» Monday, June 26, 2006

A year after Glenagles

The Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (PMOS) outlined the speech the Prime Minister would deliver this evening at King's College London. The Prime Minister would set out the progress made since Gleneagles on Africa and Climate Change. He would announce that he was establishing the Africa Progress Panel, which was something that the Commission for Africa had called for. It would be a panel of world leaders from all sectors to ensure that the promises made at Gleneagles on Africa were kept. Kofi Annan had agreed to co-chair the panel. Bob Geldof and President Obasanjo were also on the panel as was Peter Eigen, the founder of Transparency International. Other panel members would be announced at a later date. The Gates Foundation had agreed to fund the panel and the secretariat.

Briefing took place at 6:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

Charles Clarke

Put to the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (PMOS) that Charles Clarke's letter to the Select Committee made clear that he knew nothing about the foreign prisoners being deported in March 2005, and had the Prime Minister also known nothing about the foreign prisoners being deported, the PMOS said that we had gone over this at the time, and the PMOS had nothing to add, as he was not getting into processology. We had set out the sequence of when people had known what, and there was nothing further to say.

Briefing took place at 6:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (2)

Charles Clarke

Asked if the Prime Minister had any comment on Charles Clarke's letter to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and comments from interviews this evening, the PMOS said that it was always better to wait for the actual interview before commenting. We had set out, at the time, the process and we had nothing further to add to what had been said then. Mr Clarke was perfectly entitled as an ex-Minister to set out his sequence of events but we had said all we wanted at this time.

Briefing took place at 6:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

Northern Ireland

Asked that in the spirit of looking forward, not back, what was happening with the Northern Ireland visit later in the week, the PMOS said that we had set up a Committee for Preparing for Government to try and meet the deadline of 24th November for restoration of devolution. The Prime Minister and the Taoseach would meet the parties on Thursday essentially to assess what had happened, and also to ensure that momentum continued towards the November deadline.

Briefing took place at 6:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

Pensions

Asked if the government was going to freeze contributions to public sector pensions, the PMOS said that he had nothing to add to what the Cabinet Office had said over the weekend, which was that we would honour our agreement. Discussions on detail were continuing.

Briefing took place at 6:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

Human Rights Act

Asked what the Government's position was on the Human Rights Act, and would it stay, etc, the PMOS replied that he wanted to take a step back of only 50 years, to say that we had been members of the European Convention on Human Rights for 50 years. The Human Rights Act incorporated that into our legislation. The reason why we were members of the European Convention was because it allowed us to comply with our international obligations, and therefore protected British citizens abroad. The Human Rights Act was therefore incorporated into British law, and stopped the process which used to be the case where people had to go to Strasbourg to appeal their cases. The PMOS said that there were problems around the interpretation of the Act, and the DCA were looking at that as part of the overall review which involved the DCA and the Home Office. Lord Goldsmith had made the position for the Government very clear on this yesterday.

Briefing took place at 6:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

EU Rebate-Budget

Asked to comment on the suggestion of revisiting the EU budget deal, the PMOS said that there were always after EU budget deals technical discussions and this came under that heading.

Briefing took place at 6:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

Football

Asked if the Prime Minister had any business in Germany on Saturday, the PMOS said not that he was aware of.

Briefing took place at 6:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

Somme

Asked if the Prime Minister had any plans to go to the Somme 90th anniversary celebrations, PMOS said that he was not aware of any plans to do so.

Briefing took place at 6:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

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