Control orders are to be scrapped. About time too

PM: Control orders need replacing
Should control orders be scrapped? Control orders "haven't been a success" and need a "proper replacement", Prime Minister David Cameron has said. The future of the anti-terror measure has been a cause of contention between Tories and Lib Dems, but Mr Cameron said he was "confident" of agreement. The Lib Dems promised in their election manifesto to replace control orders, but some Tory MPs want to keep them. Introduced under the former Labour government in 2005...

Ed Balls: It's a mistake to play party politics on control orders
Ed Balls said it appeared keeping the coalition together was more important to Clegg and Cameron. Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA The shadow Home Secretary, Ed Balls, today accused David Cameron and Nick Clegg of trying to stitch up a political deal on control orders that puts the political preservation of the coalition above the preservation of National Security. Balls's intervention comes as Clegg prepares to outline coalition thinking on Civil Liberties in a major Speech tomorrow. A decision o...

Clegg to outline stance on terror
Nick Clegg is to promise a tough but fair approach when he outlines the government's views on anti-terror Legislation and Civil Liberties. It comes as ministers try to reach agreement over a replacement for control orders, which place a series of constraints on Terror Suspects. Mr Clegg will also announce plans to reform Libel laws. The deputy Prime Minister will make his case for reforming anti-terror laws and promoting Civil Liberties. He will accuse Labour of presiding over the most aggr...

Balls attacks over control orders
Labour has accused the government of "playing politics" with National Security over control orders. But Labour claims plans to modify them are motivated by a desire to please the Lib Dems, who promised to do so in their election manifesto. Labour's Ed Balls said Mr Cameron and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg should put National Security first. The shadow Home Secretary insisted he would wait until the outcome of a review into control orders, a form of House Arrest introduced by the prev...

Control orders set to split all three parties
Nick Clegg will give an indication in a Speech tomorrow of how the government is going to resolve the issue of whether to abolish, retain or replace control orders, introduced in 2005 to combat Terrorism, and a toxic subject entirely capable of splitting all three political parties. At one level the announcement will be a headline battle of spin. Has Clegg (against control orders) or the Home Secretary, Theresa May, (in favour of them) won? Have controls orders in any meaningful sense been ref...

Nick Clegg may have to back down on scrapping control orders
Nick Clegg has yet to strike a deal with the increasingly determined Home Secretary, Theresa May, over how to replace control orders or allow suspected Terrorists to be detained for more than 14 days without charge in exceptional circumstances. Faced by growing calls from senior former cabinet members to retain control orders, it appears that the Liberal Democrat leader is willing to seek a Compromise, and will recognise that some form of replacement to control orders is necessary - even though ...

Cameron to promote growth plans
Prime Minister David Cameron is promoting his Economic Growth plans on a visit to the North-West of England. He is being accompanied by Lord Heseltine, recently appointed chair of a new regional growth task force. The Tory leader has also promised to hit the Campaign Trail in Oldham East and Saddleworth, with a week to go before a crucial by-election. He has denied the Tories are soft-pedalling in the seat to give coalition partners the Lib Dems a better chance. Nick Clegg's party is in nee...

Kitchen cabinets in politics: Can stand the heat
SURVEYS often find that even very senior politicians struggle to be recognised by an indifferent public. The advisers who serve them are even more anonymous. Toiling away in Westminster’s back rooms are aides whose influence comes without the burdens of public exposure. And at least for the handful of very senior advisers, that influence is considerable. All three Party Leaders now have a powerful right-hand man. Ed Miliband is a far punchier leader of the Labour Party than he was just a ...

Miliband accuses Osborne of misleading people over VAT rise
I would dearly love to know what this lightweight nonentity would do to reduce the £trillian Debt left to us by Brown? So wait...Torries Have lost popularity....Lib Dems have lost popularity....Labour have lost popularity....So who the hell do we vote for? Ohh ffs. Please get an intern to do some bsic number crunching. Single person earnin £17k take home, c £1000 per month. Rent & essential not vat rated goods £400 per month. Assuming the remainin £400 is spent on fu...

Politics live blog - in Oldham East and Saddleworth
• It's the first proper byelection since the coalition was formed. There was a poll in Thirsk a few weeks after the General Election, but that was a "delayed election" caused by the death of a Candidate before May (and thus not technically a byelection) and it was a safe Tory seat where the result was a foregone conclusion. This will be very different. In England the thought of political parties being in coalition in government but fighting against each other at an election is still bewild...

Ed Miliband accuses Tories of 'great deceit' in blaming Labour for deficit
Ed Miliband, speaking at Labour's campaign centre in Oldham yesterday. The Labour leader today attacked the Tories for 'rewriting history'. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA Ed Miliband accuses the Conservatives today of a "great deceit" in blaming Labour for the national Deficit and warned that they have concocted a false narrative to justify politically driven cuts. In announcing a raft of swingeing public Spending Cuts the Coalition Government has repeatedly sought to portray that its hands a...

First 100 days
Ed Miliband this week marked 100 days as Labour leader. The party is riding high in Opinion Polls but critics, including some Labour figures, say he's not making a big enough impact. First impressions are crucial in modern politics, but a look back at the first 100 days of 12 Labour and Tory leaders suggests they are not always a reliable guide to future prospects... Margaret Thatcher The biggest complaint about Margaret Thatcher, 100 days after winning control of the Conservative Party in ...

Send them back?
Former MP Eddie O'Hara, the new chairman of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM), has told the BBC News website he is optimistic the campaign for the British Museum to return the sculptures, also known as the Elgin Marbles, will succeed. However a spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said government policy remained unchanged, and that there were no plans to return the Marbles to Greece. As a Labour MP from 1990 to 2010, Mr O'...

Making poverty permanent | Tom Clark
In a flimsy, 13-page document rushed out just before Christmas, the government quietly ditched the goal of ending financial Poverty for Children. It was an unceremonious end to an ambition which Tony Blair had once framed as New Labour's "historic aim", and which David Cameron's new-look Conservatives had made a great show of endorsing in the pages of this newspaper in 2006. Now Whitehall insists there is no need to amend the Child Poverty Act, which - with all-party support - enshri...

Can you count the packets of crisps?
What do the crisps say? Do alarm clocks rule our lives? Did Bob Holness play sax on Baker Street? Terrified of numbers? In his regular Go Figure column, Michael Blastland explains how a bit of creative thinking can help. Have you got the brain for statistics? Here's all it takes. Numbers. What you see is not always what you get. So this week, Go Figure offers a quick and easy game to train the brain to unpick data. Outside London's King's Cross Station, just before the electi...

Was David Cameron's quip a way of distancing himself from Andy Coulson? | Michael White
Was David Cameron's quip a way of distancing himself from Andy Coulson? David Cameron campaigns with the Conservative Candidate Kashif Ali in Oldham. Photograph: Andrew Yates/PA I must admit that I find David Cameron a likeable public figure, both in the way he usually conducts himself in the day job and in occasional brief exchanges when we meet. But he has a dangerous streak of flippancy that makes me wince and wonder what it says about him. Or is it what it says about Andy Coulson? Here's...

Empty homes rules tightened 'to protect civil liberties'
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 6 January 2011 23.00 GMT The government is to tighten up the rules that allow councils to seize empty homes, claiming the current system, introduced under Labour, infringes Civil Liberties. Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, said he was protecting the "fundamental human right" to property, citing cases where people have had their homes seized when visiting sick relatives abroad for extended periods. But charities claimed the move would deter councils from reclaimi...

Ed Balls: MI5 and the police want to keep control orders
MI5 and the police believe that the control orders must continue in some form, Ed Balls has claimed....

NoW phone-hacking case should reopen Ed Balls
Ed Balls called on David Cameron to review his decision to retain former News of the World editor Andy Coulson (above) as his director of communications. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images Ed Balls, the shadow Home Secretary, today called on the head of the Metropolitan Police to reopen the investigation into phone hacking by the News of the World. He said Sir Paul Stephenson might decide that an independent review of the Met's inquiry, or a review by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Con...

Newspaper review
The first editions went to press before the start of the final day's play - but most papers celebrate what the Guardian describes as "England's finest hour". That is, of course, the 3-1 victory in the Ashes series which was sealed in the early hours of the morning. "Heroes" is the single word headline on the back page of the Daily Mail. The paper says the "era of Australian greatness" has come to a "crushing end" while another takes hold - "...

Dealing with suspected terrorists: Last orders?
When the coalition was being formed, the two parties made much of their common commitment “to reverse the substantial erosion of Civil Liberties under the Labour government”. High on the list were counter-terrorism laws, notably the control orders introduced in 2005 to restrict the liberty of Terrorist suspects who could be neither prosecuted nor deported. The other big target was the previous government’s extension of the time that suspects could be held without charge. In Jul...

Politics live blog - Wednesday 5 January
The latest poll results do not make very good reading for David Cameron or Nick Clegg. Photograph: WPA/Getty Images 8.38am: YouGov published its first poll of 2011 last night - and the results don't make very good reading for Nick Clegg, or David Cameron. The Liberal Democrat Ratings, and the government Approval Ratings, are as low as they have been at any point since the General Election. Here are the full GB figures. Parliament is not sitting today, and we're not expecting any big announce...

Tea Party makes history today
Today will reportedly be the first time in the history of these United States that a father is sworn in as a Congressman and his son as a Senator. Ron Paul a 12 term Congressman from Texas ran for President in the 2008 Presidential race. If you recall history right he was shunned by his fellow Republicans and the media. Fox News kept him out of one of their debates even though he was ahead of two of their invited guests in the polls. Jay Leno was even upset and invited him on the show. Everyone ...

Osborne: VAT hike here to stay
LONDON, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Increasing the tax Britons pay for welfare benefits is more harmful than the hike in the value added tax, the chancellor of the exchequer said Tuesday. George Osborne told the BBC taxing consumption is more progressive than taxing earned income. "I didn't come into politics and become chancellor of the exchequer wanting to increase taxes. I'm actually someone who believes we want to try and lower taxes in this country," he said. "But when you've got a very large Budget de...

Ed Miliband mauled by radio listeners
Ed Miliband has conceded he has more to do as Labour leader after callers to a radio-phone-in told him he is underperforming....