Sebastian Payne

It was back to the future at the Leveson inquiry today, as Sir John Major suggested how the press might be regulated. He was calm and confident, launching the odd softly-spoken salvo at former enemies, among them Rupert Murdoch. He said: "Certainly he [Murdoch] never asked for anything directly from me but he was not averse to pressing for policy changes. In the run up to the 1997 general election in my third and last meeting with him on 2 February 1997 he made it clear that he disliked my European policies which he wished me to change....If not, his papers could not and would not support the Conservative government.' This account does not quite chime with Murdoch's evidence to the inquiry in which he said, 'I have never asked a prime minister for anything.

It turns out that there is a minister in the Cameron cabinet who can say sorry. Following the second week of Warsi rule breaking revelations, the Tory party co-chairman has apologised for 'causing any embarrassment' to the government. But Cameron isn't stopping there — she is also being hauled up for potentially breaking the ministerial code: 'There are clearly some lessons for future handling and I have asked Alex Allan, my adviser on ministers' interests, to consider the issues that have been raised with respect to the Ministerial Code and to provide advice to me as rapidly as possible' If the Prime Minister is suddenly taking a tough stance against ministerial wrongdoings, this will lead to the inevitable question — why not Hunt?

Will Parliament soon decide to clamp down on payday loans? The controversial firms, offering ultra-high interest short-term loans, have proliferated on high streets and across the Web, utilising crafty advertising to make them appear far less dangerous than the 4,000 per cent APR would imply. Our Campaigner of the Year, Stella Creasy MP, has been fighting for legislation to regulate the firms, after witnessing the consequences of the 17 payday loan businesses in her consistency. Ahead of a crucial Commons vote on her proposals to regulate the firms, polling by ComRes has given her a boost, with strong support inside and out of Parliament for action on the matter.

The government is desperate for economic growth but where can it find it? This was the question posed to Eric Pickles on the Sunday Politics today, but sadly he was unable to provide much of an answer. The Communities and Local Government secretary gave a blustering interview, where he reaffirmed William Hague’s view that ‘growth will come from government creating conditions for us to work a little bit harder.’ But when pushed by Andrew Neil on what this (slightly condescending) idea actually means, Pickles jumped on the chance to blame Labour for the ‘something for nothing culture’. Pickles did add that the government’s chosen sources of prosperity are business investment and, relatedly, the stripping back of regulation.

For the Tories to have any hope of winning a majority, they have to face up to reclaiming seats in the North, but can they do so under Cameron? David Skelton from Policy Exchange suggests not in an interview with the Northern Echo today, where he outlines the 'Cameron problem': 'You can’t get away from the fact that the Tory party looks pretty public school, pretty Southern and quite gilded. The fact is that the Tories can’t win an election if they can’t appeal to aspirational working-class voters in the North and the Midlands…If the Tories can’t find a way to get across the fact that voting Tory has become countercultural in the North then it will be very difficult to win a majority.

We haven't done enough to prevent the riots of last summer happening again, says Simon Marcus in this week’s cover feature. And in the latest episode of our The View From 22 podcast he expands on this, discussing his personal experiences with the Boxing Academy in Tottenham and Hackney: ‘What enabled us to engage in strong debate during the whole process was what I saw on the front line at the Boxing Academy for many years. But what I was being asked, in many ways, to accept was wrong. When you're being told that your eyes and ears have deceived you for five years, that's something I can't accept.’ James Forsyth also discusses why an EU referendum is becoming more likely — thanks to a combination of UKIP, Boris Johnson and public opinion.

Yesterday evening, I was at City Hall in London to watch the Mayoral proceedings unfold. While the evening delivered the expected result of a Boris victory — incidentally, YouGov was the most accurate pollster once again, with Peter Kellner calling 52 vs 48 to Boris at 7:30pm — it was a tense affair. Missing ballot boxes and broken counting machines in Brent and Harrow delayed the final announcement until nearly midnight. Amid the confusion, I managed to speak to Dan Hodges, Blairite blogger with the Telegraph, who said early on he still believed that Boris would prevail and discussed Ed Miliband's egging in Southampton.

Here, CoffeeHousers, is this week's episode of The View from 22 podcast. In this episode, Leah McLaren returns to the Spectator a decade on from her infamous cover story attacking British men to explain how she's now fallen in love with one (0:30). James Forsyth and Neil O'Brien from Policy Exchange examine the Tories' lack of progress in the North (6:48) and how elected Mayors will help. Fraser joins in for a discussion of today's local elections and why Labour has the most at stake (16:10). You can listen below with the embedded player or subscribe through iTunes. As ever, we'd love to hear what you think, good or bad.  The View from 22 - 3 May 2012.

The leadership duo of Ed and Ed made an appearance this morning to rev up support for Labour ahead of this week’s elections. Today was all about appealing to those who have felt hard done by the government and want something different, whatever it may be. Miliband concentrated on setting out five ‘priorities’ for next week's Queen's Speech — the sorts of policies that, he claims, Labour would be enacting in government, and which we've heard from him before. Balls meanwhile was in full attack mode, deploying the usual buzz words and phrases, such as ‘alternative’, ‘fair’ and ‘Robin Hood tax’ to back up Miliband.

Boris Johnson has granted a killer interview to the Sunday Telegraph, where he has unleashed a full-on strike against government. Such a move is calculated to draw a distinction between Boris and the flailing government. The most notable attack is saved for his arch-rival — the chancellor — and the upcoming battle(s) he would face upon re-election: ‘We’ve saved Crossrail from the jaws of death – aka George Osborne….I don’t mind having a row in Whitehall, I don’t mind how much plaster comes off the ceiling, providing it’s done in a robust and sensible way and London gets the money it needs.' Boris does not go easy on the rest of the government either.

As promised, here's our exclusive podcast interview with Boris Johnson. He kindly took some time away from running around Marylebone to answer a few questions from CoffeeHousers on collapsing Tube tunnels, boats on the Thames, religion in London, Tube unions, future career plans and his continued love of the Spectator. We hope you enjoy the results. The View from 22 — Boris on the stump.

With anti-politics on the rise, there's one candidate in the May elections who is out to capitalise on the mood. Siobhan Benita, the independent running for London Mayor, has been making increasingly remarkable waves in the run up to 3rd May. She is a technocrat, priding herself on the absence of political views, but adds colour to the race — according to our wine correspondent, Simon Hoggart — whose other employer, the Guardian, has a soft spot for her: 'Finally she arrived and, while I won't say that the media swooned, she certainly had an impact. Tall, glossy-haired, elegant in a pencil dress with scarlet jacket, and a diamond wedding ring that would make an American rapper envious, she'd stand out in any room.

Is it possible to set schools free while demanding a beefed up teaching of our nation's history? Both are topics close to the heart of the Education Secretary but eventually, he’s going to have to choose one over the other. Top-down orders on the History curriculum will undermine attempts to give schools and teachers more control over what they do. Tristram Hunt threw this curveball in this weeks magazine, where he states it is a example of the classic Tory struggle between liberalism and conservatism: 'The self-inflicted challenge comes with delivering this national narrative of Britishness. Because at the crux of Gove’s schools revolution is the dismantling of national provision.

News is breaking at the Telegraph that Matthew Elliott — head of the TaxPayers' Alliance — is being considered for an adviser role in Downing Street. It would be strategic move by Cameron, and a bold one given Elliot's effective work on the Alternative Vote referendum. That campaign, which focused on Nick Clegg's shortcomings, is the greatest sore between the Prime Minister and his deputy, raising the question of how Lib Dems react to the news that their prime taunter has been being brought into the love nest of No.10. Many Conservatives will be heartened by the news, especially at a time when there is a brain drain sweeping across the coalition (with Richard Reeves' departure last night).