Rolling coverage of all the days political developments as they happen, including David Cameron and Ed Miliband at PMQs 12.29pm BST Julian Huppert, a Lib Dem, asks Cameron to welcome the fact an NHS bidder won a Cambridgeshire NHS contract.Cameron says under this government the NHS is being properly run by clinicians. 12.28pm BST Steve Reed, the Labour MP, asks who is to blame for the failure to deport foreign criminals.Cameron says the buck stops with him. The NAO report is very good, he says. Since 2013 there has been a proper government strategy to deal with this, the report says. But there are still too many human rights obstacles in the way. 12.27pm BST There has been some drama in the public gallery.Angry bloke chucked something against glass security screen in public gallery before being bundled out #pmqsCommotion in the public gallery as a man is dragged out, apparently shouting (can't hear due to security screen). #PMQs 12.25pm BST Cameron says Chuka Umunna recently did not know where Worcester was. He needs to get in touch with Worcester woman, he says. 12.24pm BST Labours Stella Creasy asks about the murder of a constituent in Greece. Why has the government sent police to Thailand, but not to Greece in this case.Cameron says he thinks the family involved did get funding to cover legal help in Greece. 12.22pm BST John Baron, a Conservative, asks what the government can do to help the relatives of nuclear test victims. One third of their children have been born with problems, he says.Cameron says the government has done more to recognise this problem than other governments. 12.21pm BST Labours Nic Dakin asks Cameron to rule out any more VAT increases while he is in post.Cameron says his plans do not involve more tax rises. He wants to cut taxes. The people who will want to put up taxes are those that want to increase spending, the Labour party. 12.20pm BST Gareth Johnson, a Conservative, says there was recently a jobs fair in Dartford with more jobs on offer than people looking for them.Johnson praises Bluewater for organising the event. 12.19pm BST Cameron praises Jim ONeills RSA report on regional devolution. He will be meeting ONeill later today. There is a real opportunity to create a northern powerhouse, he says. 12.18pm BST Labours Jamie Reed says he has a 10-year-old constituent who said Cameron did not answer his question about a local hospital. Is every maternity unit in England now under review?Cameron says he wants to see district general hospitals with maternity unit. The amount of money going to the NHS in England is going up. 12.16pm BST Henry Smith, a Conservative, asks Cameron to confirm that high-quality manufacturing is on the rise.Cameron agrees. 12.16pm BST Labours Chris Evans asks what Cameron is going to do to stop elderly people being scammed on the internet.Cameron says the National Crime Agency is able to look at this. 12.14pm BST The SNPs Angus MacNeil asks Cameron to confirm that full fiscal autonomy is on the table for Scotland.Cameron says he will keep the promises he made. But he hopes the SNP will keep to it promise to accept the referendum settles this matter for a lifetime. He is not sure Alex Salmond is doing this. 12.13pm BST Andrew Percy, a Conservative, asks about flood defences on the Humber.Cameron says he will look carefully at Percys proposals. 12.12pm BST Labours Kelvin Hopkins asks about foetal alcohol syndrome warnings.Cameron says this is a growing problem. He is happy to listen to Hopkinss suggestions. 12.11pm BST Cameron says the government is on track to meet its apprenticeship targets. The Conservatives want to create 3m in the next parliament. 12.10pm BST Snap PMQs Verdict: A comfortable win for Miliband; Camerons OECD counter-attack didnt quite work because he was so evasive on the substantive points Miliband raised. 12.08pm BST Miliband says Cameron cannot give a masterclass on leadership. He is changing his policy on the EU all the week. Why wont Lynton Crosby let Cameron back a levy on tobacco firms to fund one-week cancer tests.Cameron quotes an NHS body criticising Labours plans. Miliband flunked his big decision this week - sacking Ed Balls. 12.06pm BST Miliband says Cameron is supposed to answer the questions. Cameron could not defend the NHS. Why? Because he told us his top-down reorganisation would save money. It has cost £3bn. Will say what he is saying in private, that it has been a disaster.Cameron says he can defend his record. But he wants a comparison. So will Miliband let the OECD look at the failures in Wales. 12.02pm BST Ed Miliband says leading health organisations warned last week that health and social care services were at breaking point. Why?Cameron says Miliband did not answer the Welsh question. In England there are 1.3m more outpatients, 6m more outpatient appointments, and 2,500 more nurses. 12.00pm BST Andrew Griffiths, a Conservative, asks about the NHS in Wales. Should there be a full inquiry and an apology from Labour?Cameron says in the NHS in Wales doctors and nurses are working round the clock to deliver good care, but they have been let down by the Welsh assembly. Labour MPs have called for an inquiry. The OECD want to do a study. Cameron says he supports that. Does Miliband? 11.59am BST PMQs is staring early. 11.59am BST Here are some PMQs predictions.Expect Miliband will lead on Fiona Woolf at PMQs but stop short of calling for her to resign.Expecting to hear a lot about ballooning borrowing figures at #pmqs .... 11.48am BST But Number 10 is still backing Fiona Woolf.No 10 says Cameron believes it is 'very important' for child sex abuse inquiry to hv confidence of victims - but backs Fiona Woolf as chair 11.46am BST Labour is stepping up the pressure on Fiona Woolf to step down as chair of the child abuse inquiry. On the Daily Politics, Caroline Flint, the shadow energy secretary, has just said:I think its really difficult for her to stay. 11.41am BST After PMQs were getting an urgent question on the NAO report into foreign prisoners.UQ granted to @YvetteCooperMP at 12.30 to ask the Home Secretary about the absconding of foreign criminals 11.39am BST You can read all todays Guardian politics stories here. And all the politics stories filed yesterday, including some in todays paper, are here.As for the rest of the papers, heres the PoliticsHome list of top ten must-reads, and heres the ConservativeHome round-up of the political stories in todays papers. Freedom of movement across the EU must be made easier, the incoming president of the European Commission has demanded. In a blow to David Camerons hopes of curbing EU migration, Jean-Claude Juncker, whose appointment was fiercely opposed by No 10, has told one of his new commissioners to promote freedom of movement. Mr Osbornes claim that he will balance the books in the next parliament without any new tax rises and that he would then deliver a £7.2bn income tax cut were rejected by the minister charged with controlling public spending.Danny Alexander, Liberal Democrat Treasury chief secretary, said: These numbers reinforce the point that money is tight and will be so for many years as we build our way to full recovery. 11.26am BST Yesterday Mike Read was defending his Ukip Calypso as a bit of fun. This is what he told BBC London radio.I dont have a racist bone in my body. I work across all cultures and creeds, I travel the world. It was just meant to be a bit of fun.People are very very very quick to take offence now at something that years ago would have been deemed to be a bit of satire and a bit of fun. But now with social media everybody can assume that you meant something appalling by it, which of course I didnt. Ive got so many chums out in the Caribbean. Ive spent a lot of time out there. 11.14am BST My colleague Claire Phipps has discovered whos to blame for making Mike Read withdraw his Ukip Calypso. Its the PC Brigade, according to Twitter.Still, we all know who's *really* to blame for Mike Read scrapping #ukipcalypso, don't we? #PCbrigade pic.twitter.com/Q5hoespgvh 11.12am BST Jake Yapps YouTube response to Mike Read is fun. 11.00am BST And heres some Twitter comment on Mike Read.From Labour MP Diane AbbottDJ Mike Read withdraws UKIP Calypso song. Thank goodness. Completely puerile http://t.co/Td2GwH1ALNMike Read's hapless one day run of his Wilde musical took some beating but he's done it somehow.Unless Mike Read delivers his apology in the accent of Topol from Fiddler On The Roof or Apu off The Simpsons, I for one am not interested.Mike Read has pulled his Calypso song. Which means it ran for about three times as long as his Oscar Wilde musical.Er, Mike Read's u-turned on his calypso? No staying power, some people. 10.53am BST Heres more from the Press Association on Mike Reads decision to apologise for his Ukip Calypso and withdraw it from sale.The song, which includes the line when we take charge and the new prime minister is Farage, also criticised the prime minister. Read, a former Conservative supporter, used the song to warn his listeners against trusting David Cameron, singing: The British people have been let down, thats why Ukip is making ground. From Crewe to Cleethorpes, from Hull to Hendon, they dont believe Camerons referendum. 10.48am BST Mike Reads apology came after Chuka Umunna, the shadow business secretary, criticised his Calypso in an LBC phone-in. Heres an extract from a Telegraph story about his comments.In one of the most outspoken attacks on Ukip by a Labour frontbencher, Mr Umunna said a Calypso song released by Ukip, sung in a faux-Caribbean accent, was distasteful, adding: A lot of people have said they think its racist. I dont know whether his intention was to be racist. [Ukip] are asking people to give them the benefit of the doubt when a stream of Ukip candidates and supporters have come out with the most offensive and racist things over the months. What really worries me about this is there is not more of a row about the things we see coming out of Ukip. Its almost as if people price this in. 10.38am BST Matthew Norman has a good column about the Mike Read Calypso in todays Independent. He says the song is offensive in many ways, none of which are to do with race.Heres an extract.The lyric, which dwells on such Faragean staples as illegal immigration and insanely meddlesome Eurocrats, is pitiful (though credit him for trying to rhyme referendum with outer Hendon). The guitar playing is bad, the singing worse, and the accent worst. Whether he was aiming at Jamaica or calypsos birthplace of Trinidad is unclear. Not since Richard Madeleys Ali G has a white, middle-class Englishman vocally missed as vast a target as the entire Caribbean by such a margin.Immediately, the Ukip Calypso drew the familiar accusation of racism not primarily for such references as illegal immigrants in every town, but because it is a West Indian musical form. On any day, this familiar racism debate would have missed the point. Coming a few minutes before a black South African judge passed sentence on an Afrikaner who would once have been her master, the discussion on yesterdays Today programme sounded especially ridiculous. 10.33am BST And here is the offending song. 10.30am BST Heres the full quote from Mike Read.Im so sorry that the song unintentionally caused offence. That was never my intention and I apologise unreservedly if anyone has taken offence. Ive asked the record company to withdraw the single immediately. 10.25am BST The former Radio 1 DJ has apologised for unintentionally causing offence with his Ukip calypso.The Press Association has just snapped this.Former Radio 1 DJ Mike Read today apologised for unintentionally causing offence with his Ukip Calypso, sung with a mock Caribbean accent, adding that he has asked his record company to withdraw the song from sale. 10.23am BST In a Commons committee MPs are debating the affordable homes bill, a private members bill introduced by the Lib Dem MP Andrew George that would exempt people from the bedroom tax if they are unable to move to a smaller property. The bill got a second reading because Labour and Lib Dem MPs united to vote it through, in the face of opposition from the Conservatives.But the committee hearing (where a small number of MPs submit the bill to line-by-line scrutiny) doesnt seem to be getting off to a good start.Tories doing lots of vexatious points of order merely to delay consideration of the affordable homes bill. #bedroomtaxTory high command is here in the shape of @GregHands Clearly they hate the idea of ending the #bedroomtax1st Session of @AndrewGeorgeLD Affordable Homes Bill and series of time wasting points of order by filibustering Tory members of committeeTory Taliban MPs clearly livid at attempts to remove disabled people from #Bedroomtax and trying to 'talk out' the Affordable Homes Bill8 spurious points of order in 10 mins - outrageous Tory filibuster in Affordable Homes Bill Ctte trying to stop us arguing agt #bedroomtax 10.06am BST Heres more on the row about Fiona Woolf.Sharon Evans, a member of the inquiry panel, chief executive of the Dot Com Childrens Foundation and a sexual abuse survivor, told that programme that she was confident that the inquiry could do a good job.We have Graham Wilmer, who is another victim ... We have representatives of HMIC [HM Inspectorate of Constabulary], we have a family law barrister whos been in care himself. I think theres been so much focus on Fiona Woolf, which I understand, but she is just the head of the panel. There are nine people in total, with an enormous background and expertise in this.I would like people to be reassured that there are victims on this panel and we are determined to get to the bottom of this. One of the things that Graham and I hope is that the fact we are here and we are part of this will give people confidence. We do want to listen.I am absolutely appalled at Fiona Woolfs appointment. Its like putting Wayne Rooney in charge of an investigation of the nuclear energy industry. MP John Hemming tells me Fiona Woolf should stand down from abuse enquiry, she's "clearly a fully fledged member of the establishment" 9.38am BST The BBCs Robin Brant says a legal challenge has been launched against Fiona Woolfs appointment as chair of the child abuse inquiry.STORY: a legal challenge has been launched to the appointment of fiona woolf as the chair of the child sexual abuse inquiry. 9.35am BST For the record, here are todays YouGov GB polling figures.Labour: 33% (no change from YouGov yesterday) 9.23am BST The Home Office is under fire on two fronts this morning. There is still considerable controversy about Theresa Mays decision to appoint Fiona Woolf, a lawyer and the Lord Mayor of London, to head the child abuse inquiry. On the Today programme Alison Millar, a solicitor representing abuse victims, said Woolf should step down because of the evidence about her attending five dinner parties with Lord Brittan, the former home secretary whose handling of abuse inquiries in the 1980s will be considered by the inquiry. Millar told the Today programme this morning:This is not about Fiona Woolfs ability or her integrity. This is about her independence and her ability to lead this inquiry in a way that is credible to the survivors of abuse whom I represent. Somebody who seems to be on dinner party terms with a senior political figure whose knowledge this inquiry will be scrutinising is somebody who from the perspective of my clients does not have the necessary independence .... This evidence of dinner parties with Lord Brittan really puts her beyond the pale in terms of her credibility with my clients.There is absolute focus within government on dealing with this issue of foreign national offenders, on seeing that we have seen changes. For example, under the Immigration Act we are cutting down on the bureaucracy that stops it. Continue reading...
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