Afternoon press briefing from 25 February 2010

Briefing by the Prime Minister s spokesman on: No10 allegations, hung parliament and Scottish Independence referendum

No10 Allegations

Asked if the new allegations were true about what the current Prime Minister had said to the last Prime Minister, the Prime Minister s Spokesman (PMS) said that we have said what we are going to say about the allegations contained in Mr Rawnsley s book.

Put that allegations were put to somebody in No.10 earlier and that was how they turned up in the Mail on Sunday, the PMS said that it was something he did not know anything about.

Asked that after Gus O Donnell had said to the Prime Minister he should talk to staff about getting the best out of them and what the Prime Minister had done, the PMS said that Sir Gus had made that suggestion to all the Prime Ministers he had been privileged enough to serve, and it was something that the Cabinet Secretary would routinely do in his conversations with the Prime Minister.

Hung Parliament

Asked why the Government feel it necessary to publish a rule book or guidelines on how Whitehall would function in the event of a hung parliament, the PMS said he wouldn t describe it as a handbook, it relates to the importance of codifying the constitution and a written constitution. The Prime Minister had invited Sir Gus to do two things, one was to start the process of codifying what is essentially an unwritten constitution and then secondly, to start work on the process of the written constitution the second of which will take a lot longer.

Scottish Independence Referendum

Asked what the Prime Minister s response was to an independence referendum, the PMS said the Prime Minister would be saying some words this afternoon whilst he was on his Scottish trip. The Prime Minister s view would be that this would be an unnecessary distraction. The Prime Minister s view was that the devolved Government in Scotland needs to continue to get on with the business of running Scotland.

http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page22612

seen at 07:34, 27 February in Number 10 » News Stories.