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» Wednesday, February 8, 2006

Glorification-Terrorism

Asked that if the Government got its way, and the Bill reached royal assent, would it be retrospective, the PMOS said it tended to be the case that such legislation was not retrospective. The PMOS suggested that the journalist spoke to the Home Office to be sure.

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

Sinn Fein Allowance

Asked what the vote on Sinn Fein allowances was about, the PMOS said it was about restoring their MPs allowances, which were taken away from Sinn Fein because of previous activity. The Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) report last year recommended they be removed and if people looked at the IMC report published last week it recommended that all financial sanctions on Sinn Fein should now be lifted. This would be voted on in the House this afternoon. There was also the new allowance of Short money.

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

QinetiQ

Asked to comment on Lord Gilbert's phrase that the QinetiQ sell off was "bloody outrageous", the PMOS replied that Lord Drayson had set out the reasons behind it. As he had said before, the taxpayer benefited from the eight times rise in value of this company, because of the stakeholding that we had kept. The PMOS said he was not sure that Lord Gilbert's phrase would be one shared by the taxpayer in terms of the added value that had been added to not only the company, but also the taxpayers' holdings in it.

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

Prime Minister’s Voting Plans

Asked whether the Prime Minister would be voting on the ID card, smoking and terrorism divisions next week, the PMOS said the Prime Minister would decide when the votes came up. However journalists could take it that the Prime Minister regarded ID cards and terrorism as being important bills. The smoking bill was a free vote for MPs and as such the Prime Minister chose not to indicate in advance his intentions. Asked if this was why he had curtailed his trip to South Africa, the PMOS said the Prime Minister had important work to do in South Africa, but there was also important work to be done here.

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

Afghanistan

Asked whether the Prime Minister was concerned about cross party support for the deployment of troops to Afghanistan, the PMOS said it was for others to talk about whether they supported the deployment or not. We had been very clear about the reasons why the deployment was necessary. Those reasons had been set out by the Defence Secretary and were to support the democratically elected Afghan Government as it tried to create the physical, economic and political infrastructure that was necessary for a state to survive and overcome those who would wish to return to the days of the Taliban.

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

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» Wednesday, February 8, 2006

Glorification-Terrorism

Sinn Fein Allowance

QinetiQ

Prime Minister’s Voting Plans

Afghanistan

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