Rolling coverage of all today's political developments as they happen, including Ed Miliband's speech on elected police commissioners
Here are some more Labour police commissioner candidate names from Twitter. I know most of these Twitter acounts and that the information they post is reliable. There are some that I don't know, but I've got no reason to believe that their information is bogus.
Obviously, when I get the full list from Labour, I'll post it.
From JChamberlain
Former Euro MP Simon Murphy is Lab police commissioner candidate for West Mercia, former Minister James Plaskitt candidate for Warwickshire.
From the BBC's Andrew Sinclair
@SteveMorphew confirmed as Labour candidate for police commissioner in Norfolk
Labour police commissioner candidate for Bedfordshire: olly martins; for Cambs: ed murphy
From Paul Richards, a Labour activist
Congratulations to Godfrey Daniel, selected in Sussex to be Labour's candidate for police commissioner #PCC
From the Liverpool Echo's Luke Traynor
Jane Kennedy expected to be named Merseyside Police Commissioner
From the BBC's James Vincent
Shaun Wright - Labour Cllr in Rotherham - has been confirmed as the Labour candidate for Police Commissioner in South Yorkshire
From the South Wales Argus's David Deans
Hamish Sandison is Labour candidate for Gwent Police and Crime Commissioner
From Mary Wimbury
Delighted my husband @TalMichael will be Labour candidate for North Wales Police Commissioner. Very proud of the positive campaign he ran.
Tal Michael is the son of Alun Michael, the former Home Office minister who has been chosen as Labour's candidate as commissioner for South Wales police.
I haven't seen a text of Ed Miliband's speech yet, and BBC News and Sky are pre-occupied with other matters, but some Labour police commissioner news has been coming out on Twitter.
John Prescott has confirmed that he will be Labour's police commissioner candidate in Humberside.
Good morning. I am really honoured to have been chosen by Labour members to be their Police and Crime Commissioner candidate....
— John Prescott (@johnprescott) June 18, 2012
In Wales Labour has announced the names of its candidates for the four police commissioner vacancies in Wales.
Hamish Sandison, Christine Gwyther, Tal Michael and Alun Michael Welsh Labour's Police and Crime Commissioner candidates enter press event
— Welsh Labour (@welshlabour) June 18, 2012
And JChamberlain, a political blogger from Birmingham, is tweeting what appears to be news from the Labour event.
West Mids Labour candidate for Police Commissioner is Wolverhampton Cllr Bob Jones
Ed Miliband says govt should not spend over £100m on police commissioner elections and use cash to pay for more coppers instead
But Miliband says Labour will use police commissioner elections to 'defend democracy' and calls for high turnout.
Police battling against the odds and against govt cuts, with over 2000 coppers to lose jobs in West Mids, says Miliband
But Ed Miliband makes no mention of any commitment by next Lab govt to restore police cuts
Yesterday Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, said the government was going ahead with a £1bn contract to refurbish the Rolls-Royce plant in Derby to build reactors for the next generation of nuclear submarines. This will enable the government to replace Trident submarine-based nuclear deterrent. The Ministry of Defence is making a written ministerial statement about the announcement today.
The Lib Dems think a like-for-like replacement of Trident would be too expensive and the final decision about whether to go ahead with one has been postponed until after the 2015 general election. But, in an interview on the Today programme, Nick Harvey (pictured), the Lib Dem defence minister, said that the government was right to award the £1bn submarine contract now. I've taken the quote from PolitcsHome.
Yes, [this decision] did have to be taken now, and yes it is the right one. You've described this as simply being an order for new nuclear reactors, but half the money is renewing the infrastructure of the Rolls Royce facility at Derby, which simply has to be done – it's in need of a major renovation. And whatever submarines the UK is going to have in the future will need this facility to be modernised and brought up to 21st century standards.This is a facility to build nuclear engines, and whatever submarines we're going to have, and whatever we're going to do with them we will need to have modern reactors, and this is where they're going to be built.
Harvey also said if the government in 2016 decided not to go ahead with a Trident like-for-like replacement, the £1bn would not be wasted.
The money that has been committed today is a spend over an 11 year period, so if we decide in 2016 not to go ahead with some of these engines the government of the day would have to negotiate its way out of that, and give them some alternative work on the next submarine programme instead.
We thought we might be watching "Drachmageddon" this week. But, thanks to the voters in Greece, that particularly show has been postponed and instead those of us tuned in to the eurozone will be viewing another instalment of "Muddling through", the series that has been running for the last two years. As my colleague Martin Kettle argued in a good column recently, there's a lot to be said for muddling through - a much-underrated political strategy.
Those familiar with the eurozone's muddling through scenario will know that it often involves a speech from David Cameron saying This Cannot Go On and today Cameron will be deliving it in Mexico, where he is attending the G20 summit. My colleague Patrick Wintour has written a preview of the speech. Here's an extract from what Cameron will be saying.
The reality is that there are a set of things that eurozone countries need to do. And it's up to eurozone countries whether they are prepared to make the sacrifices these entail. The challenge is one of political will as much as economics. Of course these things are difficult to do, but just because these things are difficult does not mean we should not say them.
If the eurozone is to stay together then it has to make at least some of these difficult decisions. The alternatives to action that creates a more coherent eurozone are either a perpetual stagnation from a eurozone crisis that is never resolved or a break-up caused by a failure to address underlying economic fundamentals that would have financial consequences that would badly damage the world economy, including Britain.
There is more on the eurozone crisis on our eurozone live blog.
With Cameron at the G20, and the Greek election results dominating the headline, Westminster is not exactly where all the action is today. But I'm sure we'll manage. Here's the agenda.
8am: Vince Cable, the business secretary, gave a speech on Building Britain out of the Slump.
9am: Ed Milband gives a speech announcing Labour candidates for police and crime commissioners. He will also hold a Q&A.
Lunchtime: David Cameron arrives in Los Cabos, Mexico, for the G20 summit. As Patrick Wintour reports, he will give a speech saying that he eurozone risks facing perpetual economic stagnation from an unresolved crisis or a breakup caused by a failure to address its underlying economic failures.
2.30pm: Michael Gove, the education secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
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 at about 4pm.
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.
