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| Ed Miliband launches Labour's 2012 local election campaign: Politics live blog | Ed Miliband launches Labour's 2012 local election campaign: Politics live blog |
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| 9.00am: For my money, there was only one really important political fact that emerged at the weekend. It was near the bottom of the press notice that ComRes sent out about their poll for the Independent on Sunday and the Sunday Mirror and it was about economic trust. Labour have been well ahead of the Tories in most polls for some time. But, on the key indicator relating to which party is trusted most on the economy, the Tories have been comfortably ahead ever since the election. | |
| Not any more. ComRes asked people if they trusted David Cameron and George Osborne to make the right decisions about the economy, and if they trusted Ed Miliband and Ed Balls to make the right decisions about the economy. The results suggest the budget has been a political disaster. | |
| Here are the figures. | |
| Tories | |
| Trust: 25% (down 4 since mid-March) />Don't trust: 60% (up 11) | |
| Rating: -35 (down 15) | |
| Labour: | |
| Trust: 21% (up 6) />Don't trust: 60% (up 1) | |
| Rating: -39 (up 5) | |
| And here's the key figure. In mid-March the gap between the two parties was 25 points. Now it's just four points. | |
| Ed Miliband is launching Labour's local election campaign this morning. Bradford West was dreadful for Labour, but there's only one George Galloway and overall, as the ComRes figures show, Miliband has grounds to be feeling optimistic. I'll be covering the launch in as much detail as I can. | |
| Otherwise, parliament is not sitting and there's not much in the diary, as you can see. | |
| 10am: Neil Wallis, the former News of the World executive, is giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry for the second time. Other witnesses include Stewart Gull, the detective who led the hunt for the "Suffolk Strangler" who murdered five women working as prostitutes in Ipswich in 2006. | |
| 10.15am: Ed Miliband launches Labour's local election campaign at an event in Birmingham. | |
| The Association of Teachers and Lecturers is holding its conference in Manchester. And events are being held to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the start of the Falklands War. | |
| 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 lunchtime summary at around 1pm and another in the afternoon. | |
| 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. | |
| 9.18am: David Davis (pictured), the Conservative backbencher, sounded like an Irish Republican when he appeared on the Today programme this morning criticising the government's plans to allow the police and security services to extend their monitoring of email and social media. He talked about the "securocrats". In the past, I think I've only ever heard the word being used by Sinn Fein. | |
| This needs to be done because it can be done - that's been the attitude of many 'securocrats' over the ages ... The simple truth is this is not necessary. If we have a warrantary arrangement, whereby any agency that wants to intercept needs to get content or addresses, then that is the way to do it - simply go through the law ... What is proposed is completely unfettered access to every single communication you make. This argument it doesn't cover content - it doesn't cover content for telephone calls, but your web address is content. If you access a web (site), that is content. I'm afraid it is a very, very big widening of powers, which I'm afraid will be very much resented by many, many citizens who do not like the idea. | |
| 9.29am: And here's some more reaction to the government's plans to extend email surveillance. | |
| From Lord Carlile, the Lib Dem peer and former independent reviewer of terrorist legislation | |
| There is nothing new about this. The previous government intended to take similar steps and they were heavily criticised by the coalition parties. But having come into government, the coalition parties have realised this kind of material has potential for saving lives, preventing serious crime and helping people to avoid becoming victims of serious crime ... | |
| When I was independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, I looked at this issue for the last government and I suggested there should be an independent board which scrutinised all this activity and ensured it was not simply the police or the security services that makes these decisions but they were properly, independently monitored - and that is what I expect parliament to demand. | |
| There is actually very little, if any, evidence known to me to show current powers have been used improperly. I agree we do need to ensure there is proper independent scrutiny, maybe of a much more substantial kind than exists at the moment to ensure these powers, when they are used, they are used proportionately. | |
| From Isabella Sankey, Liberty's director of policy | |
| Whoever is in government, the grand snooping ambitions of security agencies don't change. Proposals to stockpile our web, phone and texting records were shelved by Labour. Now we see plans to recycle this chilling proposal leaking into the press. | |
| The coalition agreement explicitly promised to 'end unnecessary data retention' and restore our civil liberties. At the very least we need less secret briefing and more public consultation if this promise is to be abandoned. | |
| From Nick Pickles, director of the Big Brother Watch campaign group | |
| No amount of scare-mongering can hide the fact that this policy is being condemned by MPs in all political parties. The government has offered no justification for what is unprecedented intrusion into our lives, nor explained why promises made about civil liberties are being casually junked. | |
| The silence from Home Office ministers has been deafening. It is remarkable that they wish to pry into everything we do online but seem intent on avoiding any public discussion. | |
We are very clear that our position in relation to the Falklands is that we will be robust in defence of the Falkland Islands, but we do not intend to repeat the mistake of 1982 and allow the Falklands to be taken from us. We will defend them robustly, we have the assets, the people, the equipment in place to do so. | |
Q: What will Labour do to stop private firms cherry picking the easy, cheap contracts from the NHS? | |
| 9.58am: You can read all today's Guardian politics stories here. And all the politics stories filed yesterday, including some in today's paper, are here. | 9.58am: You can read all today's Guardian politics stories here. And all the politics stories filed yesterday, including some in today's paper, are here. |
| As for the rest of the papers, here are some stories and articles that are particularly interesting. | As for the rest of the papers, here are some stories and articles that are particularly interesting. |
| • James Kirkup and Holly Watt in the Daily Telegraph say Conservative MPs have warned David Cameron that he needs to make major changes to the way he runs his government and party to reconnect with the voters. | • James Kirkup and Holly Watt in the Daily Telegraph say Conservative MPs have warned David Cameron that he needs to make major changes to the way he runs his government and party to reconnect with the voters. |
| Speaking both publicly and privately, MPs have identified four areas where they say Mr Cameron should make changes: | Speaking both publicly and privately, MPs have identified four areas where they say Mr Cameron should make changes: |
| •The Downing Street machine should be overhauled amid widespread concern that Government policies are being poorly explained to voters, especially those in key marginal seats. | •The Downing Street machine should be overhauled amid widespread concern that Government policies are being poorly explained to voters, especially those in key marginal seats. |
| • Mr Osborne is under mounting pressure to end his dual role as both Chancellor and head of Conservative political strategy. | • Mr Osborne is under mounting pressure to end his dual role as both Chancellor and head of Conservative political strategy. |
| • A senior MP should be appointed as full-time Conservative Party chairman, ending the current arrangement where job is shared by two peers. | • A senior MP should be appointed as full-time Conservative Party chairman, ending the current arrangement where job is shared by two peers. |
| • This year's ministerial reshuffle should be used to promote more MPs from working-class and northern backgrounds, to counter the perception of a Government dominated by privileged public schoolboys. | • This year's ministerial reshuffle should be used to promote more MPs from working-class and northern backgrounds, to counter the perception of a Government dominated by privileged public schoolboys. |
• Lord Tebbit in the Times (paywall) says Tories begin to think we're being ruled by "government by chums". | • Lord Tebbit in the Times (paywall) says Tories begin to think we're being ruled by "government by chums". |
After another week of hasty, ill-thought-through policy initiatives and the calls to hoard petrol, many Conservatives are questioning this style of government by chums. Those doubts now extend to whether Mr Cameron still has the intellectual quality, grit and determination to lead the country through difficult times. | After another week of hasty, ill-thought-through policy initiatives and the calls to hoard petrol, many Conservatives are questioning this style of government by chums. Those doubts now extend to whether Mr Cameron still has the intellectual quality, grit and determination to lead the country through difficult times. |
| Mrs Thatcher was dumped by her party after she had steered the country out of danger and it then concluded that her character was too abrasive for easier times. Mr Cameron's task now is to show that, regardless of his pedigree, he also has the qualities needed in our hard times today. | Mrs Thatcher was dumped by her party after she had steered the country out of danger and it then concluded that her character was too abrasive for easier times. Mr Cameron's task now is to show that, regardless of his pedigree, he also has the qualities needed in our hard times today. |
| • Iain Martin in the Daily Telegraph says the Conservatives should prepare for life after Cameron. | • Iain Martin in the Daily Telegraph says the Conservatives should prepare for life after Cameron. |
| The Conservatives need to prepare for life after Mr Cameron. He is not going anywhere in a hurry. But he is now easily at least half‑way through his time as Tory leader. By this autumn he will have been in the post seven years, and once he has fought the next election he has no desire to go on and on, believing that staying too long in office did the reputation of his predecessors considerable harm. He will not seek a Blair-style peripatetic existence in retirement – in five years or so, he will probably want to retreat into rural England to enjoy seeing his children grow up. | The Conservatives need to prepare for life after Mr Cameron. He is not going anywhere in a hurry. But he is now easily at least half‑way through his time as Tory leader. By this autumn he will have been in the post seven years, and once he has fought the next election he has no desire to go on and on, believing that staying too long in office did the reputation of his predecessors considerable harm. He will not seek a Blair-style peripatetic existence in retirement – in five years or so, he will probably want to retreat into rural England to enjoy seeing his children grow up. |
| In the interim, those waiting for him to have an epiphany on Europe, the economy or tax are destined for disappointment. Mr Cameron is highly competitive and pragmatic, pleased to have got the top job but not gripped with a desire to take the country in a particular direction. | In the interim, those waiting for him to have an epiphany on Europe, the economy or tax are destined for disappointment. Mr Cameron is highly competitive and pragmatic, pleased to have got the top job but not gripped with a desire to take the country in a particular direction. |
| • Richard Ford in the Times (paywall) says police chiefs have told the government that its plan to ban so-called "legal highs" won't work. | • Richard Ford in the Times (paywall) says police chiefs have told the government that its plan to ban so-called "legal highs" won't work. |
| The substances, which mimic the effects of controlled drugs such as cannabis, cannot be tackled by declaring them illegal, chief constables say in a document seen by The Times. They also say that they will treat leniently anyone found with one of the substances, meaning that the holder could be cautioned instead of having to go to court. | The substances, which mimic the effects of controlled drugs such as cannabis, cannot be tackled by declaring them illegal, chief constables say in a document seen by The Times. They also say that they will treat leniently anyone found with one of the substances, meaning that the holder could be cautioned instead of having to go to court. |
| Their intervention is an embarrassment for the Home Office, which is preparing to use new powers to deal with an explosion in the drugs' use. The Home Affairs Select Committee, to which the police submission was sent, is inquiring into drug policy. | Their intervention is an embarrassment for the Home Office, which is preparing to use new powers to deal with an explosion in the drugs' use. The Home Affairs Select Committee, to which the police submission was sent, is inquiring into drug policy. |
| • Louise Gray in the Daily Telegraph says Boris Johnson has been accused of "public health fraud" for ordering the use of "dust suppressants" to keep down pollution where official monitoring is carried out and thereby avoid millions of pounds in EU fines. | • Louise Gray in the Daily Telegraph says Boris Johnson has been accused of "public health fraud" for ordering the use of "dust suppressants" to keep down pollution where official monitoring is carried out and thereby avoid millions of pounds in EU fines. |
A report by the Mayor's office recommends the use of a sticky salt spray along busy streets to reduce the amount of dust in the air, especially during the Olympic Games. | A report by the Mayor's office recommends the use of a sticky salt spray along busy streets to reduce the amount of dust in the air, especially during the Olympic Games. |
| The biodegradable saline solution is sprayed by trucks usually used for salting the roads in winter. It acts like a glue attracting particles of dirt to stick to the ground rather than make dust. | The biodegradable saline solution is sprayed by trucks usually used for salting the roads in winter. It acts like a glue attracting particles of dirt to stick to the ground rather than make dust. |
| Already so-called "dust suppressants" are being used in 15 sites around London, including on Upper Thames Street, Marylebone and in Neasden Lane. | Already so-called "dust suppressants" are being used in 15 sites around London, including on Upper Thames Street, Marylebone and in Neasden Lane. |
| However, Simon Birkett, Director of Clean Air London, has pointed out that all of the sites are close official air quality monitoring stations to measure the level of pollution in London. | However, Simon Birkett, Director of Clean Air London, has pointed out that all of the sites are close official air quality monitoring stations to measure the level of pollution in London. |
| 10.04am: Ed Miliband will be launching Labour's election campaign shortly. My colleague Nicholas Watt is at the event in Birmingham and he's just sent me this. | |
| A large, predominantly elderly, group of Labour supporters have crowded into a community hall in Birmingham Selly Oak for the launch of the party's local election campaign by Ed Miliband. The Labour leader hopes to focus the launch around his plans, outlined in a piece in this morning's Daily Mirror, for the use of more restorative justice. But it is Miliband's first public appearance since Labour's heavy loss in the Bradford West byelection last Thursday. In the key section in his speech on crime Miliband will criticise the Tories for wanting to do away with Asbos altogether and say that some criminals should be encouraged to make a contribution to their community: | |
| "Instead of just giving people a caution knowing they will commit further offences, those who do the wrong thing should be forced to make it up to the victim. Make good on the damage they have caused, help rebuild the community project, clean up the graffiti, fix a wrecked garden. Of course, it won't be appropriate in all circumstances and should only happen if the victim wants it to happen. When offenders have to confront the consquences of their crimes and meet their victims, they can come to understand what they have done and the damage they have caused. This has made some less likely to commit further offences: it puts them back onto the right path." | |
| 10.07am: Ed Miliband is speaking now. | |
| He says Labour cannot just rely on the unpopularity of the government to get elected. | |
| 10.11am: Miliband says the government is out of touch. | |
| Labour would make a difference on living standards, jobs, the NHS and crime, he says. | |
| On living standards, he says Labour councils are showing what can be done. | |
| In Manchester, despite having their budgets cut, the council are keepin every Sure Start centre open which helps keen childcare affordable. | |
| In Newcastle, Labour councillors have kept libraries open, so families can afford to find a book to read to their children. | |
| And just up the M42 in Gedling, the council is helping keep mortgages and parking affordable. | |
| If Labour was in government in Westminster, we would end rail rip-offs by capping fare increases on every route. | |
| We would force the energy firms to give pensioners over the age of 75 the lowest possible tariff. | |
| 10.16am: On jobs, Miliband says Labour would tax bank bonuses and use the money to create jobs for young people. | |
| On the NHS, he says Labour councils will "act as the last line of defence against the fragmentation of the NHS". | |
| 10.18am: Miliband turns to crime. | |
| Labour would have more police on the streets and keep anti-social behaviour orders, he says. | |
| And Labour would force criminals to repair the damage they cause. | |
| Instead of just giving people a caution knowing they will commit further offences, those who do the wrong thing should be forced to make it up to the victim. | |
| Make good on the damage they have caused, help rebuild the community project, clean up the graffiti, fix a wrecked garden. | |
| Of course, it won't be appropriate in all circumstances and should only happen if the victim wants it to happen. | |
| When offenders have to confront the consquences of their crimes and meet their victims, they can come to understand what they have done and the damage they have caused. | |
| This has made some less likely to commit further offences: it puts them back onto the right path. | |
| Here in the West Midlands, the police are already working with local authorities to try out this approach. | |
| And it is working. | |
| But the problem is less than one in thirty victims across the country sees this kind of approach being employed. | |
| 10.22am: Miliband concludes his opening speech by saying the Tories have "abandoned Middle Britain" and "abandoned any pretence that they can govern for the whole country". | |
| Labour would govern for the whole country, not just the wealthy few. | |
| 10.27am: Here's the full text of Miliband's speech. | |
| Miliband is doing a Q&A with journalists, but BBC News and Sky have given up their live coverage, and I can't find a live feed, so I'm going to have to rely on Twitter and other sources for further updates. | |
| 10.31am: BBC News have returned to Birmingham. Ed Miliband is taking questions from non-journalists (or "real people", as we call them in the trade - they seem to be party activists) alongside Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary. | |
| Q: Will you make fair taxation a campaign theme? [The questioner complains she is not hearing this from Labour.] | |
| Miliband says tax avoidance is a terrible thing. | |
| He says he does not accept that Labour is quibbling about small things. The abolition of the 50p rate is not a small measure, he says. It will cost £3bn. The government claims it will recover £2.9bn because people will then behave better. | |
| But the government does not use this argument when it cuts benefits for the low paid, he says. | |
| Q: Would Labour reverse the privatisation introduced by the coalition? | |
| Yvette Cooper says Labour would stop certain police activities being privatised. For example, private companies should not be doing frontline patrols. Q: What will Labour do to stop private firms cherry picking the easy, cheap contracts from the NHS? | |
| Miliband says the way the government rammed the health bill through parliament was "a disgrace". Labour did all it could to stop this. | |
| Labour councils are now "the last line of defence" against the bill, he says. They can stand up for the right principles. | |
| [Ed Davie, a Labour councillor in Lambeth, has written an article for the Guardian's Local Government Network blog today explaining how councils can use powers in the bill to protect NHS services.] | |
| Labour will repeal "the free-market free-for-all in this bill", Miliband says. It is "incredibly damaging" to the whole ethos of the NHS. | |
| Q: What is Labour's vision for the future of policing? [This was from a former police officer who was "compulsorily retired"] | |
| Cooper says the scale of police jobs being lost is "shocking". It is bad for morale. The police service does need some reform. But the government should be supporting the police, he says. The coalition is "in denial" because it claims the frontline is not being affected. But it is, she says. | |
| 10.44am: BBC News have now given up on the Miliband Q&A. But Twitter is still on the case. Here are some posts from my colleague Nicholas Watt. | |
| Ed Miliband looking healthy at launch of Lab local election campaign. Not a grey hair in sight | |
| Harriet Harman arrives for launch of Lab local election campaign just as Ed Miliband winds up speech | |
| Harriet Harman (niece of an Earl) + Hilary Benn (son of a Viscount) appear together to say Tories out of touch | |
| Ed Miliband: Labour councils are last line of defence against #NHS bill which he would repeal | |
| 10.49am: And here is some more Twitter comment on Ed Miliband's speech and the Labour local election launch. | |
| From Sky's Niall Paterson | |
| Not exactly a barn-stormer, was it? Curiously delivered. I wasnt there, can anyone tell me if he was using an autocue? | |
| It looked like he was - constant glances left and right - but it didnt sound like it. Speech markedly different from embargoed copy I've got | |
| From the Economist's Janan Ganesh | |
| EdM attacking coalition from the right on crime. It's where Labour should always be: in line with their voters not their commentariat. | |
| From Tory HQ (aka Ric Holden) | |
| Ed Miliband all over the place on "Tax Avoidance", which is different from Tax Evasion. He spent last week backing "Tax Avoidance" #pastytax | |
| Labour to end ISAs??? Ed Miliband wants to end "Tax Avoidance" a quite different thing to "Tax Evasion" - would like to know what he means.. | |
| 10.56am: I'm off to the Number 10 lobby briefing. I'll post again after 11.30am. | |
| 11.47am: That went on a bit. It would be fun to be able to report the prime minister's spokesman as saying: "Last week we really messed up over the fuel strike. This week we're trying to calm things down." But unfortunately, despite us all trying our best for half an hour, we could not get him to cooperate. Number 10 has certainly changed its tone on fuel since last week, but the spokesman was wary about saying this explicitly. I'll post a full summary shortly. | |
| 12.20pm: Here are the main points from the lobby briefing. | |
| • The prime minister's spokesman confirmed that the government was no longer telling drivers to stock up with extra fuel. The government's official advice was now set out on the Department for Energy and Climate Change's website, he said. That advice says: "There is no need to queue at petrol forecourts." Asked to explain why the advice had changed, the spokesman said Unite's announcement that it would not be holding a strike before Easter changed the situation. | |
| • He suggested that Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, would no longer be the government's lead spokesman on this issue. Asked if Maude was in charge, the spokesman said: "Francis Maude is in charge of the bit of the Cabinet Office that deals with civil contingencies. This is a fuel issue. DECC [the Department for Energy and Climate Change] are the lead department." Asked if the prime minister still had confidence in Maude, the spokesman said he had. | |
| • He denied a report claiming that Cameron told colleagues last week that "a bit of petrol panic may be no bad thing". Asked if Cameron had used these words, the spokesman said: "That is not the case." | |
| • He rejected claims that Cameron saw the fuel strike as an opportunity to have a "Thatcher moment". Charles Moore made this claim in his Telegraph column on Saturday, saying that ministers thought that defeating the tanker drivers (partly as a result of having petrol stockpiled in tanks) would be like defeating the miners in the 1980s (partly as a result of having coal stockpiled at power stations). Asked if Cameron saw the situation like this, the spokesman said: "No." | |
| • He played down the significance of reports saying that some garages could be short of petrol all week. "Clearly there was some increase in demands last week," he said. "The fuel companies are working to ensure that petrol stations are replenished and restocked." | |
| • He refused to say whether David Cameron's thought that Francis Maude's comments about keeping petrol at home were in any way responsible what happened to the woman who burnt herself decanting fuel in York. "I do not have anything to add to what the prime minister has already said [about this]," the spokesman said. He said that, as far as he knew, the government has not had any contact with Diane Hill, the woman injured in the fire. | |
| • He said legislation was needed to allow the government's ability to monitor communications to keep pace with technological change. "Twenty years ago all this data was held by BT," said the spokesman, when asked about reports detailing the government's plans to allow the police and security services to extend their monitoring of email and social media. The spokesman refused to comment on the detail of the plans. But he said that 95% of serious crime and terrorism investigations involved the use of communications data. | |
| 1.30pm: Here's a lunchtime summary. | |
| • Ed Miliband has said that Labour councils across England will act as the "last line of defence" against the controversial Health and Social Care Act. Launching his party's local election campaign, he also said that Labour wanted more restorative justice. You can read Labour's local election manifesto here (pdf). | |
| • David Davis, the Conservative MP, has said that government plans to allow police and security services to extend their monitoring of the public's email and social media communications are unnecessary and will generate huge public resentment. But Downing Street said the law in this area needed to be updated. "Communications data is used currently in 95% of all serious crime and terrorism cases," the prime minister's spokesman said. "That communications data is information on the time, duration and dialling numbers of a phone call, it is not the content of that phone call and that is an important distinction. What we do need to make sure is that as technology changes we are able to maintain our current capability in this area." • Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, has said that Britain still has the will and the ability to defend the Falkland Islands. He made the comment as a service was held to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the start of the Falklands War. | |
We are very clear that our position in relation to the Falklands is that we will be robust in defence of the Falkland Islands, but we do not intend to repeat the mistake of 1982 and allow the Falklands to be taken from us. We will defend them robustly, we have the assets, the people, the equipment in place to do so. | |
| But he also said that despite the rhetoric coming from Argentina, there was "no evidence at all of any military intention by Argentina nor any military capability by Argentina to attempt to retake the Falkland Islands." | |
| • Boris Johnson has promised to introduce sobriety tests for some offenders if re-elected as London's mayor. Launching his crime manifesto, he said: "Since alcohol is one of the biggest associated causes of domestic violence, we will go ahead in London with the sobriety testing that has been shown in America to reduce reoffending and to get violent drunks off the booze." Tom Watson, Labour's vice chair, has accused Johnson of lying about his record tackling crime. "The Tory mayor has repeatedly claimed that knife crime is falling, yet the official police figures show knife crime is rising," Watson said. | |
| • Nick Clegg has formally launched the Youth Contract, a £1bn work and training programme for young people. | |
| 2.26pm: James Brokenshire (pictured), the Home Office minister, was on the World at One talking about the government's plans to allow the police to extend their monitoring of emails. He said this was about solving crime rather than "real-time snooping on everybody's emails". I've taken the quote from PoliticsHome. | |
| It's worth actually clarifying what this is about and what this isn't about. What the government is looking at is the current ability for the police and other agencies to be able to access communications data, that's basically the who, when and where of the communication, so if we look at that in, for example, on mobile phones, who was contacting who at what time and what the telephone number is. What we're looking at is what the police need to be able obtain in an internet-based world, where people are using social media and other means to communicate, so that they can continue to solve crime ... | |
| What this is not is the previous government's plan of creating some sort of great big 'Big Brother' database, that is precisely not what this is looking at. | |
| Brokenshire also said that "appropriate safeguards" would be put in place. | |
| 3.07pm: And Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, has now pronounced on the government's plans to extend email surveillance. She's issued this statement. | |
| The government needs to explain rapidly and in complete terms what they are planning, rather than partial briefings to the media. National security and personal privacy are too important to be left to rumours and rows. | |
| We want to see the detail of their plans as they will need serious scrutiny and consultation. The police and security services need to be able to keep up with new technology to deal with serious issues including disrupting terrorist planning, catching paedophile rings or cracking down on organised crime, as they currently use existing technology to do. | |
| But there also need to be strong safeguards to protect people's privacy. We need clear checks and balances on what the police, security services or the government are able to do, so that privacy and security are both protected and so that public confidence and trust in the system is upheld. | |
| 3.22pm: The Press Association have just snapped this. | |
| Talks aimed at resolving the fuel tanker drivers' dispute will be held on Wednesday, Acas announced today. | |
| 3.47pm: Here's an afternoon reading list. • James Forsyth at Coffee House says David Cameron's Tory critics are necessarily representative of backbench opinion. | |
| Kris Hopkins, the founder of the 301 group of Tory MPs, complains that the trouble is being whipped up by a 'small group of disaffected people' and that 'the nature of their criticisms shows that this is about their egos not making the country a better place.' | |
| At issue here is who speaks for Tory MPs. Hopkins claims that the vast majority of his colleagues are 'committed and supportive of the Prime Minister and his team' and that they're 'really annoyed that it is the same group of people who keep standing up and claiming to speak for the parliamentary party when they do not'. | |
• James Kirkup at the Telegraph says David Cameron responded to Tory backbenchers who criticised government communications at a recent meeting by telling them that his trip to Washington received very good press. | |
| Oddly, it seems that this defence did not cut significant ice with the 1922 executive. Several of the MPs were left wondering how pictures of the PM eating hotdogs with President Obama was going to help win back working-class voters in marginal seats. One said the answer left him "full of despair" and wondering if Mr Cameron was now more interested in globe-trotting photo-ops than in the mundane British retail politics that will – in his opinion – determine the next general election. | |
| • Tim Shipman on his Daily Mail blog says Jon Trickett, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, told a meeting that rising unemployment and public sector cuts could be seen as amounting to an "orgasmic wet dream" for those on the left hoping for political conditions that would prove beneficial to their cause. | |
| 3.50pm: In the comments, PorFavor asked for the latest on the break-in at Ed Miliband's office in the Commons. Well, according to a Labour source, the police are still investigating. It was not the first attempt, he adds. And, contrary to the impression given in some reports, it was a serious break-in. "It was a lot more than just a dodgy lock on a secretary's office." | |
| 3.57pm: My colleague Nicholas Watt is back from Birmingham. Ed Miliband's local election campaign launch hasn't made it the top of the news bulletins. But Nick has written a blog saying that the event showed how excellent Miliband can be as a communicator when he's in the right environment. | |
| Here's an extract. | |
| Miliband would never have won in 2010 without his strong performance at Labour party hustings across the country. | |
| At the launch of the Labour local election campaign in Birmingham Selly Oak this morning, Miliband showed he has not his touch. In doing so he showed why he is cut from such a different cloth to Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and – yes – to David Cameron. | |
| The prime minister is very polished at public events and usually answers most questions. But he is that: polished and slightly distant. Miliband, on the other hand, completely engages with his audience, emotionally and intellectually. He doesn't just remember the name of every person who asks him a question and asks their name if they forget to give it. He refers back specifically to what they said and then does his best to address the issue they have raised. | |
| 4.15pm: Here's an afternoon summary. | |
| • Acas, the conciliation service, has announced that substantive talks intended to avert a strike by tanker drivers will take place on Wednesday. An Acas spokesman said: "We have now held briefings with all the relevant parties [Unite and the seven haulage companies] and can confirm that substantive conciliation talks will take place on Wednesday. Talks will take place on Wednesday morning at an undisclosed location." | |
| • The Retail Motor Industry has called for "urgent" talks with the government to discuss petrol shortages at garages. • The Leveson inquiry has heard that Neil Wallis, the former News of the World deputy editor, acted as an unofficial adviser to a succession of Met police commissioners and helped Lord Stevens secure the top role in 2000. | |
| • Unite has said that London bus workers are to be balloted for strikes in a row over payment for working during the Olympic Games. As the Press Association reports, Unite said 24,000 of its members employed by 15 separate bus operators will vote over whether to launch a campaign of industrial action. The union has called for a £500 payment to recognise and reward bus workers for the "massive increase" in workloads during the Olympics. Unite said the equivalent of more than 9,000 double-decker busloads of extra passengers will descend on London for the event. With only a few months left until the Olympics, Unite said neither the bus operators nor Transport for London has engaged with the unions to plan for the Games or discuss a payment similar to deals agreed with other transport workers. Unite regional secretary Peter Kavanagh said: | |
| The London bus is an iconic symbol for London and bus workers will be on the front line, dealing with the extra congestion and helping passengers find their way around London. Despite the significant extra pressure, the operators are refusing to recognise the contribution bus workers will be making to the success of the Olympics. Every other transport worker in London is getting a payment, with the exception of the bus workers. London bus operators are doing passengers and their workers a huge disservice by refusing to engage with the union. It is a massive error of judgment. | |
| That's all for today. Thanks for the comments. |