Ed Miliband accuses Tories of 'great deceit' in blaming Labour for deficit

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...

PM looking at fuel tax changes
David Cameron says he is looking at a way to "share the risk" of higher fuel prices between government and drivers. The Conservatives have previously looked at the possibility of cutting fuel duty when Oil Prices rise and increasing it when prices fall. The PM said he was "working with the Treasury" on the idea and said rising prices had been "painful" for drivers. Fuel prices have topped £1.30 a litre for unleaded and £1.35 a litre for diesel. Mr Cameron...

Control orders are to be scrapped. About time too
Control orders are to be scrapped. Good. We don’t yet know what will replace them, and any combination of tagging, travel bans and the like will have to be closely scrutinised. But it now looks very likely that House Arrest will have no further place in our Democracy. The orders brought in by Labour represented the worst of both worlds. They were both an affront to liberty and an obstacle to justice. No suspect sitting at hime, cut off from all outside communication, is likely to provide...

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...

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 - "...

Ed Miliband gets a kicking from the folks at home
The Jeremy Vine Show is not generally thought of as a bear pit. Politicians tend to regard it as rather cuddly - at least, by comparison to the forensic ferocity of the Today programme. So Ed Miliband must have been taken aback by the aggressive line of questioning that poured from the mouths of those usually benign Radio2 listeners who phoned in to interrogate him not only about his policies as Labour leader but about his character. At one point, he was even compelled to insist

Britain vows to change 'embarrassing' libel law...
Britain's plaintiff-friendly Libel laws have become an international embarrassment, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said Friday, vowing to change rules that have made the country a "libel Tourism" destination for angry corporations and foreign celebrities. In a Speech on Civil Liberties, Clegg said the existing laws, which place the burden of proof on defendants, have a chilling effect on journalism and scientific debate. It is "simply not right when academics and Journalists are effectively bu...

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....

Great news for England's schoolchildren: the number of Academies doubles under the Coalition
Congratulations to Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education. This morning we learn that the Coalition has started more Academies than the previous government in spite of being in office for less than a year. Two hundred and three were started under Labour, whereas the total now stands at 407. That means that nearly one in 10 state secondary schools in England are now Academies. By any measure, that’s an incredible achievement. Critics of the Academies programme like Fiona Milla...

Culture War: The Battle for Australia's Soul
SYDNEY - A cultural battle pitting Christians against Australia's first atheist Prime Minister and her party may be looming in the land down under. Just three months after a new minority government assumed power, Social Issues are now topping the legislative agenda. Prime Minister Julia Gillard is having trouble keeping radical members of her Labor-Green Party Coalition Government in line. The Green Party's sole representative in parliament is pushing to garner support for Gay Marriage. He a...

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'...

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 ...

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 ...

Banks to pay billions in bonuses
What do Investment Banks do? Q&A: What is a Stress Test? The government is resigned to UK banks paying out billions of pounds in bonuses this year, despite its calls to curb the payments, the BBC has learned. The best the coalition can hope for is a declaration from the banks that they will pay out less than they would have without government intervention, said BBC business editor Robert Peston. The government is also looking for banks to lend more to small businesses. Business Secretary V...

In times of crisis, Belgium goes with the show
BRUSSELS - By the end of it all, Belgium's most popular politician pronounced himself satisfied. "Mission Accomplished," he said. Bart De Wever had not solved the dispute between Belgium's Dutch and French speakers, which has stalled the formation of a permanent government for almost seven months — the longest such crisis in the country's history. No, he had just survived his first round in the late-evening quiz show "The Very Smartest Human in the World," where he had excelled, amon...

Bagehot: A compromising position
The atmosphere of consensus extends to the campaigning. Down in the other half of the constituency, in the tough town of Oldham, the Conservative Candidate Kashif Ali struggled manfully this week to bash his Lib Dem rival without attacking the coalition. Prodded to explain why he, rather than the Lib Dem, should win, he resorted to pleas of more-local-than-thou. Declaring himself “an Oldham lad, born and bred”, he noted gravely that the Lib Dems’ man is from Rochdale (all of fi...

David Cameron, Top Gun: We were in the dangerzone
Every time I hear Mr Cameron using his favourite cliche about the economic situation he inherited from Labour, I have the same thought. Today, I’m trying to put music to the idea, with an early entry for the daftest political allegory of 2011… Turn the volume up and click here to see what I mean. “We were in the dangerzone,” Mr Cameron has just told a Cameron Direct event in Leicester, assuring his audience that he and his coalition co-pilots have flown the UK economy ...

4 Ways to Think About the Debt Ceiling Frenzy
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's letter to Congress on the Debt ceiling warns that if Washington doesn't raise the government's borrowing limit, The Economy will face catastrophe. To which, you might respond: What's a Debt ceiling? What kind of catastrophe? And what outcome should I root for? Let's break this debate down into four questions. 1. What's the Debt ceiling? When Congress passes a law that increases the Deficit, we borrow money to pay the difference. But for reasons that defy sanity,...

It’s the economy, Scott Brison says, and the Tories are stupid
The Liberals are taking the advantage of the news lull created by Parliament’s holiday break to slam the Conservative government’s financial record and take credit for any aspect of The Economy that is performing well. Liberal MP Scott Brison held a news conference on Friday morning to say Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will unjustly try to take credit for Canada’s sound financial and banking system when he gives a Speech in Washington next week. Should the opposition vote down ...

Raymond J. Learsy: Facebook and Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs has and has access to money. But more important to Facebook at this point of its ascendancy is whether Goldman has trust? The question is already being widely bandied about as in "Wall Street Wonders if Goldman Will Double Cross Facebook" CNBC 1.06.11 also quoting a Wall Street executive, "we would have killed to be in this deal". Clearly a myriad of investment houses/banks would have stepped in to fill the financial role Goldman has undertaken. A financial role that would not ha...

Britain's inflationary relapse: A test of nerves
AS THE Financial Crisis took its toll and Britain slid into a severe slump in 2008 and 2009, one big worry was that The Economy would also slip into Deflation, exacerbating the difficulties of Debt-laden households and firms. The scare was short-lived. Only a year since the recovery began, prices are surging rather than falling. Inflation, the scourge of Britain’s economy until the 1990s, seems to have returned. George Osborne has made many changes since he became chancellor of the exchequ...

Ignatieff’s absence apt as Tories strut their stuff
Back in the summer, when the long-form Census was burning, RCMP senior staff were rebelling, Omar Khadr was languishing, and the head of CSIS was alleging Manchurian Candidates were everywhere, a prominent Conservative sighed that some days it felt as though the government was reduced to reacting to events rather than controlling them. Should the opposition vote down the next Conservative Budget, expected in March, to force an election? Those days are fading. This first week of January proved th...

What a debt default would mean
The letter Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner sent to Congress on the Debt ceiling is worth reading in full, as it does a nice job describing a danger that I'm not sure most people fully appreciate. My sense is that the mental model most people have of defaulting on the Debt ceiling looks something like shutting down the government. But that's not it at all. It's more like shutting down The Economy. Think back to the Financial Crisis. The underlying cause was that various financial entities stopped...

If You Thought Passing ObamaCare Would Reduce the Deficit, Youll Probably Believe that Repealing It Will Increase the Deficit
Democrats, faced with an effort by House Republicans to Repeal the Health Care overhaul, have once again seized on the argument that the Health Care law will reduce the national Deficit. And once again, they’re pointing to projections made by the Congressional Budget Office in order to make their case. The CBO’s report is hardly surprising: Last year it said that if the law were executed exactly as planned, it would reduce the Deficit. This year the congressional scorekeeper is saying that ...

The Constitution Is Just Words, Until We Give Them Meaning
The new Republican leadership of the House of Representatives, in a Tea Party-inspired Publicity Stunt, kicked off the 112th Congress yesterday by inviting members of both political parties to read the entire text of the Constitution aloud for what appears to be the first time in the chamber’s history. Ascendant Conservatives hoped to paint their movement as the legitimate, deferential protector of our founding document. But Students of (non-redacted) Civil Rights history and of Constituti...