Morning Report – June 3rd

Friday in recess – rarely an auspicious time for political news, and as a quiet week hits the buffers of the weekend there’s relatively little to report this morning. Perhaps the biggest issue in today’s papers in the government’s confusion over PFI. Put simply, is it a good thing or a bad thing? Anyone listening to the government in recent years would assume that PFI was a bad thing – it’s what that horrible Gordon Brown used to do after all – and hospitals could be bailed out of costly PFI deals according to the Telegraph. Yet at the same time Michael Gove wants to build 100 new state schools with PFI money. Joined up government? Consistency of message? Not exactly…

Over at the Times(£), Philip Collins is concerned about Labour’s low levels of fundraising (as we all should be), noting that Labour’s ability to bring in private donations is only slightly better than UKIP’s. Else where the Independent back an amnesty for refugees, and Ken Clarke “is also to ignore demands to appoint a “women’s justice champion” with the task of ensuring that the specific needs of female offenders are at the heart of his department’s work”(£).

A quiet day then – but we’re sure something will come along to shake things up – it usually does.