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| Politics live blog: Monday 13 February | Politics live blog: Monday 13 February |
| (40 minutes later) | |
| 9.44am: Abu Qatada will be released from jail this week. But, according to the Press Association, he won't be allowed to do the school run. | |
| A radical cleric described as Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe will be banned from taking his youngest child to school when he is released from prison, sources said today. Abu Qatada, who will be released from a maximum security prison this week while he fights deportation to Jordan, will not be allowed out of his home during school opening and closing times. Under the terms of his release, Qatada, who Home Secretary Theresa May has said poses a real threat to the UK's national security, must obey a 22-hour curfew and will be kept in during the school run, sources said. | |
| 9.16am: I'll post a full paper round-up later, but Oliver Wright's interview with John Prescott in the Independent is worth a special mention because it's such good copy. | |
| Here are the key points. | |
| • Prescott defended the right of politicians to interfer with operational decisions being made by the police. This is important. Prescott gave the interview because he's campaigning for election as Humberside's police commissioner. Elected police commissioners are supposed to hold chief constables to account. But they are not supposed to get involved in operational policing matters. As the Home Office explains on its website, "the statutory protocol sets out the roles and responsibilities of the PCC [police and crime commissioner], chief constable, Home Office, police and crime panel ... and makes clear that operational independence of the police will be safeguarded." | |
| But Prescott said he did not accept this. | |
| The police always argue that [many things they do] are a matter of operations and politicians should not be involved. Well, I'm afraid I have a big argument with that. | |
| To back his case, he described what happened when the police conducted a terror raid in Forest Gate in East London in 2006. | |
| At one stage the police were going to turn out all the residents of the street at 2am in the morning. John Reid was the home secretary and I was working with him. Andy Hayman, who was in charge, wanted to turn them out and I said to John Reid – no, you can't do that. | |
| He said: 'John, it's operational'. I said sod operational, there are political considerations here. Turning out a street of Asians at 2am with the allegations of a gas plot and we don't know what the evidence is for that. I am not against the police running the organisation, but there are times someone should just say: Hang on I don't think that's right. Convince me about it. | |
| In that case, as we now know, one person was shot and was eventually found quite innocent. | |
Sir Hugh Orde, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, won't be happy. Yesterday, in an interview on Sky, he repeated his promise to resign if the creation of elected police commissioners led to the operational independence of chief constables being criticised. | |
| • Prescott said he always thought the Metropolitian police were "questionable". | |
| Twenty years ago, I remember looking at how many police officers retired from the Met – for obviously very funny reasons. And they kept their pensions and nobody ever got sacked. We've been through four or five commissioners who said they were going to change that and nothing's happened. | |
| He made it clear that he had much more respect for police forces outside London. | |
| • He claimed that he was badly let down by Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson after the News of the World discovered that his wife Pauline had given a son up for adoption when she was young. | |
| The press had heard about it and went looking for him. They found him. He was a Lieutenant Colonel up in Scotland, and they knocked on the door and said, 'We're printing the story about who your mother is'. I had to say to Rebekah Brooks [then editing the News of the World]: 'Look, let them get together first'. | |
| But then [Brooks] moved to become editor of The Sun and Andy Coulson took over. She tried to take the exclusive with her. Les Hinton [chief executive of News International] had to call them both in. | |
| He decided that one paper could have the photographs and one paper could have the interview. But then Coulson went and found photographs of my wife's son dressed as a woman in a kind of army show – suggesting he was kind of gay. You know these two bastards are employed by the same Murdoch operation. | |
| 8.56am: The CBI has published its latest economic predictions today. It is saying that Britain will avoid a double-dip recession although, as the BBC reports, other economic surveys out today are more negative. | 8.56am: The CBI has published its latest economic predictions today. It is saying that Britain will avoid a double-dip recession although, as the BBC reports, other economic surveys out today are more negative. |
| John Cridland (left), the CBI director general, was talking about this on the Today programme earlier. According to PoliticsHome, he stressed that the signs of growth were "very tentative". | John Cridland (left), the CBI director general, was talking about this on the Today programme earlier. According to PoliticsHome, he stressed that the signs of growth were "very tentative". |
| CBI member companies are just beginning to see the storm cloud that's hit us over the winter slightly move over, so business investment is picking up a little bit, and export growth is picking up a little bit because things are going well elsewhere in the world outside of Europe. For those on the high street, for the avoidance of doubt, CBI companies in leisure and retail, that's not getting better, because the domestic consumer is still constrained. | CBI member companies are just beginning to see the storm cloud that's hit us over the winter slightly move over, so business investment is picking up a little bit, and export growth is picking up a little bit because things are going well elsewhere in the world outside of Europe. For those on the high street, for the avoidance of doubt, CBI companies in leisure and retail, that's not getting better, because the domestic consumer is still constrained. |
| I want to stress these signs of restarting of growth are very tentative, but all the evidence now I think is, in our latest forecast, that the worst moment was in October, not in December. So we're just seeing the first tentative signs of a turn. | I want to stress these signs of restarting of growth are very tentative, but all the evidence now I think is, in our latest forecast, that the worst moment was in October, not in December. So we're just seeing the first tentative signs of a turn. |
| 8.30am: The Commons is not sitting today. That's a shame, because it would be nice to have culture questions and find out what MPs find out about the latest arrests at the Sun. In the Sun Trevor Kavanagh, the paper's former political editor, says that the paper is the victim of a "witch-hunt" that has put Britain behind ex-Soviet states in terms of press freedom. | 8.30am: The Commons is not sitting today. That's a shame, because it would be nice to have culture questions and find out what MPs find out about the latest arrests at the Sun. In the Sun Trevor Kavanagh, the paper's former political editor, says that the paper is the victim of a "witch-hunt" that has put Britain behind ex-Soviet states in terms of press freedom. |
| The Sun is not a "swamp" that needs draining. | The Sun is not a "swamp" that needs draining. |
| Nor are those other great News International titles, The Times and The Sunday Times. | Nor are those other great News International titles, The Times and The Sunday Times. |
| Yet in what would at any other time cause uproar in Parliament and among civil liberty and human rights campaigners, its journalists are being treated like members of an organised crime gang. | Yet in what would at any other time cause uproar in Parliament and among civil liberty and human rights campaigners, its journalists are being treated like members of an organised crime gang. |
| They are subjects of the biggest police operation in British criminal history — bigger even than the Pan Am Lockerbie murder probe ... | They are subjects of the biggest police operation in British criminal history — bigger even than the Pan Am Lockerbie murder probe ... |
| Under the draconian terms of police bail, many journalists are barred from speaking to each other. They are treated like threats to national security. And there is no end in sight to their ordeal. | Under the draconian terms of police bail, many journalists are barred from speaking to each other. They are treated like threats to national security. And there is no end in sight to their ordeal. |
| Their alleged crimes? To act as journalists have acted on all newspapers through the ages, unearthing stories that shape our lives, often obstructed by those who prefer to operate behind closed doors. | Their alleged crimes? To act as journalists have acted on all newspapers through the ages, unearthing stories that shape our lives, often obstructed by those who prefer to operate behind closed doors. |
| These stories sometimes involve whistleblowers. Sometimes money changes hands. This has been standard procedure as long as newspapers have existed, here and abroad. | These stories sometimes involve whistleblowers. Sometimes money changes hands. This has been standard procedure as long as newspapers have existed, here and abroad. |
In the Guardian we've got an editorial expressing a different view. | In the Guardian we've got an editorial expressing a different view. |
| As police arrested five more Sun journalists in connection with the possible corruption of public officials at the weekend, there were inevitably voices asking whether, on the tail of the closure of the Sun's sister paper, there was now a wholesale witch-hunt against tabloid journalism in general. | As police arrested five more Sun journalists in connection with the possible corruption of public officials at the weekend, there were inevitably voices asking whether, on the tail of the closure of the Sun's sister paper, there was now a wholesale witch-hunt against tabloid journalism in general. |
| There is no evidence that the police, the courts or Lord Justice Leveson have any such thing in mind. Saturday's arrests appear to have been provoked by information handed to the police by News Corporation itself, as part of the company's belated attempt to understand, and deal with, the systemic failings within the company that have been laid bare in civil proceedings. Only last month Rupert Murdoch's company accepted, for the purpose of assessing damages, that News Group Newspapers – which published his two British tabloids – had engaged in lying, obstruction, criminal intrusion and the destruction of evidence. Getting to the bottom of what happened while the company had lost its ethical compass is legally and morally necessary – though fraught with the difficulties inherently involved in co-operating with the authorities while protecting journalistic sources. | There is no evidence that the police, the courts or Lord Justice Leveson have any such thing in mind. Saturday's arrests appear to have been provoked by information handed to the police by News Corporation itself, as part of the company's belated attempt to understand, and deal with, the systemic failings within the company that have been laid bare in civil proceedings. Only last month Rupert Murdoch's company accepted, for the purpose of assessing damages, that News Group Newspapers – which published his two British tabloids – had engaged in lying, obstruction, criminal intrusion and the destruction of evidence. Getting to the bottom of what happened while the company had lost its ethical compass is legally and morally necessary – though fraught with the difficulties inherently involved in co-operating with the authorities while protecting journalistic sources. |
If there's any more political reaction to this throught the day, I'll be reporting it here. | If there's any more political reaction to this throught the day, I'll be reporting it here. |
| Although the Commons is having a mini-recess (because it's half-term week), the Lords is sitting. Here's the agenda for the day (such as it is). | Although the Commons is having a mini-recess (because it's half-term week), the Lords is sitting. Here's the agenda for the day (such as it is). |
| 9.30am: The Bank of England publishes figures showing whether the banks have met their Project Merlin lending targets. | 9.30am: The Bank of England publishes figures showing whether the banks have met their Project Merlin lending targets. |
| 9.30am: Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister, and Michael Moore, the Scottish secretary, meet in Edinburgh to discuss the devolution referendum. As the Guardian reports, the Scottish government indicated before the meeting that it would not compromise on its plan to hold the poll in the autumn of 2014. | 9.30am: Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister, and Michael Moore, the Scottish secretary, meet in Edinburgh to discuss the devolution referendum. As the Guardian reports, the Scottish government indicated before the meeting that it would not compromise on its plan to hold the poll in the autumn of 2014. |
| Around 3pm: Peers resume their debate on the health bill. We'll be covering the debate on our health bill live blog. | Around 3pm: Peers resume their debate on the health bill. We'll be covering the debate on our health bill live blog. |
| 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 summary at around 1pm and another at around 4pm. | 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 summary at around 1pm and another at around 4pm. |
| If you want to follow me on Twitter, I'm on @AndrewSparrow. | If you want to follow me on Twitter, I'm on @AndrewSparrow. |
| And if you're a hardcore fan, you can follow @gdnpoliticslive. It's an automated feed that tweets the start of every new post that I put on the blog. | And if you're a hardcore fan, you can follow @gdnpoliticslive. It's an automated feed that tweets the start of every new post that I put on the blog. |