There was further coverage of the new paper by Vince Cable on fiscal policy, released on Tuesday by Reform.
Financial Times
In yesterday’s leader the Financial Times stated that the paper provided the “most detailed contribution to the debate” on fiscal policy.
Times
In an article in the Times on the UK’s public finances, Robert Chote, Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, commented on the paper, calling it “by far the most comprehensive response to the plight of the public finances”.
Conservative Home
In a blog discussing think tanks and their proposals for spending cuts, Tim Montgomerie comments on Reform’s role in the debate: “In April, Reform's report ‘Back to Black’ set out £30 billion of cuts and argued that no budget should be protected….This week, Reform's Lucy Parsons welcomed Vince Cable's list of £14bn of spending cuts which Reform had published.”
Other coverage
The paper was also covered by The Spectator; Liberal Conspiracy and Peter Black.
Gordon Brown was yesterday accused by the Conservatives of covering up the state of the public finances, after leaked Treasury papers suggested that rapidly increasing debt interest and social security costs could force the biggest spending cuts since the 1970s (; ; Times; Independent; Mail; City A.M.).
Unemployment rose 210,000 to 2.47 million in the three months to July, the highest level since 1995, according to the Office of National Statistics, as the OECD forecast that up to 25 million people in high-income countries will have lost their jobs by the end of next year. The unemployment figures include a fifth of the UK’s young people. In contrast new job vacancies in the City rose to their highest level this year and increases in NHS staff have driven the continued rise in public sector employment (;Telegraph; Mail; City A.M.).
The Communication Workers Union said ballot papers for a vote on a national post strike would be sent out today in its long running dispute about pay, jobs and services (Times; Independent; BBC Online).
The UK and US financial regulators, the Financial Services Authority and the Securities and Exchange Commission, took a step towards co-ordinated global financial regulation yesterday as they agreed to ask hedge fund managers to report a common set of data to both countries (FT; City A.M.).
Barclays yesterday unveiled the sale of $12.3 billion (£7.5 billion) of toxic credit assets to a new company in a move that will reduce its balance sheet volatility and could see it emerge as a model for financial institutions hit by the credit crisis (FT; City A.M.).
Jeremy Hunt, the Shadow Culture Secretary, will today say that the British media industry has been damaged by a “cowardly” government whose dithering has achieved “precisely nothing” for the sector. His speech comes the day after the Culture Minister, Ben Bradshaw, said that the expansion of the BBC needed to be halted and its governing body reformed (FT; Telegraph; Mail; City A.M.).
Planning processes for a new, north-south high-speed rail route are too narrowly focused on traditional railway priorities, according to Mark Bostock, the man largely responsible for devising the route of the UK’s only existing dedicated high-speed line (FT).
The Government is planning to kick-start an international donor fund to stimulate green technologies for the developing world (FT).
Research by the TaxPayers’ Alliance, to be published within weeks, will show the cost of the 994 “quangos” in the UK is set to exceed £170 billion (Mail).
Brixton has become the first urban area in the UK to have its own currency, with the “Brixton Pound” (B£) being launched today. It is an idea to boost the local economy and so far £10,000 has been pledged by business and local people to support the scheme (BBC Online).
Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, was confronted yesterday by angry union officials over the Government’s failure to prevent the closure of the Vestas wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight (FT).
Patients will be able to choose to register with a GP anywhere in the country in a move to abolish restrictive catchment areas, the Health Secretary, Andy Burnham, will announce today. Professor Nick Bosanquet, Consultant Director of Reform, has questioned these proposals, pointing out that GP lists are already full so the reforms will mean little in practice. Meanwhile in a wider debate on the NHS budget, Andrew Haldenby, Director of Reform, discussed NHS cuts with Eamonn Holmes on Sky News this morning. He said that the NHS needed reform and a lower budget not only to ease the budget deficit but also to make the service sustainable in the long term (Telegraph; Times; Independent; Guardian; Sun; Mail; BBC Online; CentreRight; Sky News).
Fears that Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, is “seeking to re-impose central control” over autonomous NHS Foundation Trusts were expressed yesterday by Monitor, their independent regulator (FT).
Family doctors are spending more money on treatments for obesity related diabetes than on any other drug. New figures show the £600 million cost of care is the biggest NHS drugs bill whilst experts estimate that by 2050 nine out of ten adults will be obese (Express).
Thousands of personal tutors are to be brought into state schools to ensure that one-on-one coaching is not simply the preserve of the middle classes, Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said yesterday (Telegraph).
National league tables and testing are depriving children of a “joyful” childhood, according to the architect of the national curriculum, Mick Waters (Telegraph).
The new head of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Sir Ian Andrews, has been forced to defend himself against suggestions that he is a Yes, Minister appointment, lacking the law-enforcement credentials needed to run the organisation (FT).
Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, has announced that controversial stop-and-search forms are to be slimmed down to save police 200,000 hours a year (Mail).