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» Friday, November 18, 2005

Education Speech

Asked what the Prime Minister hoped to achieve today and what his message was to members of his party who still remained unconvinced, the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that what the Prime Minister had set out to achieve today was first of all to recognise the improvements there had been in the education system in the last few years. He had set those out in detail in the speech. Secondly, he had wanted to recognise two things. One that even with those improvements there were still many children who left school without 5 good GCSEs and that there were still too many children in deprived areas that were not getting as good an education as they should. Two, in the globalised world that we lived in we needed to raise the skill and educational base of this country.

Briefing took place at 8:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

Bill Clinton-Iraq

Asked if the Prime Minister agreed with Bill Clinton on Iraq, the PMOS said the important point to recognise was that in the constitutional referendum 10 million Iraqis voted, in the January election 8 million people voted. We now had more parties than ever registered to vote in the December election. This now included Sunni parties. None of that could have happened if Saddam had still been in power. Asked if he was saying Clinton was wrong, the PMOS said that rather than commenting on other people's speeches we should deal with the facts. They were that, painfully admittedly, slowly but surely a democracy was being established in Iraq. The Prime Minister himself had said there was aspects of what happened that could have been done differently, such as de-baathification. That did not take away from the real progress that had been made.

Briefing took place at 8:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

Whitehall Expenditure

Asked if there had been a £1bn overspend by Whitehall departments and if that was true what did it say about the Government's economic stewardship, the PMOS said without knowing where that figure had come from keeping departmental spending under tight rains remained a big priority for this Government. It would continue to do so as outlined in the spending review.

Briefing took place at 8:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

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» Friday, November 18, 2005

Education Speech

Bill Clinton-Iraq

Whitehall Expenditure

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