“David Cameron warned his most senior MEP in Brussels that he would be ‘finished’ if he defied him over Europe and backed the Brexit campaign, it was claimed last night. … The bust-up happened during a meeting in London a week before the EU deal was finalised. Mr Cameron expressed his outrage when Dr Kamall informed him he was leaning towards voting to leave the EU. … According to a Tory source, whose account was last night backed by three others who have spoken to Dr Kamall directly about the conversation, Mr Cameron told him: ‘You’re finished. I made you and now you’re finished.’” – Daily Mail
> Today:
> Yesterday:
“Voting for Brexit is gambling with the prospects of the next generation, a Cabinet minister warns today. … In a speech likely to trigger fresh claims of scaremongering, Education Secretary Nicky Morgan will warn the older generation they risk creating a lost generation of young people. … She will say it would be unfair for parents and grandparents to vote to leave the EU because of the ‘devastating’ impact on the chances of their children and grandchildren.” – Daily Mail
> Yesterday: ToryDiary – Morgan must address Tory concerns about academy plans
“EU free movement rules have let dozens of foreign criminals commit horrific offences in Britain, analysis reveals. … A dossier released today lists 50 of the ‘most dangerous’ European criminals who have entered the UK freely, despite convictions in their countries. … Once here, 45 of them committed serious offences, the report by Brexit campaign Vote Leave says.” – Daily Mail
Comment:
“While the powers are known as ‘targeted equipment interference’, privacy campaigners warned yesterday that the proposed surveillance legislation contains wider hacking abilities than that name suggests. They told The Times it would lead to a ‘rapid expansion’ in the use of hacking, which police say is increasingly necessary to tackle serious crime and find missing persons.” – The Times (£)
Comment:
“Harvey Proctor, the former MP who spent a year being investigated by Scotland Yard for child sex abuse before being exonerated, is to launch an extraordinary attack on senior police officers, The Telegraph can disclose. … It is understood the ex-Conservative MP will say Scotland Yard has ignored counter-allegations lodged against “Nick”, the complainant behind the controversial multi-million pound Operation Midland, which was finally shut down last week.” – Daily Telegraph
“George Osborne had claimed that cutting the rate of income tax paid by people earning more than £150,000 from 50p in the pound to 45p would lead to the Treasury reaping more money. … The Chancellor later said that his move in slashing the rate had led to an ‘£8billion increase in revenues from additional rate taxpayers’ and that the figures vindicated his approach. … But the OBR attributed much of the gains to high earners shifting money between tax years.” – Daily Mail
Comment:
Yesterday: Howard Flight’s column – We simply cannot afford to carry on protecting spending on welfare, the NHS and schools
“Social care services will be pushed to ‘breaking point’ by the introduction of George Osborne’s national living wage next month, councils warn today. … The living wage, announced by the Chancellor last year, will see minimum hourly wages for anyone over 25 rise to £7.20 an hour from April 1. … But most workers in the care sector earn the current minimum wage of £6.70 or just above, meaning care service providers – many of them local councils – will see their staffing costs rise dramatically.” – Daily Mail
“Thousands of people suffering from mental health conditions will continue to miss out on timely help, a former minister has said, warning that promised reforms to NHS mental healthcare would be impossible without extra spending. … Norman Lamb, who served as the minister responsible for mental health in the Coalition government, said that vital new waiting-times targets for a range of mental health conditions including bipolar disorder and OCD ‘won’t happen’ because the plans were not funded.” – The Independent
“Stephen Crabb has been urged to conduct a ‘root and branch’ review of universal credit by Labour amid claims the flagship welfare reform has been ‘salami sliced’ to the point that it now represents a financial hit for millions of low-paid workers. … The shadow work and pensions secretary, Owen Smith, has written to his opposite number warning that the policy bears ‘scant resemblance to its original form’.” – The Guardian
“Labour risks losing its reason to exist if it allows ‘antisemitism by proxy to prosper in our midst’, a frontbencher has warned. … Chris Bryant, the shadow Commons leader, called for the British left to be ‘vigilant about antisemitism’ after a spate of allegations about party members. His remarks, made in The Times today, are likely to be viewed as a caution to Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, that he must do more to stamp out what MPs and peers have identified as a growing problem in the party.” – The Times (£)
Read Bryant’s article for the Times in full (£)
“Teachers have called for an end to schools inspections by Ofsted because they cause too much work and anxiety for staff. … The National Union of Teachers said the regulator put undue pressure on schools, which often live in fear of ‘the dreaded phone call’. … They voted today in favour of scrapping the watchdog, and replacing it with a ‘proper system of accountability’.” – Daily Mail
“‘Retrograde’ teachers yesterday voted to reject Home Secretary Theresa May’s flagship anti-terror strategy – claiming it was spooking Muslim kids. … NUT delegates vowed to boot out the new ‘Prevent’ policy which obliges teachers to refer pupils they believe to be at risk of radicalisation or extremism to the police. … Nick Timothy, Theresa May’s former special adviser, immediately blasted the union for a ‘retrograde and alarming’ step.” – The Sun
And comment:
“Even if anti-elitism does weave together today’s political sensations, neither they nor that cause are successful enough to define our age. The era of Trump, Corbyn and Le Pen is, less excitably, the era of Barack Obama, David Cameron and Angela Merkel. These mainstream pragmatists have won general elections in recent years.” – Janan Ganesh, Financial Times