David cameron

The government's business taskforce will give a presentation today to Cabinet on its report on slashing EU regulation. David Cameron has already indicated that he will support the 30 recommendations in the report, compiled by M&S chief executive Marc Bolland, Kingfisher chief executive Ian Cheshire, ATG Access managing director Glenn Cooper, BTG chief executive Louise Makin, entrepreneur Dale Murray and Diageo boss Paul Walsh. European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso has said that he will look to resolve complaints about legislation burdening companies, and Cameron sees this as an important way of showing that Britain can lead on making the case for reform in the European Union as a whole.

Rather to my embarrassment, I find that I missed last night’s episode of the BBC2 three-part series on The Ottomans, Europe’s Muslim Conquerors, in which I briefly featured. So Heaven knows what I actually said in it; it’s been a while since filming. But I’m rather hoping that the point I wanted to get across did, viz, that it’s nuts, barking mad, insane, away with the fairies, for Britain to be agitating for Turkey to be part of the EU. On David Cameron’s last visit to Turkey in 2010, he expressed anger at the delay in Turkey’s admission to the Union and blamed opponents for playing on fears of Islam in order to advance their case. Which more or less mirrors the rhetoric from Labour on the same subject.

More than 140 of the 147 Tory MPs elected in 2010 have written to Adam Afriyie telling him to drop his amendment to the EU referendum bill. Given that Afriyie has previously suggested he’ll drop his attempt to bring the referendum forward to 2014 there is no support for it, it now seems doomed. This loyalist flexing of political muscle by the 2010 Tory intake will cheer Downing Street. It shows that the parliamentary party does, for the moment at least, want to stay united on Europe. It also indicates that a certain discipline is returning to Tory ranks as the next election approaches. Even six months ago, an amendment of this sort would have caused the leadership real trouble.

There is something contemptible about Nick Clegg's latest piece of handwringing. the Deputy Prime Minister - a position that, at least notionally, carries some clout - complains that he'd very much like to do something about Britain's antiquated drug laws but, well, he can't because it's hard and, besides, the Tories are such rotters. Clegg could have made this a cause. He could have done something about this before now. He could, at the very least, have talked about the War on Drugs rather more than he has. He could even have noted, frequently, that David Cameron has changed his own tune on these matters, abandoning the sensible attitude he once had. He has, instead, chosen not to. That's fine and his prerogative.

The Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats undertook reshuffles today. As it happened, here is how Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth, Isabel Hardman and Sebastian Payne reported the day's events. You can see a list of who's in and out here. 1839:  So in the end three reshuffles that could have toiled on all week are pretty much wrapped up by the end of play. Here are our top lines from tonight's Evening Blend: All three parties reshuffled their frontbench ranks, with a cull of the Blairites in Labour and jobs for rising stars and allies of George Osborne for the Tories. …while Nick Clegg showed his brutal side by sacking popular Home Office minister Jeremy Browne with a terse letter. The new appointments include a beefed-up whips' office.

There are two more government resignations ahead of tonight’s reshuffle. John Randall, the deputy chief whip, has gone as has Chloe Smith, the Cabinet Office minister. Randall’s retirement has been overdue for a while now in the opinion of many in Downing Street. There is irritation at the way he put pressure on David Cameron to get rid of Andrew Mitchell during the plebgate affair. His departure and the expected elevation of several whips—Nicky Morgan and Karen Bradley are both in line for promotion—paves the way for a freshening up of the whips’ office. Chloe Smith quitting is going to tempt everyone to dust off the footage of that Paxman interview with her.

We’re about to find out what Tory MPs really think of John Bercow. Simon Burns, Bercow’s biggest Tory critic--and that’s says something, has resigned his ministerial post to run for deputy speaker. If he wins, the Speaker will be forced to work day in, day out with someone who, as Tim Shipman who broke the story points out, once called him a ‘stupid, sanctimonious dwarf’. David Cameron’s very warm letter accepting Burns’ resignation suggests that the Prime Minister is rather amused by the prospect. I also suspect that he’s grateful for Burns freeing up a ministerial post ahead of the reshuffle next week. The vote for deputy speaker is a free vote.

1. Labour set the agenda for this conference. Ed Miliband might be preoccupied by his row with the Daily Mail about his father, but he can take heart that his shift to the left in Brighton last week had a huge influence over this Conservative party conference. This wasn't just the cost of living agenda, which Tory ministers felt the need to rebut and respond to in their own speeches, but, as James explains in his politics column this week (get a sneak preview on Coffee House here), Ed Miliband has energised the Tories into being more determined than ever to beat Labour. David Cameron's own speech contained 25 references to Labour, and he tried to deal with Ed Miliband in a number of ways, which I outlined here.