polling (pdf). Here are some of the key findings. • Voters are split on whether or not public sector pensions should be cut. Some 38% of respondents said public sector pensions should be reformed because they were currently too generous, 14% said these pensions should be reformed because they not generous enough and 25% said these pensions did not need to be reformed. In other words, 38% were in favour of cutting public sector pensions and 39% were opposed. • Voters are also split when specifically asked if they support Lord Hutton’s plans for public sector pension reform. Some 38% of respondents said they supported them, and 43% said they opposed them. • Voters are in favour of the introduction of thresholds for strike ballots. When offered a series of options, 24% said they were in favour of workers being allowed to strike as long as a majority of those taking part in the ballot vote in favour (the status quo), 7% were in favour of strikes only being legal if 25% of those eligible to vote were in favour, 24% were in favour of a 50% threshold and 24% were in favour of a 75% threshold. • Voters think Ed Miliband would deal with the unions better than David Cameron. Asked who would “best handle relations with any trade unions that threaten strike action”, 22% said Cameron and 25% said Miliband. (This question is unsastisfactory because it’s ambiguous. Are those 25% saying Miliband would handle relations better because he’s a more able negotiator? Or are they just saying relations would be better because Miliband would be more likely to give the unions what they wanted?) 9.40am: 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 some articles and stories that are particularly interesting. • Kiran Stacey, Jim Pickard and Nicholas Timmins in the Financial Times (subscription) say ministers are considering slowing the pace at which they raise the state pension age for women. Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, will give a speech today robustly defending the reforms as the pensions bill goes back before the Commons after narrowly avoiding defeat in the Lords last week. However, Mr Duncan Smith has said he will try to soften the blow for hundreds of thousands of women who will have to wait up to two years longer than expected to claim their pensions. Mr Duncan Smith told the Financial Times: “I understand there are issues and problems and I’ll constantly look at ways to see whether there’s a way of doing [something about] that. The key principle to retain is that there’s a reason why we’re trying to get [to the age of] 66 by 2020.” • Chris Cook in the Financial Times (subscription) says universities will be allowed to offer as many places as they want to students who achieve good A levels under plans in the forthcoming higher education white paper. Quotas on undergraduate places are currently allocated to universities in order to control costs. Any institutions that exceed these totals are fined. This prevents universities expanding and restricts the growth of popular courses. As part of its new package, expected to be unveiled this month, the government would liberalise the rules regarding the recruitment of the 50,000 best students – those who attain at least two As and one B at A-level. The quotas would then be cut back and only be relevant for those below the AAB borderline, so keeping total student numbers in balance. The business department believes it is possible to introduce this particular liberalisation without causing a surge in recruitment: 95 per cent of the individuals meeting this benchmark already attend a university in Britain. • Frank Field in the Daily Telegraph says that voters want benefits to be paid on the basis of merit, not on the basis of need, and that the government is continuing “the post-war [welfare] policies to which voters are hostile”. Iain Duncan Smith’s Universal Benefit is little more than Gordon Brown’s approach on speed … What of those lads, barely able to read or write, who tell me they wouldn’t dream of taking a job that doesn’t pay three times the rate they gain on benefits, and who refuse those jobs available on the grounds that such work is fit only for immigrants? This group of recidivist, workless claimants know from past experience that governments leave them alone. Again, voters have other views. Three quarters of the public – including benefit claimants themselves – believe that those who willingly refuse to seek work should lose all or a very large proportion of their benefits. Yet no government has shown any willingness to reflect voters’ views in the sanctions it imposes. • Boris Johnson in the Sun appears to criticise Kenneth Clarke’s sentencing plans. SOFT is the perfect way to enjoy French cheese, but not how we should approach punishing criminals. It’s time to stop offering shorter sentences and get-out clauses. (But in the article Johnson also praises a scheme involving prisons being “paid by results” to rehabilitate offenders – exactly the sort of scheme Clarke is also trying to promote.) • Michael Savage in the Times (paywall) says ministers are preparing a “substantial package” of concessions for critics concerned about the government’s plans for elected police commissioners. The Government’s attempt to replace 41 police authorities with elected commissioners, part of its plan to hand power back to local communities, was defeated last month after Labour and Liberal Democrat peers blocked it. Nick Herbert, the Police Minister, will now introduce changes to ensure that there are “strict checks and balances” on the new commissioners. However, peers told The Times they would keep voting down the reform unless there were major alterations. The peers also want stronger safeguards on how the commissioners spend their budgets, the axing of their right to pick a deputy and more power given to new police and crime panels. • Boris Johnson in the Daily Telegraph says Greece should leave the euro. I don’t believe that Greece would be any worse off with a new currency. Look at what happened to us after we left the ERM, or to the Latin American economies who abandoned the dollar peg. In both cases, it was the route to cutting interest rates and export-led recovery. The euro has exacerbated the financial crisis by encouraging some countries to behave as recklessly as the banks themselves. We are supposedly engaging in this bail-out system to protect the banks, including our own. But as long as there is the fear of default, as long as the uncertainty continues, confidence will not return across the whole of Europe – and that is bad for the UK and everyone else. • Benedict Brogan in the Daily Telegraph says, on the basis of a visit to Afghanistan, says the public may be disappointed if they expect British troops to leave the country before 2015. On a helicopter tour of the frontline, Dr Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, cautioned that British forces would stay on in substantial numbers after 2014, not only to support the Afghan authorities but to protect British national security. He made it clear that the reason that prompted UK intervention here a decade ago — the exporting of terror by al-Qaeda using Afghanistan as a safe haven — would not be allowed to repeat itself … For David Cameron, the danger will be if he leads the public to believe that talk of transition and withdrawal means the end of Britain’s involvement in Afghanistan. In fact, from here it looks as if it has scarcely begun, a point the military are all too aware of. They don’t want to cut and run. 8.50am: For the record, here are the latest YouGov polling figures, from yesterday’s Sunday Times. Labour: 42% (up 12 points since general election) Conservatives: 37% (no change) Lib Dems: 10% (down 14) Labour lead: 5 points Government approval: -23 8.40am: It’s hard to tell what’s going to emerge as the big political story of the day. MPs are debating the pension bill this afternoon. There’s a government revolt bubbling away about the plans to increase the speed at which the state pension age for women is being raised to 65 – the plan now is to bring this in in 2018, even though the coalition agreement said it should not be before 2020 – and this will come up in the Commons later when MPs debate the pensions bill. And of course Greece is still dominating the news. Boris Johnson has been stirring things up with an article in the Daily Telegraph saying Britain should refuse to contribute to another bail-out . But otherwise it looks relatively thin. Here are the items in the diary. 10am: Michael Gove , the education secretary, delivers a speech on free schools at the Policy Exchange thinktank. 10am: Francis Maude , the Cabinet Office ministers, announces details of the National Citizen Service projects. 3.30pm: MPs debate the pensions bill . As Allegra Stratton reports , Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, is expected to defend the government’s plans to raise the state pension age for women to 65 by 2018. As usual, I’ll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers 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. House of Commons Andrew Sparrow guardian.co.uk

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