Isabel Hardman

Last week David Cameron found himself in trouble after Prime Minister's Questions over a slip of the tongue about energy bills: this week he's managed to get himself into trouble over what looks like yet another slip of the tongue at PMQs. The Prime Minster appeared to suggest that tomorrow's GDP figures, which are under strict embargo, will be good news for the government. The heat was on for Cameron, as Ed Miliband was performing reasonably well, with some good jokes (including 'I asked him a question about the railways - I have to say the Chancellor shouts, it's not the ticket that needs upgrading, it's the Chancellor of the Exchequer').

Nick Clegg is giving a speech this evening in which he will try to re-sell the Liberal Democrats as friends of business. Admitting that he hasn't 'said enough' about the party's pro-business policies, he will tell the guests at Mansion House: 'Many in the corporate world do not - automatically - see the Liberal Democrats as natural allies. Perhaps that's because, most recently, we've rightly earned ourselves a reputation as loud critics of corporate irresponsibility… Not least in financial service following the crash in 2008. Yet, historically, the Liberal Democrats are a party of industrialists and small business… And, since coming into government, we've been taking decisions, day in, day out, to promote British business.

George Entwistle seemed rather mild-mannered at his first appearance before the Culture, Media and Sport select committee this morning. But after listening to him for two hours, MPs were starting to suggest that the BBC director general was making a quietly savage attack on one of his juniors. It will be astonishing if, after Entwistle's evidence, Newsnight editor Peter Rippon is not called before the committee. Entwistle told the committee that he had asked Rippon to 'step aside because of my disappointment at the inaccuracies in the blog… he hasn't stepped aside to prepare or the Pollard review, he's stepped aside because of it'.

Conservative backbenchers will be wondering this morning whether they should bother replying to any letters from their constituents about any unpopular government policy. Environment Secretary Owen Paterson is to announce today that the planned badger cull will be postponed following concerns about its mounting cost. Defra is insisting that the delay, until next year at the earliest, is not a U-turn. This is accurate: the vehicle hasn't turned around in the road, it has run out of fuel and ground to a juddering halt. Studies had found that there were perhaps twice as many badgers as originally estimated, and many farmers feared they would not be able to afford to kill 70 per cent of this much larger population.

George Entwistle is appearing before a select committee for the first time this morning. It won't be a gentle start for the new BBC Director General, though. He is giving evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport committee from 10.30 on the Jimmy Savile scandal, and will face a slew of awkward questions from MPs. Here are five of the most pressing: 1. Why did he hold such a brief conversation about the implications of the Newsnight investigation for the rest of the BBC's output? Entwistle held a conversation with Helen Boaden last December in which she warned that the report would impact on the BBC's tribute to Savile. He will be grilled on the content of that conversation: particularly whether he asked for more details on the allegations themselves.

David Cameron appears to be looking for a suite of examples for his party that he's still fighting their corner. He's about to deliver his speech on offenders, and his spokesman has just suggested he's up for a real scrap on the European Union budget, too. The FT's splash this morning is that Angela Merkel is threatening to cancel next month's European budget summit if Britain refuses to approve any other deal than a total freeze on spending. The paper reports that Merkel believes there is no point in holding the summit if Cameron is going to veto any deal on the table. The problem for the German Chancellor is that if Cameron vetoes a deal, it will be good for him politically, but bad for Merkel as Germany will lose its rebate and therefore will have to contribute more.

It's clear the government has had a bad week when the Prime Minister pops up on a Monday with a crowd-pleasing policy announcement. Recent re-launches have been shared by senior Lib Dems and Tories following the collapse of Lords reform, for example, to demonstrate that the Coalition is still working well. But today, the Lib Dems are nowhere to be seen: the Prime Minister's big crime announcement is a response to a terrible week for the Conservative party, rather than the coalition as a whole. Cameron is using law and order as a traditional Conservative area, arguing that 'retribution is not a dirty word' and that alongside a 'tough' approach to crime, all but the most high-risk prisoners will be offered rehabilitation by the end of 2015.

ITV's Rachel Townsend had a more exciting train journey into Euston than she might have expected this afternoon. She discovered George Osborne sitting in first class with a standard ticket. CLASS. His aide tells ticket collector he cannot possibly move and sit with the likes of us in standard class and requests he is allowed to — Rachel Townsend (@RachTownsendITV) October 19, 2012 remain in First Class. Ticket collector refuses #standoff — Rachel Townsend (@RachTownsendITV) October 19, 2012   What a shame that this happened on a quiet and rainy Friday afternoon in Westminster when every hack and blogger was twiddling their thumbs and wondering what to do.

David Cameron was very grumpy with Labour's Chris Bryant at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, sniping that as Bryant hadn't apologised to him for speaking in the Commons about embargoed information, he wouldn't answer his question. Bryant and his colleague Harriet Harman have made a bit of a stink about this, and today the Prime Minister wrote back to Labour's deputy leader saying the following: Dear Harriet, Thank you for your letter of 17 October about my evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. As you will be aware, on 25 April, Chris Bryant made a point of order in the House in which he suggested that I had misled the House.