Mail Online
David Cameron finds out about government policy from the radio, his former strategy adviser has revealed. In a series of candid comments to a lecture theatre full of students at California’s Stanford University, where he is engaged in a post-No 10 teaching role, blue-sky thinker Steve Hilton said that policy decisions create far too much paperwork for ministers to cover in detail, so many of them are just nodded through. According to Hilton, the bureaucracy “masters the politicians”, so the media provides them with the clearest overview of what is actually going on.
Hilton added that the policy issues in question “can be quite trivial things but they can be quite serious as well, and they can certainly affect the real world”. In response, a No 10 source said, “We don’t recognise the picture he has painted. It’s just Steve being Steve.”
Guardian
Wonder whether Dave heard about this on Radio 4: following last year’s collapse of a proposed £28 billion merger between Airbus owner EADS and engineering giant BAE Systems – right when the deal was on the brink of completion – UK aerospace bosses are joining forces with government ministers to ensure that such a damaging debacle doesn’t happen again. Representatives from a variety of firms, including Rolls-Royce and Bombardier, are huddled in talks with MPs on a new industry strategy that could be unveiled this very month.
Telegraph
Okay – first, the bad news on bonuses. High-flying executives at Network Rail are in line for bumper payouts of up to £900,000 each, despite passengers facing six years’ worth of above-inflation fare rises thanks to the firm’s commitment to invest in its railways. Shadow Transport secretary Maria Eagle echoed many commuters’ thoughts with her reaction: “It will be unacceptable if payouts on this scale are made when performance remains deeply inadequate, with many passengers facing overcrowded services and too many delayed and cancelled trains.”
Express
And now the good news: the beleaguered Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is gearing up to raid the bonus pots of its own investment bankers in a bid to build a £100 million war chest to facilitate the payment of a “blockbuster” fine for its role in fixing the LIBOR rate. While chief executive Stephen Hester’s job is said to be safe, question marks have arisen over the actions of RBS investment banking boss John Hourican and his deputy manager Peter Nielsen.
Independent on Sunday
In the wake of Honda’s announcement last week that it is planning to axe 800 jobs at its Swindon plant, Jaguar Land Rover revealed that it is opening up the same number of vacancies at its factory in Solihull. Dedicated to manufacturing the firm’s Range Rover, Defender and Discovery cars, the facility has been earmarked as a centre of “ambitious plans for growth” in 2013, according to group sales director Phil Popham, with the firm hoping to refresh or introduce eight models throughout the year.
Sun
Woman in Black and Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe has proven himself to be a wizard CEO, earning some £17m in the past year from his most-recent performances and nudging the value of his investment firm Gilmore Jacobs to £48m. Diminutive Radcliffe has used his firm to plough his earnings into a portfolio of properties and stock which, according to a source, have helped him to be “worth far more than many successful actors twice his age”.
Mirror
Barack Obama has put the kybosh on a campaign that urged his government to build a working replica of the Death Star from Star Wars. In a response to an online petition that attracted 34,000 signatures, Obama appointee Paul Shawcross – science and space chief at the office of management and budget – said: “The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defence, but a Death Star isn’t on the horizon … the Administration does not support blowing up planets, [and the] estimated cost to US taxpayers of $850,000,000,000,000,000 [those zeroes mean “quadrillion”, by the way] would add to America’s national debt problem rather than help reduce it.”