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» Friday, January 20, 2006

Ruth Kelly Statement

Asked if it could still be said that 88 was a small number of sex offenders to be teaching children, the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that original questions were about the number of cases in which Ministers had made decisions.

Briefing took place at 16:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (4)

Rendition flights

Asked what was the Prime Minister's response to the leaked document regarding rendition flights, the PMOS said he had dealt with that question, and there was nothing more to say about it. As he had said earlier, people were getting much more excited about the fact of the leak, rather than about the content of it. If people read the document, it said nothing new.

Briefing took place at 16:00 | Read whole briefing | Comment (1)

Drugs classification

Put that Charles Clarke wanted to look again at all the classifications of all drugs, and did that open the way to making Ecstasy in the same league as heroin, for example, the PMOS replied that what Charles Clarke was acknowledging was that it was not driven by a particular desire to explore a particular outcome. Rather, a desire to have as rational a system as possible, and that system had to reflect the relative harm to individuals and to society of particular drugs. It was sensible to look at that, but the PMOS said he was not going to pre-empt the outcome of the consultation process.

Briefing took place at 16:00 | Read whole briefing | Comment (1)

Reshuffle

Asked where the Prime Minister was planning to be tomorrow, and might he be working on a reshuffle, the PMOS said he thought the question was an innocent one to do with the Prime Minister's travel plans! With regards to the reshuffle, the Prime Minister would do it when he was ready to do the reshuffle.

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

France’s Nuclear plan

Put that President Chirac had said earlier that he thought that France's nuclear deterrent was very helpful against terrorists, and did Britain have a similar position on that, the PMOS said it was an effective deterrent, full stop.

Briefing took place at 16:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (7)

Sex Offenders

Asked if it was right that 150 of the 210 people who were given a partial ban on List 99 had a record of sex offences, the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that he did not recognise that figure. The important thing was that since 2000, the partial ban had gone as part of the tightening of the process that the Government had undertaken.

Briefing took place at 9:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

Education White Paper

Asked if it was a good idea for Ruth Kelly on the radio this morning to suggest that opponents of the Education White Paper, such as Lord Kinnock and Estelle Morris, simply "did not know what they were talking about", the PMOS replied that that was not what Ruth Kelly had said.

Briefing took place at 9:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

Al Jazeera

Put that the memo at the centre of the court case did not mention bombing Al Jazeera, but did it mention Al Jazeera in any sense, the PMOS said that as he had said at the time, he was not going to get involved in revealing private discussions between the Prime Minister and the President, anymore than he would discuss private conversations between the Prime Minister and any other world leader. There was, however a specific allegation repeatedly put, and that issue was what the PMOS had been trying to deal with.

Briefing took place at 9:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

International Development Bill

Asked if the Prime Minister had anything to say about the International Development Bill that was going through the Commons, the PMOS replied that he was not aware of any comments the Prime Minister wished to make on it.

Briefing took place at 9:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

National Lottery

Asked what the Prime Minister's response was to allegations that the National Lottery was being used as a "slush fund" to subsidise activities that should have been funded by the Government, the PMOS said that there was a debate in 1998 between those who said that the money should only be used for things such as sports, arts, heritage etc, versus those who believed that the money should be used for other areas such as education or environment, for example. If people looked at opinion polls in this area, what they showed was that the public believed that they were proper areas for lottery money to be used in. They were being used to good effect, so the Government would reject any suggestion that the money was being used in an inappropriate way; public opinion would seem to support that view.

Briefing took place at 9:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

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» Friday, January 20, 2006

Ruth Kelly Statement

Rendition flights

Drugs classification

Reshuffle

France’s Nuclear plan

Sex Offenders

Education White Paper

Al Jazeera

International Development Bill

National Lottery

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