Morning Report – April 11th

The first full week of recess begins, and Westminster has gone into that sleepy hibernation period where little fresh news appears, but old news can still rumble on for weeks in the vacuum. So it’s bad news for News International, Andy Coulson and the Met that phone hacking was the big story at the end of last week. With the alternative headlines for most editors being “sun is shining, politicians are away”, most have understandably chosen to rake over the phone hacking coals.

According to the Guardian, Sir Gus O’Donnell – the cabinet secretary – halted an inquiry into phone-hacking, judging it to be too close to the general election. That’s a huge powergrab by the civil service if true. Tom Harris has told GO’D exactly what he thinks of him. Good on him.

In the Telegraph today, Boris Johnson reprised his unusual take on the affair which he introduced to an unsuspecting world yesterday. Supposedly if you’re not on the list then you’re not famous enough. I’m not sure that’s the point Boris.

It seems that the mea culpas on the economy are spreading. Ed Balls has repeatedly apologised for Labour’s handling of financial regulation, but now Gordon Brown has done likewise at a conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, at the weekend. According to the Telegrapg Brown said “We set up the FSA believing the problem would come from the failure of an individual institution. That was the big mistake. We didn’t understand just how entangled things were.”

Meanwhile, George Osborne, who we all assumed was furiously focussed on eliminating the deficit, is considering abolishing the 50p top rate of income tax as soon as 2013, in a bid to make Britain more competitive. This follows his decision to slash corporation tax. Evidently it’s deficit reduction for the little people, but tax reducation for the rich. At the same time, the average household will be £910 worse off. Delightful.