The Climbing Down Quickens

[Snoopy]

Number 1
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8020039.stm

Communications firms are being asked to record all internet contacts between people as part of a modernisation in UK police surveillance tactics.

The home secretary scrapped plans for a database but wants details to be held and organised for security services.

The new system would track all e-mails, phone calls and internet use, including visits to social network sites.

The Tories said the Home Office had "buckled under Conservative pressure" in deciding against a giant database.

Announcing a consultation on a new strategy for communications data and its use in law enforcement, Jacqui Smith said there would be no single government-run database.

Number 2
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8021222.stm

Plans for three 2,500-place Titan prisons have been scrapped, Justice Secretary Jack Straw has confirmed.

Mr Straw told MPs in the Commons that five "modern, purpose-built" 1,500-capacity jails would be built instead.

In December 2007, the government announced plans to build the three Titan jails at a cost of £350m each.

Shadow justice secretary Dominic Grieve welcomed the "u-turn" by the government but said plans for "giant warehouses" had been flawed from the start.

He also regretted that the decision had been leaked in advance.

Number 3
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8020332.stm

The government has abandoned plans for a vote on scrapping MPs' second homes allowance, sources have told the BBC.

Gordon Brown's plan to replace it with a flat-rate daily allowance failed to win support from the Tories, Lib Dems and many backbench Labour MPs.

MPs will instead vote on other plans for reform, such as making the Commons responsible for employing staff.

The Tories and Lib Dems argued that an attendance allowance which did not require receipts was less transparent.

The BBC understands the issue of the second homes allowances will be left to an independent inquiry by the committee on standards in public life, which is due to report back by the end of 2009.

Gordon is clearly on the back foot now ~ time to put him out of his misery. Cameron MUST go for broke with a vote of no confidence soon surely.

[Grumpmeister]

Perhaps we should start plugging that petition website for all it's worth and then email Cameron the link when it hits 250k

"Can the Prime Minister tell my why a quarter of a million people have signed a petition on the Downing Street website saying that he should go immediately"

That could be a PMQ's worth watching.