Exclusive: Benefit checks to cost £100m a year

Seeing as the costs of the government’s reforms to welfare and unemployment are in the news today I thought it would be a good day to reveal an exclusive I have been sitting on – the costs of testing every individual on incapacity benefit are to be at least £100m a year.

The rainbow coalition…

There seems to be some confusion in the Conservative Party about mixing colours. The MP Mark Pritchard has labelled those who are proposing to merge the Conservatives and the Lib Dems the ‘purple plotters’ but it is unclear why they are purple.

The two parties’ colours are yellow and blue which when mixed together, as any 7 year-old will tell you, makes green, not purple.

In an article for today’s Mail on Sunday, Mr Pritchard says they are purple because they are trying to permanently blend the traditional blue and yellow colours of each party with a dash of red for the sizeable Lib Dem Left’.

But red, yellow and blue together makes brown, not purple. Maybe Pritchard should get his water colours out…

The lasting legacy of Cablegate will be Cameron’s disdain for The Telegraph

The lasting legacy of The Telegraph’s secret taping of Vince Cable may be a breakdown in the relationship between the paper and David Cameron.

When will the first paper go online only?

I have thinking that I wanted to make this whole blog lark a bit more interactive so I thought I would ask you guys a question for a change. I have set up a quick poll about the future of newspapers with the single question – “When will the first national paper go online only?” – by this I am thinking of the big London-based dailies really.

Would love to get your feedback. I can’t quite work out how to embed the thing in my blog (tips please) so have a click through below…

When will the first national newspaper go online only?
(polls)

Twitter takes over the courts…

Today, in what is thought to be the first case of its kind, the judge in the Julian Assange case has said that journalists can tweet throughout the trial providing “it’s quiet and doesn’t disturb anything.” This case really is landmark in the future of journalism.

The EU, the SNP and student fees – why is the Mail not having a field day?

Guest Blog by Alex Rowley

 

Reaction to the tuition fees debate has been in the papers a lot recently. The UK government voted in favour of raising the fees to a minimum of £6,000 and maximum of £9,000 in exceptional cases. In Wales it was confirmed that these rises would not be taking place, in Scotland it is under review but still free and Northern Ireland may follow the Welsh lead of keeping fees the same for those resident there.

The EU has not been in the news recently but to jog your memory, institutions must charge EU students the same as local students. So while those from Gretna are charged the same as those from Guttenberg for attending the University of Aberdeen, those from Berwick-upon-Tweed are not.

The Times abandons its own front page…

On Monday night I blogged that the Times’s story for Tuesday’s front page was a woeful rehash of a Telegraph story from last month. Either someone is reading this blog or someone else noticed because by the second edition they had changed the story on the front page, something you very rarely see in national papers.

The first edition led with “One dose of aspirin a day cuts cancer risk” but by the second edition that night they had changed to “Pullout of Helmand troops to start early”