From Simon Walker, director general of the Institute of DirectorsReducing the amount the state spends on benefits is imperative if we are to set our country's finances back on the right track. The rising cost of an ageing population means that we need to get a grip on spending before it is too late.However, the prime minister should be aiming for wholesale reform rather than changes in a few selected areas. There can be no sacred cows,
marc by marc jacobs tote, and means-testing benefits like free TV licences and bus passes for the elderly should also be considered." From Nick Pearce of the IPPR thinktankWhatever else it does,
cnnhkids, Cameron's speech makes a full spending review before the next election more unlikely. These are Tory, not Govt plans.
It's called "co-payments" and we can see it being applied inconsistently wherever charges pop up – or don't – in hospital car park fees but not to enter public galleries, in fixing our teeth and specs but not for NHS medical care except prescription charges (though two-thirds are exempt). It's all revenue which helps keep down taxes but also – important – to dampen demand, as Scots and Welsh NHS are almost certainly finding now that they've opted for universal free scrips.So far as I can tell ministers are contemplating allowing private firms, British or foreign, to build new roads or extra lanes – no current roads will be tolled, Cameron is again emphasising – and recoup their investment via either tolls or what's sometimes called "shadow tolling", which diverts a little vehicle excise duty (VED) or other road tax to the owner for every car the electronic counter records on its stretch of road (or lane).
(See 1.25pm and 1.30pm.)? Voters have been going to the polls in the Inverclyde byelection. As Severin Carrell reports, officials and senior figures in both the Scottish National party and Labour believe that the battle to win what was is traditionally a rock-solid Labour seat has gone to the wire, with the SNP on the brink of snatching it.? A European commissioner has told the British government to "stay out of polemics" on the subject of the EU budget. Viviane Reding was responding after the government said the EU's call for a 5% budget increase was "unrealistic". The government was "wrong", Reding said. (See 10.04am.)? George Osborne, the chancellor, has said that the royal household will be funded from a new sovereign grant.
Two weeks later it got 22% in Rotherham and tonight it could do even better. With not a single MP in the Commons, Ukip is still in many respects a fringe party. But, in byelections, it is establishing itself as one of the four main parties in English politics.I'm at the Fleming Park leisure centre in Eastleigh, where the counting will start after the polls close at 10pm. As I write, the media consensus seems to be that the Lib Dems will win, and that Ukip are challenging the Tories for second place. But, of course, no one really knows. It should be an exciting night, and I'll be reporting on all the developments as they happen.9.32pm: Here's the scene from where I'm sitting at the count.
Be that as it may – or may not. Good or bad, a man has friends and a large extended ("fragmented" was one word I heard) family. So it is more to the point that what we laughingly call "social media" – shouldn't that be antisocial media? – was already rife with threats of weekend violence on Friday, with gruesome supportive imagery provided, and that the local police should have been more prepared for it, my young friend reported.Instead, they left a couple of squad cars on Tottenham High Road, handy for anyone wanting to get a party started by setting fire to them.All right, it's easy to be smart after the event. But political contacts tell me that the basic problem was not that the local police chief went on holiday on Friday – everyone needs a holiday – but that the police pursuit of Duggan was being run from the Met's HQ at Scotland Yard as part of Operation Trident (black-on-black crime), so the pursuing officers were outsiders.
3.14pm: The London Evening Standard reports that Livingstone continued to run a private company while serving as mayor.Now it has emerged that between 2000 and 2006, when he was mayor, thousands of pounds paid for media appearances were channelled into another firm, Localaction Ltd. Today Mr Livingstone said Localaction was kept open due to an oversight and cash paid into the account went to an Indian charity for widows and orphans.He said: "Basically I never got round to winding it up. I was just so damn busy as mayor I eventually told the accountant just to close it down. Everything I got after I became mayor was given to a charity for the education of children who had had their fathers killed in India.
We are talking about a pattern of behaviour here. Indeed, it might be better described as a course of action. Mr Cameron allowed himself to be drawn into a social coterie in which no respectable person,
marc jacobs outlet, let alone a British prime minister, should be seen dead.? David Cameron in the Daily Telegraph says the government's plans to make more official data available will have a profound impact.Estimates suggest the economic value of government data could be as much as ￡6 billion a year. Why? Because the possibilities for new business opportunities are endless. Imagine the innovations that could be created – the apps that provide up-to-date travel information; the websites that compare local school performance.
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