Isabel Hardman

Mario Draghi has just finished giving his press conference in Frankfurt about what the European Central Bank is going to do as part of its 'whatever it takes' crusade to save the euro. The ECB chief described the single currency as 'irreversible', and perhaps it is his seemingly incontrovertible belief in its capacity to survive that led to such a lacklustre announcement. Remember that all eyes had been on Draghi since he said this last week: 'Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough.' He had pointed to the rise in bond yields over the previous few days, and used a series of codewords which traders recognised as a sign the ECB was going to make an intervention in the bond markets.

The average disposable income is at its lowest point since 2003, according to figures released this afternoon by the Office for National Statistics. The statistics for the first quarter of this year show that take home income was an average of £273 a week, while real incomes per head fell by 0.6 per cent to £4,444 in Q1, which is the lowest since 2005. The ONS points to rising prices as the primary cause of these falls, and there are obvious points to be made here about the cost of living. It's currently one of the major reasons voters are giving for turning away from the Conservative party, and Labour's Chris Leslie has already used the ONS' stats to attack the government's tax and benefits policies.

The Guardian has published an interview on its site with Stephen Hester in which the RBS chief executive predicts his bank is facing a huge fine for its part in the Libor fixing scandal. He says: 'RBS is one of the banks tied up in Libor. We'll have our day in that particular spotlight as well.' Hester can to a certain extent afford to be upfront about what is coming down the line for his bank. Even though it was clear from the start that there were other banks wading around in this swamp, Barclays took the majority of the flak as the first one to be fined. There might be another round of emails about bottles of Bollinger to feast upon, but the revelations will not be as shocking the second time around.

The furore surrounding the news - which James broke on Coffee House this afternoon - that academies will now be able to employ teachers who are not qualified was so brilliantly predictable that we could have written the unions' press releases for them. Christine Blower of the National Union of Teachers slammed it as a 'clear dereliction of duty' and a 'cost-cutting measure that will cause irreparable damage to children's education'. Blower and her union colleagues are not clear why education will be so badly damaged by this, though. Top schools in the private sector regularly employ staff who have gone through no formal training at all. But parents have to pay for this privilege: it is not available to them in the state system.