What’s happening
09:30 NO to AV launches its campaign for a ‘No’ vote in the forthcoming referendum on using AV at the general election.
Also at 09:30 Bob Crow, RMT head and Ray Collins, general secretary of the Labour Party, give evidence at a select committee hearing on party political finance.
14:30 The ‘AV and constituencies’ bill is debated in the Commons, with MPs considering recent Lords amendments.
18:45 Malcolm Rifkind, former foreign secretary,speaks alongside Tariq Ramadan at a debate on the future of democracy in the Arab world.
What’s been said
The Times suggests that behind today’s headlines about poor NHS nursing standards lies a “strange distinction between health and social care”. It describes immediate problems as being down to “[poor] continuity of care”, but adds that more should be done to prevent hospital admissions “in the first place”.
Writing in The Guardian, Polly Toynbee describes David Cameron’s big society agenda as “shared national joke” backed up by a bank from whom “many who doubt the voluntary sector can afford to borrow”.
And the Daily Star addresses the story of teenager Nicola Weaver, who is reported to consume “15 litres of cider, 10 cans of lager and half a litre of vodka every week”. The paper worries about the “burden [to] the NHS” of her future health problems and suggests it “shows just how serious the problem of binge Britain has become”.
Stats of the day
1.5m – the number of people currently receiving incapacity benefits who are to be reviewed as part of the government’s drive to get people off welfare and into work.
5,000 – the number of RAF personnel the government is planning to cut by 2015.
10% - the percentage cuts facing local government-funded teenage pregnancy and drug abuse projects next year.
Comments
Be the first to comment on this article!