“David Cameron has ordered Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond to visit every European country before the election to build support for major reform of Brussels. The Prime Minister, who is to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel next week, wants Mr Hammond to hold talks with every member state to set out Tory demands for change.” – Daily Mail
“Diplomats are pushing for a press conference which could expose tensions publicly over Mr Cameron’s attempt to try limit immigration from within the European Union. In October the German Chancellor reportedly told Mr Cameron that he was approaching a “point of no return” with the EU over a proposal to limit the migrant intake from other member states.” – Daily Telegraph
“The Government’s benefit reforms will be accelerated in the months before the election to stop Labour reversing them if the party wins the general election. Iain Duncan Smith said he would ensure that there would be a “step change” in the roll-out of Universal Credit in the first three months of the year.” – Daily Telegraph
“Letting Ed Miliband into Number 10 could trigger “economic chaos” that would “destroy jobs and destroy livelihoods”, David Cameron has warned as he dubbed May’s general election the most important in a generation. The Prime Minister used his first speech of 2015 to say Labour’s economic plan would lead the country into a “dead end” of high taxes and spiralling debt and urged voters to “stay on the road to security” by re-electing the Conservatives.” – Daily Telegraph
>Yesterday:
“Labour is likely to be outspent by the Conservatives by a factor of three to one in the general election, the party’s election boss has admitted, but insists it can still win the tightest battle in generations through an intensive ground war built around local party activism. The message comes before a rally in Manchester on Monday where Ed Miliband, the party leader, is due to mount a ferocious assault on Tory plans for the health service.” – The Guardian
“Another Coalition comprising three parties after May’s general election would force a second election within months, a Tory minister has said. Rob Wilson said that a hypothetical coalition two more than two parties – a so-called “rainbow Coalition” – would lead to a second election later this year.” – Daily Telegraph
>Yesterday: ToryDiary: Support rises among party members for a second coalition with the Liberal Democrats
“David Cameron can only hope to win the election if Ukip ‘implodes’, Tory grandee Lord Tebbit warned today. As the Conservatives launched their first election poster of the campaign, the former party chairman said the Prime Minister will pay a heavy price for breaking a promise to tackle immigration. He said that only a collapse in support for Ukip – which has made big gains in the past year – would allow the Tories to form an overall majority after May 7.” – Daily Mail
“Jobs in kebab shops, massage parlours and petrol stations were advertised as highly qualified roles to allow employers to “sponsor” workers from overseas to come to the UK. A crackdown by immigration officials discovered more than 2,500 immigrants were given visas for jobs which either did not exist or were completely different from those advertised.” – Daily Express
“A year ago Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, announced that ministers should be able to handpick external advisers and build up their private offices, in what was seen as an attempt to politicise Whitehall. The idea, proposed amid a growing mistrust of civil servants, was to let ministers appoint up to ten experts from the private sector, more than doubling the size of their office, to create an extended ministerial office (EMO).” – The Times (£)
“The Conservatives will today pledge to end six-figure pay-offs in the public sector if they win the general election. Tory sources said the party’s manifesto will promise the swift introduction of a new ‘public sector redundancy pay cap’ to end the culture of obscene ‘golden goodbyes’ to fat cats employed by the State. In future, pay-offs will be limited to a maximum of £95,000 in all but exceptional cases.” – Daily Mail
“Far from slowing down as they near retirement age, more and more over-60s are learning a new trade as apprentices. Figures show they are the fastest-growing age group among those in the Government’s on-the-job training scheme – intended to help school leavers. The number of workers aged 60 or over taking up placements has soared from 400 to 2,480 in the past five years.” – Daily Mail
“Hospitals are routinely paying stand-in accident & emergency doctors almost £2,000 a day as staff refuse to work permanently in “war zone” departments, according to the most detailed analysis of NHS spending on locums. Even the most junior doctors are earning up to £1,000 a day while tens of millions of pounds are paid out as commission to staffing agencies, the study reveals.” – The Times (£)
“More notable than any serious disagreement between Labour and Tories on future health policy is one huge agreement: rightly or wrongly (and polls suggest rightly) both are convinced that privatisation is the great unspeakable, and political death. In government both parties have privatised some of the delivery of healthcare; both have been pleased with the results but both are terrified of words like “profit”.” – The Times (£)
“The NHS in Wales is performing worse than its English counterpart, with patients facing longer waits for an ambulance and delays for diagnostic tests, according to a parliamentary report. The study, produced by the House of Commons library, also found that Welsh patients had to wait longer in A&E, and that a cancer treatment target had not been met since 2008. The Conservative party seized on the report to claim that Labour could not be trusted to run the NHS.” – The Times (£)
>Yesterday: Andrew Bell on Comment: The 15 hospitals whose fate could swing the next election
>Yesterday: Left Watch: “Balanced and tough” – big-spending Balls teeters like a circus strongman trying to walk the austerity high wire
“Party sources say their leader’s “toxic” presence on the campaign trail could boost the Scottish Nationalists, who are already 20 points ahead in opinion polls. Mr Miliband was forced to flee an Edinburgh shopping centre to escape a protest during last autumn’s independence referendum. Now insiders say Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy — dumped as shadow defence secretary by Mr Miliband — wants to be left alone to run his own campaign.” – The Sun (£)
“David Cameron and Gordon Brown suspended years of animosity to co-ordinate their efforts to keep Scotland within the union, including swapping tips on speeches, the Financial Times has learnt. The political foes were thrown together last year by polls suggesting the 300-year-old UK was at risk and their armistice was to last only a matter of days, but it was an important factor in the final stages of the referendum campaign.” – Financial Times
“When Labour introduced devolution after their great victory in 1997, they thought they were building an anti-Tory citadel north of the border. Perhaps they were, but they were also ensuring that they would lose control of it. Thus does devolution start the slide towards independence. Like a date rapist, the SNP claims that No really meant Yes.” – Daily Telegraph
“The Charity Commission found the Institute for Public Policy Research – once dubbed “Tony Blair’s favourite thinktank” – had “exposed itself to the perception that it supported the development of Labour Party policy”. The Commission started its inquiry after a complaint from Charlie Elphicke, a Tory MP, about the IPPR’s close links with Labour last year. The IPPR, like many other political thinktanks, is a charity which by law has to remain neutral.” – Daily Telegraph
“The couple, and their Soviet connection, are now of particular interest as they were the grandparents of Nick Clegg. And while some intriguing details of the Deputy Prime Minister’s Russian relative have come to light since he first entered office, the extraordinary story of Moura’s life can finally be told following The Independent’s trawl through the National Archives.” – The Independent