I’ve corralled some of Britain’s top experts in various fields to set a hypothetical “MPs quiz” for tomorrow’s Weekend FT’s magazine.

The 20 quizmasters include Michael Boyce, Richard Dawkins, Will Self, Bill Bryson, Jeremy Paxman and Lord Lamont. The idea was to come up with a test which all MPs should be able to answer to enter the House of Commons. You may or may not find it a bit rigorous.

You can already find the quiz online. Feel free to add any questions you think have been missed out.

We’ve excluded some real corkers, my favourite being Paxman’s astringent:

“Anyone who wants to spend their life passing laws to tell the rest of us how to behave ought, automatically, to be disqualified from doing so.” Discuss.

A rare piece of good news for the government on the economic front: the Council of Mortgage Lenders has just slashed its prediction for the number of repossessions this year.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders has cut its forecast for the number of repossessions this year to 48,000. Having anticipated 75,000 repossessions in 2009 in last year’s housing market forecasts, the forecast had already been revised down to 65,000 in June, but is now being cut again in recognition of lender forbearance, government measures and the beneficial effect of continuing low interest rates which are helping most borrowers facing difficulty to keep their homes.

In the third quarter of this year, new CML figures show that the number and proportion of mortgages in arrears both fell, despite the bleak economic backdrop. At the end of September 194,600 mortgages, 1.77% of the total, were in arrears of 2.5% or more of the outstanding mortgage balance. This compares with 204,200 cases (1.86% of all mortgages) at the end of June.

Meanwhile 11,700 properties were taken into possession in the third quarter, up slightly from 11,400 in the previous quarter, and 5% higher than the number in the third quarter of 2008, but still lower than the 12,700 in the first quarter of the year.

Labour will attribute the downgrade to its activist measures to help people stay in their homes. Up to a point this is true. But future levels of arrears and repossessions will ultimately depend on a] how quickly interest rates go up again and b] whether unemployment will keep on rising, and at what pace (economists have been surprised by labour market resilience).

Gordon Brown called Rupert Murdoch to complain about the Sun’s campaign

Civil servants at the MoD paid £47m in performance bonuses this year

US ambassador to Afghanistan opposes troop surges amid expectations that Obama could sign off 44,000 more troops

Tom Harris argues against cutting the number of MPs in the Commons

Early Day Motion calling for Sir Ian Kennedy to treat MPs fairly: 54 signatures so far

Here is a link to the new N-Dubz single which is an anti-bullying anthem. It will be launched today alongside none other than Ed Balls, education secretary.

Is this the same Mr Balls who was recently accused of being “a bit of a bully” by Barry Sheerman, chair of the education select committee? You may remember that Sheerman said Balls liked to surround himself with “people who will do his bidding”.

Then again, Sheerman himself admitted in 2006 that he too had indulged in some bullying as a youngster.

The Huddersfield MP said he and a friend had made the lives of two cadet force colleagues a “misery” because they “could not march in step“.

Just watched Sir Nicholas Macpherson, permanant secretary at the Treasury, at a select committee.

His most interesting points were:

a] Quantative easing is a “journey into the unknown”. You can gauge its impact by yield movements in bond markets, said the mandarin. So far it seems to have been broadly positive, but it’s hard to say with much certainty. “We don’t understand every aspect of it and I’m sure it will keep academics busy for many years to come,” he said.

b] Macpherson admits that the tax system was unduly dependent on boom sectors. “With hindsight, some taxes were more geared towards the financial services sector and to housing, and revenues have fallen by more than GDP. That’s going to provide lessons for the future,” he said.

It emerged today (at morning lobby) that Gordon Brown has exchanged letters with the Speaker over the idea of letting ministers from the Lords answer questions in the House of Commons.

The case in favour is that this will make peers such as Lord Myners or Lord Davies more answerable to the public.

The case against - put by Ken Clarke yesterday - is that it could erode the legitimacy of the House of Commons. Over a decade or two, he argued, prime ministers could pick ever more of their cabinet from outside the chamber; and that would be bad for democracy.

The nine former ministers who have spoken out about the abolition of nursery vouchers are not the first Labour MPs to be uncomfortable with the policy (unveiled during Gordon Brown’s conference speech).

There is an early day motion, written by Mark Durkan, which has the names of 45 Labour MPs - excluding the nine ten* Blairites in today’s Guardian (including Patricia Hewitt, Meg Munn and Denis Macshane) who have signed a letter from the Progress group. In total the EDM is signed by 78 MPs.

It’s debatable whether that represents a significant rebellion against the prime minister. What will be decisive is how many other MPs add their names, and how swiftly. There’s no strict equation of x signatures = rebellion. But one rule of thumb is that more than 100 is bad news for a government.

Continue reading "How big is the nursery rebellion?"

First it emerged that Phil Webster, political editor of The Times, is to move to become Europe editor of the paper after the election - after overseeing coverage of the event from Wapping. His replacement is Roland Watson, head of news at The Times, who has previously worked in Westminster and Washington.

And now David Wooding, the Whitehall editor of the Sun, is moving to the News of the World to be an associate editor.

All this just days after George Pascoe-Watson quit the political editorship of the Times to join a lobbying firm, Portland.