Downing Street Says ... Every day the Prime Minister’s Spokesman meets a small coterie of political journalists known as ‘the lobby’ for a topical chat, or ‘briefing’.

Every day the Prime Minister's Spokesman meets a small coterie of political journalists known as 'the lobby' for a topical chat, or 'briefing'.

Downing Street Says... is an unofficial site that lets you read summaries of these briefings and add your own comments. Want to know more?

» Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Efficiency Programme

Asked about the Efficiency Programme s target of 30 billion, the Prime Minister s Spokesman (PMS) replied that the Chancellor would give an interim report on the Government s Efficiency Programme and in particular where things stood in light of the review that we set up in the Budget, which Yvette Cooper announced details [...]

Iraq

Put that Lord Goldsmith s advice to the former Prime Minister that the Iraq war was legal was flawed, and asked for a response, the PMS replied that we had been over this ground many times before. Fortunately the PMS s predecessor covered this on many occasions. Jack Straw had responded on behalf [...]

Immigration

Asked if the Prime Minister agreed with Phil Woolas that there were some immigration lawyers out there who were playing the system, the PMS replied that he had not seen the comments, and as usual would like to see them in their entirety to ensure we had the proper context before commenting. But if [...]

Cabinet

The Prime Minister s Spokesman (PMS) began by telling the assembled journalists what had been discussed at Cabinet. There was an update from Ed Balls and the Children s Minister Beverley Hughes on where we were on child protection issues in light of the Baby P case. There had been a brief update from [...]

Child Protection

Asked for more details of the update given by Ed Balls, the PMS said it was really a summary of the events of the last week and the action that the Government had announced in recent days. Asked if there was any sense of surprise around the Cabinet table that no one had resigned over the [...]

Government Efficiency

Put that the PMS had said that the Chief Secretary had stated that there was scope to go beyond the figures mentioned, the PMS replied that what the Chief Secretary did say was that the Chancellor would be updating the House in the PBR on what the interim conclusions were of the reviews of the [...]

Northern Ireland

Asked if we were getting to a crunch-point in negotiations, the PMS advised people to wait and see how things progressed. Asked for any more detail on what was said this morning, the PMS said that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland set out the very good progress that was being made by the [...]

Misc

Asked if the issue of the Saudi oil tanker captured by pirates off the coast of Somalia was raised at Cabinet, the PMS said that it had not come up. Asked if business rates had come up, the PMS said there was no detailed discussion on any tax matters. Asked how long political Cabinet had lasted, [...]

» Friday, November 14, 2008

G20 Summit

Asked if he could rule out talks with Senator Obama at the G20 Summit, the Prime Minister s Spokesman (PMS) told the assembled press that Senator Obama had made clear that he would not be attending the G20 Summit and would be sending representatives in his place. As we had said consistently in the last [...]

Redundancies

Put that RBS had announced that they would be making job cuts and did the Prime Minister have a reaction to the news, the PMS replied that as he had said yesterday on the subject of job cuts, we had great sympathy with people who were faced with redundancy and we would do everything we [...]

Baby P

Asked when the Prime Minister was made aware that two separate Government departments had been contacted over the Baby P case, the PMS said he would have to check. The Prime Minister had stayed in very close touch with the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families and had clearly taken a close interest [...]

Banking

Asked how the Prime Minister could square the news that there would be no Government representatives on the boards of part-nationalised banks, which was in contrast to comments made by the Chancellor in the House of Commons, the PMS said he did not think that there was any contradiction. We made clear at the time that [...]

Defence

Asked if the Prime Minister agreed with Richard Dannatt s comments that there was no cheap option for Defence, the PMS said that the Government s actions in recent months demonstrated that we would make the proper investment to ensure that our armed services had everything they needed to carry out their jobs effectively. Asked about [...]

Organ Donation

Asked whether the Prime Minister still thought we should opt out of rather than opt in to organ donation and what was his reaction to the story in the Times this morning, the PMS said that specifically on the story in the Times, the report on organ donation would be published shortly and we would [...]

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

» Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Efficiency Programme

Iraq

Immigration

Cabinet

Child Protection

Government Efficiency

Northern Ireland

Misc

» Friday, November 14, 2008

G20 Summit

Redundancies

Baby P

Banking

Defence

Organ Donation

Search

Supported by

Recent Comments

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries