G4S boss questioned by MPs over Olympic security: Politics live blog As for the rest of the papers, here are some stories are and articles that are particularly interesting. Sam Coates and Sam Fleming in the Times (paywall) say their Populus poll shows voters rating Labour as more competent than the other main political parties for the first time since 2010. The poll finds that only 18 per cent of voters believe that the Chancellor is doing a good job. William Hague, who some Tory MPs believe is the most credible replacement in the unlikely event that David Cameron demands a change, is said by 49 per cent to be doing a good job. Asked whether they think each party is "competent and capable," the Tories plunge from a rating of 46 per cent in March to 34 per cent, falling behind Labour on 36 per cent. On whether each party has "a clear idea to deal with Britain's problems," the Tories have fallen 11 points to 33 per cent, with Labour ahead on 36 per cent. Tom Newton Dunn in the Sun says Oliver Letwin is pushing for British troops to leave Afghanistan a year early. A FRESH row has exploded between forces chiefs and ministers over a demand for troops to leave Afghanistan early to save cash. MPs say pulling out by Christmas 2013 - a YEAR ahead of schedule - would boost the Treasury by around £3billion. But angry generals reject the call, claiming it would cost lives by leaving troops left behind more vulnerable. The pull-out call is being led by Cabinet minister Oliver Letwin, who is backed by Chancellor George Osborne. Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has sided with the military, while PM David Cameron is sitting on the fence. Andrew Gilligan in the Daily Telegraph says Britain and Libya will set up a joint police team to investigate the murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher. William Waldegrave, the former Tory cabinet minister, says in the Times (paywall) that Conservatives should not put too much faith in the power of the free market. Conservatives should never make the mistake of falling in love with free enterprise. When they do, they make fools of themselves. We should follow Adam Smith. Free markets where there is competition are good ways of producing things, yes; but we should be as sceptical as he was about the marketeers. People of the same trade seldom meet together but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public. .... Quite a lot of people who believe it is a given that private companies are always more efficient than the public service have never worked in real private enterprise. As Irving Kristol, the American intellectual and writer, said, an awful lot of people who favour unbridled competition have tenure. My experience tells me that there is no incompetence whatsoever of which the public sector is capable that cannot be matched in spades by the private sector. Citizens sit dumbfounded watching the beautiful advertisements telling us that banks or insurance companies really care about us, when we know first hand it is mostly bunk. A couple of years ago, we moved house. Of the dozens of bodies with which one cannot avoid entanglement in this horrible process, the ones with the biggest advertising budgets were the worst: Sky, BT, British Gas, EDF, banks. It wasn't just the estate agents. Only two lots were any good: one private (a family firm, I think), Cadogan Tate, the removals people - excellent. One public: the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea - courteous, quick and efficient. Private good, public bad just is not true. It is, at best, a draw. What matters is the way that organisation is run. Mary Riddell in the Daily Telegraph says Ed Miliband has confounded his critics. Come October, [Miliband] will have to persuade the country in a conference speech that, with several drafts written, still lacks the totemic policies necessary to win back lost voters. Jon Trickett, the shadow cabinet office minister, has identified four key groups of defectors: manual workers, public sector employees, ethnic minorities and the burgeoning metropolitan middle class. These disparate groupings have little in common but their fear ... If Mr Miliband can convince the young and the old that he will be their champion, in deed as well as in word, then he will begin to show that he has the will, as well as the rhetoric, to rebuild a Britain whose current best hope appears, even in the eyes of optimistic citizens, to lie in managed decline. As his advisers know, if he misses this narrow moment of opportunity to make his case, then his chance will vanish. Rachel Sylvester in the Times (paywall) says the Tories do not take the coalition agreement seriously enough. There is a reason for this. The Conservatives never had their hands "dipped in the blood," as the Deputy Prime Minister puts it, when the Government was formed. Although Lib Dem MPs and activists voted formally to support the coalition agreement at a special conference, Tory MPs just had a meeting of the 1922 Committee. "David Cameron stood up and said we can form a coalition, but we need to give them a referendum on AV and we all roared," recalls one of those present. That was the sum total of due diligence. As a result the coalition agreement is viewed in a completely different way by the parties. For the Lib Dems, it's a sacred text. To the Tories, it's a list of ideas. They see it as the Ten Commandments set down in stone. We think, "We can live with eight of them but we'll forget about a couple," " says a senior Conservative. It's a huge problem. Somehow the leadership has failed to inculcate in enough MPs the essential matter that this is a Government of two parties that requires compromise from both. Dominic Raab, the Conservative MP, says in an article in the Financial Times (subscription) that the coalition needs to rediscover "the glue of classic liberal values" that binds both parties. The coalition's greatest struggle is knitting a common thread on social fairness during austerity. If Labour wants to bash bankers, soak the rich and spend more, the coalition should vacate that ground. The politics of envy is a mirage that leads to moral and economic bankruptcy. Yet, while all the parties profess their commitment to improving social mobility and meritocracy, creative policy making is more scarce. YouGov surveys show the public, by 3 to 1, think that fairness is getting what you deserve, not equal treatment. The coalition should make this its touchstone for social policy. For example, Michael Gove's GCSE reforms should be supplemented by resuscitating the successful Young Apprenticeships for 14 to 16 year olds - a vocational ladder for the children who switch off academic learning at that age and resort to truancy. Elsewhere, the vestiges of Labour's divisive Equality Act - public sector equality audits, gender quotas, etc - should be scrapped and replaced with family friendly support for working couples, like transferable parental leave (a Lib Dem idea) and transferable income tax allowances (a Tory one). Those two measures would do far more for the average working woman juggling childcare than Harriet Harman's ivory tower obsession with boardroom quotas. I did not want coalition in 2010. But it is here, so we need to make it work. To survive to 2015, it needs the glue of classic liberal values common to both parties, not the politics of identity that fragments government and turns off the public.