Should he stay or should he go?
The Speaker of the House of Commons comes under more pressure today over his role in the Damian Green affair, with many MPs still seething that he did nothing to stop the police search of the MP's parliamentary office.
A ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ survey over the weekend identified thirty MPs who now want to stand down, which is quite a lot since MPs are notoriously reluctant to criticise any Speaker. He's in the unenviable position this afternoon of having to during which he will be criticised by the Commons' braver souls.
We're looking at the role of Speaker and trying to assess Michael Martin's chances of survival.
Also on the show today, as of France in London to discuss the global economy, we ask: has the Government's 'fiscal stimulus' started to have an effect?
It would be startling if it had - economic stimuli take a frustratingly long time to have any effect. And the economic news just keeps getting worse, wherever you look - everywhere. In Spain, factory output has collapsed by 13%, Germany's BMW has seen sales plummet by over 25%, partly because even sales in China are now falling, and American jobs have just fallen off a cliff in the worst job destruction in 34 years.
In America it is now widely accepted that it is in for the longest recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Slowly but surely it is also dawning on policy-makers in Whitehall and investors in the City that this is going to a much deeper and more prolonged recession than they first envisaged: some City economists are now predicting that UK unemployment will soar to over 3m by 2010, which may be unnecessarily gloomy -- but it is certainly going to shoot over 2.5m in the course of 2009.
on how small businesses are faring in the run up to Christmas. The retail trade is being helped by a pre-Christmas splurge, but only because they are discounting like mad, which will hit their bottom lines. Most are preparing for a serious hangover early in the New Year.
The immigration minister has made headlines (again) today, telling the Sun he will make it harder for immigrants to claim benefits in the future ... we look at Phil Woolas's plans for the new Immigration Bill announced in last week's .
And a Labour MP is calling for lads' magazines like Nuts and Zoo to carry '18' certificates ... we debate whether these mainstream publications should be sold from under the counter -- or the top shelf.
All that on the Daily Politics today on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ2 from noon.
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