What’s happening
12:00 Jack Straw, former justice secretary, talks alongside Lord Adonis and others about the future of select committees in government.
14:30 Home secretary Theresa May takes questions in the Commons.
18:00 Shadow development secretary Harriet Harman speaks on women in Afghanistan and beyond at a Foreign Policy Centre event.
What’s been said
The Guardian carries George Monbiot’s suggestion that the organisers of a forthcoming TUC rally need a “draft statement of aims” alongside their protest against cuts. He proposes a “Robin Hood tax” on financial transactions, increased focus on “tax avoidance”, and a target of reducing income inequality by 0.5% per year as possible campaign points.
Archbishop Rowan Williams, writing in The Times, highlights the murder of Pakistani minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti, suggesting it is a “precursor of a breakdown of legal and political order and of long-term suffering for a whole population”. He argues that “the government of Pakistan and the great majority of its population are, in effect, being blackmailed”, and appeals for a “rational debate” about the blasphemy laws which are purportedly behind the killing.
In the Daily Mail, Andrew Pierce argues that Gordon Brown has “rediscovered an appetite for politics” now that the top job at the International Monetary Fund appears to be up for grabs. However he counsels Brown not to get too excited, as the “harsh fact is that neither the PM nor his Chancellor has the slightest intention of recommending their old nemesis for the IMF post".
Stats of the day
6 – The number of SAS soldiers released last night after being detained by Libyan rebels during a diplomatic mission in the country.
£1,000 – The suggested value of RBS and Lloyds Bank shares that may be given to each adult member of the public under new Lib Dem proposals.
18 months – The length of the sentence imposed on the alleged friend of UK trade envoy Prince Andrew, financier Jeffrey Epstein, for soliciting a minor for prostitution.
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