Welcome to Daily View. Today is the anniversary of Black Wednesday, and bunny hops for today’s birthday boys: Henry V and Russ Abbot.
2 Big News Stories
Wor Vince has fleshed out Lib Dem policy on how to respond to the parlous state of public finance – and Michael White approves.
Number crunchers at the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies, whose own estimate of the required squeeze will be published tomorrow, call his nine suggestions a “state-of-the-art shopping list”. As so often with Lib Dem ideas, it includes some which bigger parties are closing in on: trimming tax credit for better-off families, curtailing ID cards and the NHS IT system, freezing public sector pay (TUC please note) and ending £28bn worth of subsidy to public sector pensions (ditto).
Meanwhile, the US and Europe are starting to have differences on the future of climate change policy.
Europe has clashed with the US Obama administration over climate change in a potentially damaging split that comes ahead of crucial political negotiations on a new global deal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
The Guardian understands that key differences have emerged between the US and Europe over the structure of a new worldwide treaty on global warming. Sources on the European side say the US approach could undermine the new treaty and weaken the world’s ability to cut carbon emissions.
Two must-read blog posts
Polly’s attempt to manufacture a causal link between the absence of the ISA and three horrific child murders does not stack up. The link between the ISA’s bureaucratic paedophile hunt and the incompetent failure of a council to protect a Baby Peter is simply the word ‘child’. Almost every recent case of child abuse or murder which has chilled us has been either ’strangers’ (Sarah Payne, James Bulger, Milly Dowler, Holly & Jessica) or family (Baby Peter, Victoria Climbié, Shannon Matthews). Yet despite the fact that cases of child abuse have remained fairly static over the last 30 years and all analysis points to the fact that the greatest danger to our children is in their own homes, the government decides to view over 11 million people as potential abusers and set up a huge bureaucracy to check on them.
Bernard Salmon gives a brief history of England. So brief that if I quote any of it, there’ll barely be any point in popping over to chez Salmon!
Niles's Blog 