"Alistair Darling was given six months by his fellow European Union finance ministers yesterday to bring Britain's budget deficit below the 3 per cent of gross domestic product required by the single currency rule book.
In an embarrassing move for the Government, the ministers formally opened an excessive deficit procedure against Britain, insisting that the overshoot had to be brought below the 3 per cent ceiling “as soon as possible and by financial year 2009-10 at the latest”.
They added that once the deficit had been brought within acceptable limits, certain medium-term objectives should be followed, including prudent debt ratios that took account of the economic and budgetary impact of ageing populations, and sufficient room for budgetary manoeuvre to meet public investment needs.
To meet that longer target, Britain's partners established “the deadline of January 8, 2009, for the United Kingdom to take effective action”."
Oddly the BBC seem to have decided not to cover this story at all. In fact their politics home page has as a headline story " Brown has 'true grit' says Harman", a number two story of "Tory crackdown on MEPs' expenses" and number 3 of "G8 'revulsion' at Zimbabwe crisis".
The "OTHER TOP STORIES" are apparently:
Key points: PM Questions - where Ben Wright points out how poorly Harriet Harman did - obviously the BBC are still backing Gordon Brown.
Minister warns on housing market - "Commons leader Harriet Harman has told MPs there is "grave cause for concern" about the housing market but said the government was "taking action"... she agreed it was "serious" but said it was not as bad as during the 1990s." - However bad things are now, remember how bad they were under the Tories.
Peer's apology over racist phrase - "A Tory frontbencher has apologised after using a racist phrase during a House of Lords debate." - A standard evil, racist Tories story.
Tories unveil recycling pay plans - "A Tory government would encourage schemes under which people would be paid to recycle, shadow chancellor George Osborne is due to announce." - The rarest of beasts, a largely positive story about a Conservative party policy, action against the journalist cannot be far behind.
'Prize draw' to encourage voting - "Voters in English local elections could be entered into a "prize draw" in an effort to increase turnout, says communities secretary Hazel Blears." - A "lighter lead-in story" designed to annoy and infuriate anyone who actually cares about politics, with a followup article that sounds like much that we have heard before.
Brown pledges anti-knife measures - "Ministers will take "any legislative measures" necessary to tackle knife crime, Gordon Brown has insisted." - Another Gordon Brown gets tough on crime story that will have as mucg effect on crime and indeed legislation as the last half a dozen such announcements.
Fathers protest on Harman's roof - "Two fathers' rights campaigners are holding a roof-top protest at the home of Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman." - After today's PMQs maybe the quickest way to get the protestors down would be to threaten them with Harriet coming up to have a hectoring word with them.
No comments:
Post a Comment