The ten thing you need to know on Thursday 2 May 2013...
1) DAVE'S EURO CAMBLE
Polling stations are now open across England for council elections and for a parliamentary by-election in South Shields. The big question in the world of politics, especially centre-right politics, is: does the prime minister/Tory leader have a plan to fend off the threat from Ukip? The Times splash reveals:
"David Cameron has shifted ground on Europe hours before the Tories come under pressure at the polls from UKIP.
"The Prime Minister hinted that he might give MPs a vote on an in-out referendum before the next election. If passed, the vote would enshrine in law his promise to put the issue of Britain's EU membership to voters before 2017.
"Mr Cameron has always held back from giving MPs a pre-election vote on his proposed referendum. It would split the coalition while enraging pro-European Tories. But his willingness to entertain the idea is an indication of the pressure from Nigel Farage's Eurosceptic party and large numbers of his own MPs.
"... Tory officials braced the party for the loss of 'an enormous number of seats' when millions of voters go to the polls today in the biggest electoral test of the year. Some 2,300 seats are being contested in 27 county councils and seven unitary authorities in England and Wales."
"Cameron takes on 'the fruitcakes'," is the headline on the front of the Telegraph.
Meanwhile, the Guardian reports:
"Nick Clegg has claimed that the struggle on the right of British politics caused by Ukip's surge was pulling David Cameron away from the centre ground and making day-to-day progress in the coalition government more difficult.
"Interviewed on the eve of the local elections, and facing the prospect of coming fourth in terms of share of the vote behind Ukip, the Liberal Democrat leader and deputy prime minister vowed to 'dig in my heels and make sure the centre of gravity of the government as a whole does not get pulled rightwards due to the internal dynamics of the Conservative party'."
Given the coalition's austerity measures, welfare reforms and populist rhetoric around immigrants and scroungers, the Lib Dem leader's heels perhaps aren't as dug in as they should be...
2) THE POT PLANT DEFENCE
Has a British party leader ever penned a weirder, more amusing sentence? Here's Nigel Farage, writing exclusively for the Huffington Post UK yesterday, about the photo which appeared in the Mirror of Ukip candidate Alex Wood apparently doing a Nazi salute:
"I've looked carefully into this and spoken to Alex, and I believe him when he says that he was angrily trying to take a camera off his girlfriend who was annoyingly taking pictures of him in the pub imitating a pot plant."
Sorry, what? Imitating a pot plant? The mind boggles. (Oh, and if Farage believes Wood's story, why is Wood still suspended by Ukip?)
On a side note, Farage decided to 'do an Osborne' yesterday and park his campaign bus in a disabled bay.
Nonetheless, the Guardian reports:
"The United Kingdom Independence Party is confident it will inflict a 'bloody nose' on the Labour party in Thursday's South Shields byelection.
"Amid growing fears among senior Labour figures that Ukip could achieve its strongest ever byelection showing in South Shields – and possibly even capture the seat – Ukip sources said they are winning support from the 'bloody infantry' hit by Britain's main parties."
3) IT'S THE UNDEREMPLOYMENT, STUPID
Until the recent rise in unemployment, the government had been trumpeting falling joblessness figures as evidence that their 'plan A' was working. But does unemployment, as a statistical measure, capture the true scale of the jobs crisis in this country?
From the Huffington Post UK:
"Official unemployment figures are disguising the fact that a significant number of people who are in both full time and part time work are not able to work longer hours even though they want to, a report published on Thursday suggests.
"According to an analysis carried out for the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), the traditional measure of unemployment fails to capture the phenomenon of 'underemployment'.
"The underemployment figure - which includes those workers who say they want more hours - currently stands at 9.9%, well above the unemployment rate of 8%."
4) CHUMOCRACY OR MERITOCRACY?
From the Times:
"David Cameron fended off accusations of cronyism at the heart of his Government yesterday, insisting that he has included people from 'all sorts of different backgrounds' in his team.
"There are now six former Etonians in the Prime Minister's inner circle after two MPs from his old school were handed posts last week. Days later he gave a job to an old friend who was privately educated at St Paul's, London.
"Defending his new recruits, Mr Cameron said: 'I appoint people because they are good enough to do the job and they are the right person for that job. I have people around me who have all sorts of different backgrounds and all sorts of different schooling. The question is: are you going to be good enough?' He said that William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, was 'the second most important person in the government'. He pointed out that Mr Hague had gone to "a Yorkshire comprehensive".
Hmm. 1) Dave omitted to mention that Hague initially boarded at Ripon Grammar School and then attended Wath-upon-Dearne Comprehensive, which was a grammar school at the time and was only later designated as a comprehensive. 2) "The second most important person in the government"? That'll be news to Nick Clegg and George Osborne...
5) BRITAIN'S DRONE WAR BEGINS
The drone war is no longer something we can just pin on the US and the Obama administration. From the Huffington Post UK:
"The RAF has carried out its first drone strike from an aircraft operated out of a base in the United Kingdom, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed... A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: "A Reaper Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS), operated by pilots from XIII Squadron located at RAF Waddington, has fired a weapon during a mission supporting UK forces on the ground in Afghanistan."
"Further details were not available as the MoD does not discuss details of specific missions for operational security reasons. The strike reported to have taken place on Tuesday is the first time a drone flown from a UK base has fired its weapons."
Writing on The Huffington Post UK, Hilary Stauffer, the deputy director of human-rights group Reprieve, said: "The EU needs to be an ethical, moral, and legal counterbalance to the United States regarding the use of armed drones, and to play a leading role in developing the international standards which are emerging to govern their use."
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR...
Watch this video of a punch-up between MPs inside Venezuala's parliament. And there you were thinking PMQs gets a bit rowdy every Wednesday lunchtime...
6) HAS CAMERON GOT COJONES?
Is Dave about to go war with his biggest supporters in the press? Really? From the Independent's splash:
"David Cameron is set to reject moves by three of the country's largest newspaper groups to water down the proposed Royal Charter creating a new regulatory system for the press.
"The Prime Minister risks upsetting Conservative-supporting papers by sticking to the deal agreed by the three main parties for a charter to implement a tougher system of independent self-regulation proposed by the Leveson Inquiry following the phone hacking scandal.
"Mr Cameron wants newspapers to reach a common position so that the new system is workable and effective, but the industry is divided.
"Last week, Rupert Murdoch's News International, the Mail and the Telegraph groups proposed an alternative charter, calling for politicians to be denied the right to amend it.
"... A Downing Street source told The Independent last night: 'The Royal Charter put forward by the three parties and agreed after 22 weeks of consultation with the newspaper industry is the one we think should go forward.'"
7) OSBORNE VS DARLING
From the FT's splash:
"George Osborne's allies are preparing for a reprivatisation of Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group before the next election, even if the banks' share prices remain well below the levels at which they were rescued at the height of the crisis.
"Tories close to the chancellor argue that Alistair Darling, his Labour predecessor, paid too much for shares in RBS and Lloyds when he injected close to £66bn into the banks' bailouts.
"By claiming that the Treasury got a bad deal on the rescues, Mr Osborne hopes to prepare the public for a large loss if privatisation begins before the 2015 election."
But is it credible to place the blame for the share price on the last Labour government? The FT continues:
"The criticism of Mr Darling's handling of the nationalisation has incensed the former Labour chancellor, who pointed out that in April 2010 - just before the last election - RBS shares were trading above the price the Treasury paid... 'The share price we see today is largely of their own making,' he said."
8) TAXING TIMES
Good news for UKUncut - from the BBC:
"Bermuda and other British overseas territories with financial centres have signed agreements on sharing tax information, the Treasury has said.
"The move follows similar recent deals with Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.
"The move is aimed at tracking down banking clients who escape paying taxes by hiding their money overseas.
"It comes amid an international drive against tax evasion and the use of tax havens."
9) ANONYMITY FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT SUSPECTS?
Bad news for campaigners against sexual violence - from the Independent's front page:
"Three out of four people believe that people accused of rape and other sexual assaults should have their identities protected until they are convicted.
"A ComRes survey for The Independent found strong public support for the controversial view expressed by Maura McGowan, chairman of the Bar Council, who argued that suspects in sex cases should enjoy the same right to anonymity as defendants. Some 76 per cent of people agree with the statement that 'people accused of sexual assault should be given anonymity until they are proven guilty', while 18 per cent disagree and six per cent don't know."
10) CONSERVATIVE CABLE
Vince Cable, for once, finds himself on the same side as Tory traditionalists - from the Telegraph:
"Stay-at-home mothers are facing "prejudice" and have legitimate grievances against the Government and the tax system, according to Vince Cable.
"The Liberal Democrat Business Secretary indicated that he agreed with campaigners who have attacked the Coalition for putting pressure on women to return to work after having a baby.
"He said he had 'nothing but respect' for mothers who chose to care for their own children rather than put them in child care."
PUBLIC OPINION WATCH
From the Sun/YouGov poll:
Labour 39
Conservatives 33
Ukip 13
Lib Dems 10
That would give Labour a majority of 78.
140 CHARACTERS OR LESS
@SJacksonMP It isn't about charisma on the High St. Lab need Ed to start winning arguments - and faster than one voter at a time.
@benedictbrogan Nagging feeling today won't be quite as exciting as some predict and most interesting bit will be what Ukip does to Labour
@mrchrisaddison The problem with the Tories despising UKIP and UKIP despising the Tories is I find I now have common ground with both those parties.
900 WORDS OR MORE
Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart, writing in the Financial Times, say: "Austerity is not the only answer to debt."
Peter Oborne, writing in the Telegraph, says: "Voters should learn the lesson of history and back a Tory."
Rafael Behr, writing in the New Statesman, says: "Miliband’s turn as a street preacher is hampered by his lack of disciples."
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