Oliver Letwin, Cabinet Office minister, told a committee of MPs this afternoon that Britain was facing an “immediate national crisis in the form of less growth and jobs than we needed“.

This was why ministers had focused so hard on economic growth in the run-up to the Budget, Mr Letwin told the environmental audit committee.

The words are in a sense a no-brainer as unemployment is indeed rising and GDP fell in the last quarter. But the word “crisis” was a dangerous slip of the tongue by Letwin.

Labour has jumped on the comments, unsurprisingly. Angela Eagle, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said: “Oliver Letwin has let the cat out of the bag again. With unemployment at a 17-year high and the economy contracting, there is a jobs and growth crisis.”

Ministers styled last month’s Budget as a “pro-growth” event although the Office for Budget Reponsibility, indicated that its measures may have no impact on economic growth.

“We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful.” Well, not quite.

But the quote attributed to Mother Teresa might be the new slogan for Whitehall civil servants, where, the Institute for Government has just noted, there has been a spectacular turnover at the top.

Jill Rutter, herself a former senior mandarin, notes that since the general election there has been an ”unprecedented level of churn” amongst permanent secretaries.

Of the 16 major departments, just six now have the same permanent secretary that they did when the coalition took office. And of the nine new appointments made so far, just two have immediate prior experience of their department. Five have never worked in the department to which they have been appointed.

This means that in the department’s affected “ministers, all of whom have under a year’s experience, will all have someone with less experience at the top”.

The new perm secs will be playing catch up with their ministers, she notes. And “at a time when unprecedented cuts are being implemented, it might help to know where the bodies are buried and where the landmines are.” Quite.

And not only that. In some areas – health and DWP for example – policies are being tried that have failed, or far from suceeded, before. Having old hands around who know why things went awry last time – and therefore how to stop them going awry this time – might also, one would have thought, be useful.

Network Rail was structured as a private company (to keep debts off the state balance sheet) and likes to pay its senior staff private sector-style remuneration.

Others point out that the track operator is owned by the taxpayer and receives a huge annual subsidy from the government. (And its £25.6bn of debt is guaranteed by the government). As such, its pay structure ought to be of interest to the public.

For the current year senior executives are not taking an annual bonus, after the previous year’s £2m-plus bonanza was heavily criticised by Philip Hammond, transport secretary.

The story broke late last night that Moussa Koussa, Libya’s foreign minister, had defected from the regime and flown to Britain via Tunisia. Here is the story from our front page this morning.

At this morning’s Downing Street press briefing there was only one story in town. Here are a few nuggets of new information about Koussa:

1] He has brought (at least some of) his family with him. Koussa’s son gave an interview to the BBC’s Arabic channel last night, although this wasn’t immediately shared with the rest of the corporation – I’m told – which is why we’re only now learning about it. Downing St would not say whether Koussa’s entire family has defected with him but you’d imagine they have.

2] He is in an unidentified “secure location” somewhere in the UK. We are not being told if he has applied for asylum or for a visa.

3] “Moussa Koussa will not, is not being offered any immunity from British or international justice”, said the spokesman. I asked whether his eventual sentence – if he were to be found guilty of any crimes – would be mitigated for any co-operation with the western powers. There wasn’t a straight answer. Instead the spokesman merely replied that there was a UN resolution in place (1970) governing a prosecution of Gaddafi over in relation to attacks on unarmed civilians in February.

4] David Cameron signed off the decision to allow Koussa into the country.

5] Koussa has been communicating with the British government throughout the recent military action.

When I interviewed David Miliband last summer and asked him what his philosophy was he was able to sum it up in a sentence. The reply, as I recall it, was succinct: “Opportunities for the many not the few.”

Perhaps he had learned from the day that Tony Blair was asked the same question and couldn’t come up with a reply.

Ed Miliband has an answer which sounds a lot like his brother’s but without the clarity, judging by this morning’s Today programme.*

Evan Davis: “My Labour party support…in 12 words: What’s Ed Miliband’s Labour about?”

Ed Miliband: My Labour party is about a party that enables people, right across the country, to get on and do better (Davis interrupts)…well hang on a minute, to get on and do better and also a Labour party which crucially improves the chances of the next generation in this country because I made this point to you earlier about the challenges the next generation face, we’ve always talked about equality, I’m someone who thinks this is an important issue to us, but inter-generation equality is an important as the inequality between people today because the next generation, when you think about the challenges they face in relation to jobs, housing and climate change, are massive challenges, and only 9 per cent of people in this country actually think the next generation will do better than the last.”

That’s 129 words, not 12: Miliband’s advisers should advise him to cut the waffle and develop a sharper message.

* Also, strikingly, Miliband clarified that the Labour deficit reduction programme would have £30bn fewer cuts than the coalition, not £40bn.

Last time Arnie was in town (last October) Downing St made a few groan-worthy jokes about how he would help “terminate” the deficit. He promised: “I’ll be back.”

True to his word, the former governor of California returned today, attending a gathering of the Tory backbench 1922 committee. The appearance conjures up the surreal vision of grand Conservative backbenchers mingling with the star of Terminator, Conan the Barbarian and, er, Jingle all the Way. Nick Watt at the Guardian has tweeted that David Cameron unveiled the muscular movie star as his “secret weapon” just before the meeting this afternoon in a Commons committee room. Arnie told Watt: “It was very good to pump them up, to tell them they’re doing a great job on Libya.”

Then again, some backbench wags may joke that it’s getting serious for the prime minister – on Libya, health reform, the cuts and so on – when he needs protection of the physical kind.

When the new chair of the BBC, Chris Patten, admitted he was not a fan of TV soap operas it caused a mild ripple. His comments had been somewhat misquoted to suggest he didn’t watch telly at all. In fact he said: “I take slight exception to the argument that I hardly watch television, it is true you don’t find me in front of Eastenders.”

But what to make of Jeremy Hunt admitting today that he hasn’t borrowed a library book for a decade? I was at the culture committee this morning* but slipped out just before Tom Watson asked Hunt when he last borrowed a book from a library. The answer: “Certainly not in the last decade.”

The culture secretary said he had reminded councils that they had to provide a “comprehensive and efficient service” under the law. Despite this 500 libraries are currently under threat, however, as I reported yesterday morning. Campaigners may now wonder if the culture secretary is the right person to defend such services.

* One interesting line to emerge included the fact that 73 civil servants will move from the business department to the culture ministry in a process that begins this weekend. (Media competition is transferring as a result of the Vince Cable “I’ve declared war on Murdoch” gaffe). It will cost £260,000, of which £250,000 relates to an IT contract at DCMS signed on a per desk basis.

UPDATE: Some readers are asking via Twitter whether anyone borrows library books any more. The last one I took out was in August, it was Wuthering Heights, and I didn’t finish it.

As news emerges of Ed Miliband’s impending nuptials, FT Westminster has obtained a secret copy of his draft speech:

“I’m so sorry that David cannot be here today, having been called away at short notice to a conference in Patagonia. David, I love you so much as a brother.

Now I am not the first great man to engage in the wedding process. No, I am standing on the shoulders of historic giants. Take Mahatma Gandhi, for example, married to his beloved Kasturba. Or Martin Luther King, married to Coretta Scott King. And who can forget Nelson Mandela, betrothed to the fragrant Winnie?

Elsewhere think of Lenin, who shared his life with Nadezhda Krupskaya, or Stalin, blessed with union with Nadezhda Alliluyev. While Leon Trosky got married to his beloved Sokolovshaya, although she spent her later life in a labour camp…..

It’s too early to know how the May 5 local elections will pan out – and AV may get the bigger headlines – but the omens are promising for Labour.

I revealed this morning that Labour is fielding candidates for at least 67 per cent of seats, up from just 54 per cent the last time these English seats were contested – in 2007.

Labour looks likely to seize Sheffield, where the Lib Dems still have the highest number of councillors but lost overall control last year. Clegg’s party is also likely to lose control of Newcastle. Across the board Labour is likely to take about 1,000 seats given that their national poll standing has jumped from mid-20s, four years ago, to high 30s.

The fate of the Lib Dems is of great interest meanwhile given their dreadful poll standing; they may lose hundreds of seats, but will they hold on to ones in their key strongholds – eg where they have MPs? They are hoping their support is now engrained enough to hang on in these areas, even if they shed seats elsewhere.

As for AV, I attended an interesting presentation yesterday by Rob Hayward, a Tory political analyst, who said that most of the public still seem unaware that the referendum is even taking place. Hayward thinks that London turnout could be as low as 25 per cent (because no local elections are happening in the capital) – others think the figure could be even lower. That is a big contrast with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which are hosting assembly elections. The weird thing is, however, that no one knows who this differential turnout will help: the No campaign, the Yes campaign or neither.

The wisdom of ending the 50p upper tax rate half-way through this Parliament is open to doubt. If unemployment is still rising and benefits being pruned, a tax cut for the rich would send out a curious signal to the public.

Yet there is no doubt now that this is what the coalition intends, however, given David Laws writing last week in the FT that it should be done by 2013 and Nick Clegg telling us today that it would be done when people on lower middle incomes are “breathing more easily“.

How this will be done seems likely to be a combination of a crackdown on tax avoidance on the purchase of large houses (announced in the budget) and fiddling with council tax. It won’t be a mansion tax – according to Clegg – despite claims in some newspapers this morning.