Mark Urban
Newsnight Defence and Diplomatic Editor

Image source, Reuters

Today's Riga summit marks the start of David Cameron's campaign for a re-negotiation of UK powers in Europe, prior to the referendum. Like many a politician at the start of a long and difficult process he has urged patience, but privately must know that every move will be subject to a running commentary on whether he has or has not achieved anything.

"There will be ups and downs", he said as he arrived at the Riga meeting, "you will hear one day that 'this is possible'; the next day something is impossible". And not only will this be going on among his supporters and critics back home, but also politicians in other European countries will be spinning it their way - either with a view to trying to stop more countries from drawing the EU into time consuming and difficult negotiation or, on the other side, to addressing their own national concerns.

Read the full post on Newsnight Live.

Now that MSP Kezia Dugdale has thrown her hat in to the ring to be the next leader of the Labour party in Scotland , a quick reminder of who else is in the frame....

So far it's Eastwood MSP Ken Macintosh - the only other person to step forward.  

Kezia Dugdale is currently the deputy leader of the Labour party in Scotland. The party lost heavily at the general election, in the SNP landslide. 

 Kezia Dugdale says she will stand to be the leader of the Scottish Labour Party. There's a vacancy following the resignation of Jim Murphy after the party's near-wipeout in Scotland in the general election. 

The current deputy leader of the party in Scotland, she says her key priority would be to transform Scotland's education system to make it fairer for all.

She said:

A Treasury spokesman said the figures out this morning showed the deficit reduction plan was working, "with borrowing down £2.5 billion compared to a year ago".

He added: 

Public sector net borrowing, excluding public sector banks, fell in the financial year to April. It was £87.7bn - a decrease of £10.8bn compared with the previous financial year and amounted to 4.8% of GDP.

However, net debt was £1,487.7bn - 80.4% of GDP, the Office for National Statistics said.  

British officials said Mr Cameron, who is meeting other EU leaders at a summit in Riga, would be travelling to Berlin and Paris in the next few weeks for talks with the German leader Angela Merkel and President Francois Hollande of France about his reform proposals. 

One official said: 

Members of the Welsh Assembly are to have a£10,000 pay riseafter next year's assembly election.

Backbenchers' pay will increase from £54,000 to £64,000 in May 2016, under plans that are meant to take account of further devolution.

The 18.5% pay rise was confirmed on Friday by the body which sets pay and allowances for the body.

There's been no confirmation from the Home Office about reports in the Guardian, external  that there was a plan for the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom to approve programmes before they were shown,  in an effort to tackle extremism.

The paper has published a leaked letter to the Prime Minister from the former Culture Secretary Sajid Javid in which he warns against the watchdog becoming a "censor".

Stuwart Pervis, Professor of Television Journalism at City University, London and a former Ofcom chief, told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, he had known instances when politicians had tried to get broadcasters to pull programmes before they were broadcast. Robust systems were needed, he said, to stop political interference. 

Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan has sounded a less-than-optimistic note about Mr Cameron's EU trip - and the government's agenda. 

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the prime minister had a "huge opportunity in theory" after winning the election, to say Britain wanted a free trade-based deal while opting out of non-economic policies. 

But he added: "He's not doing that and I think that opportunity is going to be lost. I think we're going for these quite minor technical changes - taking out the words 'ever closer union' or saying they'll dis-apply to Britain, changing the rules on benefits, which I think we can do by domestic legislation.

"I don't think politicians get an automatic benefit of the doubt this time. I think there is a readiness to look at the small print and to be sceptical of big claims when people come back from these summits and declare victory." 

A reminder of where the UK stands on its plans for an EU referendum can be found here.

Estonian prime minister Taavi Roivas says he's "open to discussion" with the UK about changes to the European Union. 

But he says he'll oppose any attempt to clamp down on people's freedom to move around for work in the EU.

The Prime Minister was greeted by the EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker when he arrived in Riga this morning for EU talks. David Cameron told reporters he was determined to deliver "a reform of the European Union", but warned there would be "lots of noise, lots of ups and downs along the way".

James Landale
Deputy political editor

David Cameron arrived in Latvia knowing two things have changed since he last met his EU counterparts. He has a renewed electoral mandate and they know for sure that Britain will hold a referendum. So the prime minister said that discussions about EU reform could now begin in earnest. He sought to temper expectations by saying these talks won't be easy, nor quick, and there'll be disagreements along the way but he said a solution could be found that satisfied the British people and improved the EU as a whole. 

The prime minister won't begin detailed negotiations today, but officials said he would set out the context of the changes he wants, including benefit curbs for migrants. After the Queen's Speech next week, Mr Cameron will undertake a whirlwind tour of European capitals to begin detailed talks and sound out his chances of securing a deal.

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan has fired the starting gun for the next wave of free schools.  

In the Conservative manifesto, the Tories pledged to open 500 more free schools in England. Applications for this latest wave of schools is now open.  

Labour is critical of the plans. 

Image source, AP

The Sun's Sunnation, external website has gone back in time for a story about Andy Burnham's wife appearing on the TV programme Blind Date in the early 90s. 

Marie-France van Hee, a marketing executive, is photographed choosing her "date".

It was not a match made in heaven, clearly, and Labour leadership contender Andy Burnham married Marie-France in 2000. The couple met at Cambridge University.

Image source, bbc

The Guardian, external is reporting that the former Culture Secretary, Sajid Javid wrote to the Prime Minister criticising plans to give the broadcasting watchdog, Ofcom, new powers to act against "extremist content". 

 The newspaper published a letter Mr Javid (now the business secretary) wrote on 12 March this year attacking plans by Home Secretary Theresa May to give Ofcom the power to take action before a programme was broadcast. In the leaked memo, Sajid Javid, argues that, "extending Ofcom's powers to enable it to take pre-emptive action would move it from its current position as a post-transmission regulator into the role of censor". 

The Home Office and Ofcom have declined to comment.