Downing Street Says » 2005

» Monday, October 24, 2005

Baghdad

Asked if the Prime Minister had been informed about the triple bombing in Baghdad, the PMOS said that it had just broken as we had left.

Briefing took place at 16:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

Syria

Asked if we support sanctions being imposed on Syria in the light of the Mehlis report commissioned by the UN, the PMOS said that Mr Mehlis was making his report to the UN tomorrow. We fully supported the call for a foreign ministers session at the UN and we fully supported those who said this was a very serious matter and Syria needed to live up to its international obligations. What was important was that we let the UN process go forward. That was as much as we could say at this stage. It was clearly a very serious report which required a very serious response.

Briefing took place at 16:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

Tripartite Informal Summit

Asked if the David Blunkett/ Alan Johnson paper: A Modern Dimension for Europe, Principles for Reform was the Government's position, the PMOS said that it was there for journalists to read.

Briefing took place at 16:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

Informal European Summit

Asked if the Prime Minister thought that Angela Merkel should attend the summit, the PMOS said that it was a matter for the German government who represented Germany and as a matter of fact Chancellor Schroeder was still Chancellor, the invitation was to Chancellor Schroeder and the anticipation was that he would be there. He would remind journalists that the purpose of the summit was to have a debate on how the EU responded to globalisation and it was President Barroso had set out in The Times this morning, that he did not believe that the status quo was an option. We fully supported that.

Briefing took place at 16:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

EU Informal Summit

Asked for details on Thursday's Summit, the PMOS said that he would provide a detailed briefing tomorrow morning. The summit would focus on how Europe would face the challenge from globalisation. It would not be on future finance. Asked how we would measure the success of the informal summit, the PMOS said that if a consensus was reached on the EU' response to globalisation.

Briefing took place at 16:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

PM’s Education Speech

Asked what would be left for the LEA's to do, the PMOS said that White Paper would be published tomorrow. The Prime Minister had been indicating that LEA's should focus on the strategic direction of schools, not the detail freeing schools to be able to do what they are good at.

Briefing took place at 16:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

» Friday, October 21, 2005

Public Sector Pensions deal

Asked about the article in the Times suggesting displeasure in Downing Street at the way Alan Johnson handled the public sector pensions agreement, the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that people should look at what we had said in the press briefings on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon where we had set out why we believed this was a good deal. It would save £13bn between now and 2050. It was always a case that the bulk of that saving, 85%, would come from new entrants. Asked how much displeasure had the Prime Minister felt at the way Alan Johnson handled things, the PMOS said that Downing Street's attitude was contained in those two briefing notes.

Briefing took place at 13:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

Clare Short’s Bill

Asked what the Government's attitude to Clare Short's Bill requiring a vote in Parliament before troops could be deployed, the PMOS said that the fact of the matter was that there had been a vote before Iraq. As both the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary had said on the record in the past that no government would want to put itself in a position, that could not be foreseen at the moment, where action had to take place very quickly and it could not react quickly without giving an enemy, in those unforeseen circumstances, advanced notice and robbed itself of the element of surprise. That was the basis on which the Government approached this issue.

Briefing took place at 13:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (4)

Economy

Asked if was the Prime Minister still comfortable that this was the right time to raise the overall tax burden on the economy following today's economic growth figures that showed another slowdown in the third quarter, the fifth quarter of sub trend growth, the PMOS said that tax questions were a matter for the Chancellor at the budget time and a matter for the Treasury to comment on. In terms of the fundamentals of the economy we believed the economy was strong.

Briefing took place at 13:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (2)

» Thursday, October 20, 2005

Avian Flu meeting

Asked about the Prime Minister's Avian Flu meeting the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that the National Farmers' Union (NFU) were putting out a press release. It talked about putting guidance on bio security out to the poultry industry including to what was known as the "hobby" poultry farmers, in other words those that had a few birds. They also talked about getting guidance out to the industry on worker safety and about how we could have a common database on poultry throughout the country. It was worth noting that the NFU had stressed and everybody agreed, including both World Health Organisation and the Food Standards Agency that UK poultry was safe. Avian Flu presented no human health threat from eating poultry products. We were agreed with the NFU.

Briefing took place at 17:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

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» Monday, October 24, 2005

Baghdad

Syria

Tripartite Informal Summit

Informal European Summit

EU Informal Summit

PM’s Education Speech

» Friday, October 21, 2005

Public Sector Pensions deal

Clare Short’s Bill

Economy

» Thursday, October 20, 2005

Avian Flu meeting

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