Isabel Hardman

Vince Cable is today announcing that the government will not be taking up Sir Adrian Beecroft's 'fire-at-will' proposals to allow bosses to sack underperforming staff without risking unfair dismissal claims. There was no great appetite for the plan, the Business Secretary will say, arguing that 34 per cent of small businesses consulted by his department were in favour, with 32 per cent against and 30 per cent unsure. Though many Tory MPs embraced the idea of 'fire-at-will' as a means of encouraging firms to take on more employees without the fear of costly consequences if the arrangement did not work out, others within the party were uneasy that they might damage the mortgage market by making lenders extremely reluctant to offer loans to people, even if they had months of payslips.

As previewed on Coffee House last week, John Baron today launched his all-party group calling for an EU referendum. He has so far managed to bring more than 50 MPs on board, along with a good number of Labour MPs. DUP MPs will also attend. The first meeting will be on 16 October. Yesterday José Manuel Barroso gave momentum to the group's calls for a vote on Britain's membership of the EU by pushing for greater political union. He said: A deep and genuine economic and monetary union, a political union, with a coherent foreign and defence policy, means ultimately that the present European Union must evolve. Let’s not be afraid of the words: we will need to move towards a federation of nation states. This is what we need. This is our political horizon.

In many ways, today showed this current Parliament and the Prime Minister at their best. David Cameron hadn't brought Flashman with him to Prime Minister's Questions today in any case, but for his statement on the Hillsborough tragedy, he adopted a solemn and respectful tone. The whole chamber was still, save for sharp intakes of breath from MPs as horrifying findings from today's report from the Hillsborough independent panel were read to them. The worst was that many more - possibly 41 -  lives could have been saved had the response to the disaster been adequate. 'Anyone who has lost a child knows the pain never leaves you.

Nick Clegg is currently eating a Ben & Jerry's ice cream called 'Appley Ever After' with gay marriage campaigners celebrating the government's consultation on introducing civil marriage for same-sex couples. Things didn't go all that appley for the Deputy Prime Minister earlier today, though, when the Cabinet Office sent out what he later claimed was a draft of his speech that he was never going to give, which said: 'Continued trouble in the economy gives the bigots a stick to beat us with, as they demand we “postpone” the equalities agenda in order to deal with “the things people really care about”. As if pursuing greater equality and fixing the economy simply cannot happen at once.

Allowing Iain Duncan Smith to dig his heels in at the Work and Pensions department in last week's reshuffle sent out two messages. The first was that the Prime Minister is not as authoritative as he should be: telling someone that you'd rather they moved to one department, but that it's ok for them to remain where they are isn't exactly 'butch', to borrow the PM's own favourite word. The second is that the Prime Minister was worried about the future of the DWP's reforms, and was keen to put someone else in charge of implementing the behemoth computer system for the universal credit, even though events meant he was unable to do so. Liam Byrne prodded Duncan Smith on this today at Work and Pensions questions.

Roger Bootle is managing director of Capital Economics, and winner of the Wolfson Economics Prize. As the government launches another attempt at boosting UK growth, the economist, who describes himself as a 'rare right-wing Keynesian' shares his thoughts on ministers' economic prowess with Coffee House readers. Do you think the government will be able to fight the next general election on the issue of the economy? 'I think it's too early to tell, but if the economy is completely flatlining and the deficit does not go down - which seems to me to be perfectly possible, there are strong signs things are going to look bad for them.