Some excellent investigative journalism out of Serbia, as one TV journalist decides to deploy her most basic journalistic instincts:

His face…

As many of you will know, we received unexpected visit from the Commons Chief Fire Safety Officer yesterday morning.

I think it’s fair to say that he was not at all happy with what he saw in some of our offices, i.e. the large amounts of paper lying around.  He stressed to me the need for immediate action.

I know that a clear desk policy is simply not something we do, but we do need to be seen to be taking action.  Therefore this is a plea to everyone to take a dispassionate look at your office generally and your desk in particular.  Do you really need ALL the newspapers/magazines/piles of paper which are lying around?  If not, please, please throw some of it away as soon as possible.  If you really can’t bear to part with any of it could you at least tidy up – a neat pile looks a lot less than a haphazard heap that appears to be about to fall over!

The Fire Officer will be back for a further inspection SOON, possibly as soon as FRIDAY THIS WEEK, and certainly next week.

Look at it this way, the paper attracts the mice (who use it for nesting material so the pest control officer tells me) – so less paper means fewer mice, which can’t be bad!

Regards,

Elizabeth Johnson

Administrator

Parliamentary Press Gallery

They are officially a hazard. Guido could have told you that already…

From the reaction around him, Guido is in the no camp…

Way back in August 2011 Guido wrote an article - “One Term Tories“ - predicting that if the economy didn’t get going the Tories would not win in 2015. This was before it was fashionable, before Ed Miliband’s “One Nation” speech when he was still considered a joke by the Tories and well before the bookies made Labour favourites to be the largest party.  The article was re-tweeted furiously by the likes of Peter Hain and other Labourites who pretend not to read this blog.

Last night’s vote embedded Labour’s electoral advantage, psephologist Anthony Wells says the current constituency boundaries give the Tories a 7% to 11% electoral handicap depending on how the LibDems perform. Is Cameron doomed?

If the answer the electorate give to Ronald Reagan’s “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” question is “No”, they probably are not going to be the largest party in 2015. This fact should concentrate minds in Downing Street more than any other issue, not Europe, gay marriage, HS2, Heathrow runways or any of the other side issues. Getting the economy growing is all that matters.

The government is going down a Keynesian path accelerating capital infrastructure projects – most of which will be shovel-ready in time to hand an incoming Labour government a growth boost. Ed Balls, the IMF, the editor of City A.M. Allister Heath and Guido all agree that an immediate stimulus would come from tax cuts. The Treasury resists the idea because it will widen the deficit. Well they are going to miss the deficit target anyway, you might as well miss it for the right reasons.

We can argue about what kind of tax cuts are best, Ed Balls and the IMF say a temporary VAT cut. Guido favours income tax rate cuts and threshold hikes, Allister Heath wants job creating cuts in business taxes. The Taxpayers’ Alliance revealed this week that the Coalition has raised 299 taxes. A flat-lining economy needs the government to get off its back and stimulate the economy, now.

In 2006 Dave told Tories to stop “banging on about Europe”, today he has written a script for his MPs to read out.

Best question of the day…

Not a bad response from the PM to Galloway either:

“Wherever there is a brutal Arab dictator, he can always count on support of George Galloway…”

Labour MP Alex Cunningham wins PMQs:

“Have traces of stalking horse been found in the Conservative food chain?”

Comments in the comments please…

Figures out this lunchtime show that the UCAS application rate from disadvantaged backgrounds has also risen to the highest ever on record at 19.5%. Students were smart enough to understand that no up front fees for university education was a great deal.

All that NUS and Labour scaremongering has turned out to be just that…

Labour fire authority member Andrew Dismore tells Boris:

“You’re like Guy Fawkes. You want to burn down the Houses of Parliament.”