Image source, AP

Downing Street has criticised comments by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who suggested there should be a "total and complete" ban on Muslims entering the United States.

The prime minister's spokeswoman said David Cameron "completely disagrees" with the businessman and believed his comments were "divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong".

She said the prime minister had been very clear that when tackling the poisonous ideology of extremists it was important to bring communities together and make it clear the extremists are not representative of Islam. 

The Daily Politics

The Daily Politics is under way, with former Tory MP Laura Sandys - now chair of the European Movement - and Tory MP Nadine Dorries talking about the UK's EU renegotiations. 

Laura Sandys suggests there is a "lot of consensus" around the UK's main objectives and the UK is "not out of step" with other countries. While it won't be easy to get change, the UK is moving in the right direction. 

But Nadine Dorries, who backs EU exit, says the UK's aims have already been "watered down" and are "now falling apart". She suggests other member states won't allow UK demands on limiting in-work benefits for EU migrants and she can't see how David Cameron can have the "basis or platform" to sell the outcome of the renegotiations successfully to the British public.

House of Commons
Parliament

In the Commons, Labour MPs are pressing Justice Secretary Michael Gove on his decision to scrap the criminal courts charge introduced by his predecessor Chris Grayling. Since April, convicted criminals in England and Wales have had to pay a charge of between £150 and £1,200 towards the cost of their case but this will be abolished on 24 December. Labour MPs say the charge is now "discredited" and should be discontinued at once. One asks Mr Gove what his advice would be to magistrate in terms of whether to enforce the charge over the next three weeks. Mr Gove replies "uphold the law", adding ministers took legal advice before setting the 24th December date and believed it was the best way to remove the charge as "expeditiously as possible"  

Image source, Getty Images

Writing for ConservativeHome, external, House of Commons leader Chris Grayling says the Conservatives should not be "complacent" about the outcome of the Oldham West and Royton by-election, in which the party came a distant third to Labour, which comfortably retained the seat, and also behind UKIP. He writes. 

House of Commons
Parliament

The day's proceedings are under way in the House of Commons with Justice Secretary Michael Gove and his team of ministers fielding questions from MPs. You can follow all the action on our Westminster Live website. 

Adam Crozier says it is "entirely up to the BBC" when it wants to schedule its late evening news bulletin amid reports there might be political pressure on the BBC to move its 10 O'clock News to avoid the current clash with ITV's News at Ten. Mr Crozier says there has been a "hoo-ha" about the issue but ITV's focus is on producing the best news bulletin it can and it is not trying to dictate to the BBC what it should do. Mr Crozier also rejects suggestions that the ITV is annoyed at the success of prime-time hit show Strictly Come Dancing, saying the programme is a "great example of doing something distinctive and making it successful" and that is what the BBC should be doing. 

Giving evidence to MPs about the BBC's Charter Renewal, ITV chief executive Adam Crozier says he and his staff try to "spend as little time as is humanly possible" thinking about the BBC as they are not a direct commercial competitor and do not, in terms of their UK services, take advertising. His job, he says, is to focus on the "99% of things under our control".

Diesel farms could this week win contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds as part of a government scheme to keep the lights on.

The payments, which will add to household energy bills, are intended to ensure there is enough generating capacity on the power network.

Critics say the capacity market has failed to deliver new gas plants to replace aging coal power stations.

The government says its priority is reliable, affordable energy supplies.

Read our full story

Labour is stepping up its criticism of Mondelez International, the US parent company of UK confectionery firm Cadbury, after reports suggested that Cadbury paid virtually no corporation tax in the UK at all last year despite making profits of £149m. Labour say it is part of a wider pattern of lawful, yet unacceptable, corporate tax avoidance which the government must address. 

Iain Duncan Smith has given his take on warnings from European Council President Donald Tusk that David Cameron's demands for welfare curbs for new EU migrants is causing "substantial political differences".

He does not view Mr Tusk's letter to EU leaders, saying the UK's demands are "destabilising", as a setback.

"I thought the letter yesterday simply said that we haven’t reached a conclusion at this point and he’s already said, which I think is a good sign, that they are going to delay the final decision on this until they’ve had a chance to really thrash these issues out," he told BBC News.

He urged people to remember Lady Thatcher's EU negotiations, when "almost everybody" said it would not be feasible for the UK to get money back, but she returned with a "huge rebate".

"If you play the system hard and you go in and make very clear what you want," then you can get it, he adds. 

Victoria Derbyshire

We are going to "see significant numbers of people coming on to Universal Credit", from May next year, Iain Duncan Smith has said.

The work and pensions secretary predicted that Universal Credit, which replaces six working age benefits or tax credits, but which has been hit by a series of delays, "will be in all job centres by the beginning of next year".

It is currently being trialled in job centres in the North West of England and in parts of Sutton and Croydon.

Mr Duncan Smith hit back at claims the project has been beset by IT problems, saying: "Actually it's brilliant."

In its latest fiscal forecast, external, the Office for Budget Responsibility said: "Our forecast of the marginal cost of Universal Credit is based on a new assumption for the pace of rollout, which we have once again deemed necessary to push back." 

A few days ago, the government confirmed it wanted to press ahead with charging overseas visitors and foreign migrants for certain NHS services pending the outcome of a consultation. The Green Party's deputy leader Amelia Womack says it is opposed to the move being "sneeked through the back door" and is urging people to make their views known to ministers. 

BBC Monitoring

Image source, AFP

Danish media are quoting the country's prime minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen (above), as saying that the EU needs to be "slimmed down" and that Denmark should gravitate towards the UK government's looser vision of the 28-member bloc. According to Danish news agency Ritzau Bureau, Mr Rasmussen - a Liberal Party politician who was elected in June - said: