Jonathan Jones

The Prime Minister has backed the proposal for a new independent service to sign workers' long-term sicknotes, instead of GPs. The plan, which Pete wrote about at the weekend, is aimed at ensuring that people on sick pay or sickness-related benefits really are too ill to work. Cameron describes how it would work in today's Mail: 'The independent service would be free to all employers from four weeks of sickness absence, with the option for employers to pay for it earlier. It would provide an in-depth assessment of an individual's physical and mental function. So if they're unable to work, they’ll be helped – but if they are fit, they'll be identified and supported back into the workplace.

The Evening Standard has the scoop: 'Companies House filings show James Murdoch has stepped down from the boards of both News Group Newspapers Limited, publisher of The Sun, and Times Newspapers Limited, which operates The Times and Sunday Times.' Of course, James Murdoch remains executive chairman of News International, of which both those companies are subsidiaries. His next test will come on Tuesday, when shareholders will decide whether he remains non-executive chairman of BSkyB. Murdoch looks likely to survive the vote, not least because BSkyB's directors have backed him in a letter to the shareholders.

Despite – or perhaps because of – the recession, pensioner employment has increased dramtically over the past few years. In his Telegraph column today, Fraser remarks on this important but largely ignored trend in Britain's workforce. 'A million jobs have been lost since the Great Recession began', he says, 'but the number of pension-aged people in work has increased by 200,000.' Here's that phenomenom in graph form: Why has this happened? Fraser puts his finger on one important factor: 'Crucially, they pay less tax. A pensioner manning the tills in Tesco will take home 12 per cent more than a working-age colleague on the same salary.

Another day, another downgrade. This time, it's the Bank of England saying it now expects GDP to grow by only around 1 per cent in 2011 and 2012. In one sense, this is just one organisation's forecast and tells us nothing more or less about where the economy's headed than anyone else's. Thankfully, the Treasury collects data from 21 independent forecasters – from Barclays and JP Morgan to the CBI and the IMF. Here's the latest average prediction of GDP growth over the next few years: So today's downgrade brings the Bank of England's forecasts roughly into line with the average. We can expect a similar downgrade from the OBR later this month. Their last forecasts (in March) predicted 1.7 per cent growth in 2011 and 2.

Francis Maude presents himself as a man trying to help the unions out in today's Financial Times. Some unions say they have to go ahead with strikes on November 30 – even though negotiations on pension changes are still going on – or else they'd lose their mandate for any future strikes and have to conduct a whole new ballot. Wagging an almost parental finger, Maude tells the unions: 'You shouldn't have got yourself into this mess but we're willing to help you out because we want to protect the public. I can't imagine any employer in the public sector would say if you have a token strike of a quarter of an hour during the day which doesn't affect public services, you lose a day's pay.

Rick Perry's doing his best to turn his excurciating "oops" moment last night to his advantage. Alex said it was the end of his campaign, but Perry certainly doesn't see it that way. On NBC's Today show, he quipped: 'There are so many agencies out there, that I'm like many Americans and we would like to forget that the Department of Energy is one of those.' And his campaign has just sent this email out to his supporters: It's a commendable, if likely futile, attempt. Hat tip: Politico.