Newslinks for Friday 3rd February 2012

2pm Andrea Leadsom MP on Comment: Apprenticeships have a huge role to play in getting the unemployed into the workplace, education or training

12.45 Local government:

• Council byelection result from yesterday
• Big interest in restoring weekly bin collections

12.15pm ConHomeUSA newslinks: Obama's ruling on Catholic institutions could cost him election

11.45am ToryDiary: Cameron's letter to Huhne praises his contribution to creating "greenest government ever" but says he was right to resign

11.30am Harry Phibbs on Comment: Scruton offers a truly Conservative environment policy

11.15am WATCH: Chris Huhne resigns and defiantly vows to fight against prosecution

10.45am ToryDiary: Three political implications of the prosecution of Chris Huhne

ToryDiary: Ken Clarke is right. We should take a risk and wipe away certain criminal records.

Columnist Bruce Anderson: Cameron must not be remembered for gay marriage, wrecking the Lords and losing Scotland

Guy Opperman MP on Comment: Argentina should accept that the Falklands Islands wish to remain British

Lord Flight on Comment: The Government should now withdraw at least from the parts of the EU keeping our economy down

LeftWatch: Could this happen?

Local government: Michael Crick visits Liverpool as it prepares to elect a city-wide Mayor

Trade minister Ed Davey is favourite to take over from Huhne if he quits - Sun

• "Sir Jeremy Heywood, cabinet secretary, is understood to have advised David Cameron that Mr Huhne would have to step down if the Crown Prosecution Service pressed charges against him." - FT (£)
• "Like him or loathe him Mr Huhne is a big beast in the Cabinet, an impressive operator who gives the Lib Dems firepower in the Coalition. Mr Clegg has not got a ready supply of equal replacements, and will regret this loss of clout." - Benedict Brogan

Clegg: Conservative plans to give married couples a tax break must take second place behind a Liberal Democrat tax cut for low-earners - Telegraph

Killers' convictions could be erased in just SEVEN years under Ken Clarke's new 'rehabilitation' plans - Daily Mail

"Soft Justice Secretary Ken Clarke sparked fury last night with plans to slash the time in which criminals are forced to own up to their offences. It would let thousands of ex-lags keep quiet about their past when applying for jobs." - Sun

"The periods after which convicted criminals no longer have to declare their past offending are to be significantly cut in plans outlined by Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary yesterday. It will mean some rapists and killers who would normally have had a permanent record will now have it cleared after seven years at the most and possibly as low as two years. Thousands of burglars and muggers will have their records cleared after as little as a year." - Telegraph

The last unreformed public service is getting a dramatic make-over - The Economist welcomes the potential of police reforms.

The Royal College of GPs has called for the health bill to be scrapped - BBC

Ministers plan to rewrite the law in an attempt to ensure that fathers get improved access to their offspring after a marriage breaks down - Times (£)

"Millions of children from broken homes are to be granted new rights to a 'full and continuing relationship' with both their parents.
The move is designed to ensure that the parent who leaves the family home – most commonly the father – cannot be cut out of their children's lives following an acrimonious separation." - Daily Mail

"Mr Loughton last night told The Daily Telegraph: “The state cannot create happy families, or broker amicable break-ups. But if children are having decent, loving parents pushed out of their lives, we owe it to them to change the system that lets this happen.” One official said the Government wanted to remove any “inbuilt legal bias against the father or the mother” in the law."

Eric Pickles' £250 million weekly bin collection fund opens for applications - BBC

The Daily Telegraph reports that eighty councils are certain to restart weekly bin collections.

"Mr Pickles is set to say today: “Rubbish collections are the most visible service that people get for their £120 per month council tax. Labour’s barmy bin rules have made putting out your rubbish more complicated than solving a Rubik’s cube. The public are fed up of all the bin ‘do’s’ and bin ‘don’ts’. They just want a simple service, which is why the Government is making sure that councils can offer a good weekly collection and make it easier to go green." - Express

The veto that wasn’t - The Economist concludes that the veto proved again that Cameron "neglects strategy and long-term planning".

> Yesterday's Andrew Lilico column: The FU Treaty significantly changes our relationship with the EU so when's that referendum coming?

Damian Green: High-earning migrants and promising student entrepreneurs will find it easier to work in Britain - Independent

Immigration is only SEVENTH most important issue "facing you and your family" - Guardian leader

Tory peers accuse MPs of ‘treating Lords with contempt’ over welfare bill - Scotsman

• Conservatives seem depressingly determined to give Labour’s constitutional vandals a run for their money - Telegraph leader

The cost of compiling David Cameron's ridiculous Happiness Index has now soared to a staggering £8million - The Sun Says it should be scrapped

Cameron urged to block rail chief's £340,000 bonus - Independent

• Danny Alexander ends student loans chief's tax-avoiding arrangement - Guardian

Ed Miliband will call today for a culture of "one nation banking" in which financial institutions reconnect with the rest of society - BBC

• "In a speech in the City, Mr Miliband will say that even banks that did not benefit from bail-outs “have a responsibility” to show restraint. Labour wants a vote next week on ending the bonus culture." - Times (£)
• "The appetite for banker bashing is limited in this country. We are now close to its limit. Mr Miliband’s passion is often visible on issues that hang to the Left. He needs now to show passion on an issue that defines him against his dominant type or else he will turn into a more polished version of something the British don’t want." - Philip Collins in The Times (£)

David Miliband is back, concludes the leader-writers in The Independent

If Labour ditched David and Ed Miliband, it could actually win an election - Fraser Nelson in The Telegraph

> On ToryDiary yesterday we looked at ten reasons why Conservatives are pessimistic about the next election

Polly Toynbee: The cuts are coming and people will turn on Cameron

"only 6% of public service cuts have happened yet. Another 94% are still to come, with cascades more public servants sacked. In benefits, 88% of cuts are still to come. But Tory and Lib Dem MPs voted through an £18bn benefit cut for the "squeezed" bottom half with few qualms, taking £1,400 from disabled children and £94 a week from the sick who don't die or recover within a year." - Polly Toynbee in The Guardian

Scottish press digest Lord Ashcroft's poll on the referendum question

"Support for independence drops by as much as 8 per cent if the SNP’s preferred question is dumped in favour of one backed by pro-Union campaigners, a major new poll has revealed. The survey, conducted by YouGov, and published yesterday by Conservative donor Lord Ashcroft, showed that 41 per cent of people currently back independence if asked using Alex Salmond’s preferred question." - Scotsman

> Lord Ashcroft yesterday: The question of Scottish independence is too important to be asked in such a partisan way

Better a low-paid worker than a starving one - Hugo Rifkind for The Times (£)

Right-wingers are less intelligent than left-wingers says Canadian study - Daily Mail

And finally... Nick Clegg admits: "I was quite naughty at primary school" - Solihull News

> Please use the thread below to provide links to news topics likely to be of interest to ConservativeHome readers and to comment on political topics that haven't been given their own blog. Read our comments policy here.

Newslinks for Thursday 2nd February 2012

6pm Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali and Rehman Chishti MP on Comment: The Medway towns can provide a great example of communities working together

5pm Immigration, Chris Huhne and Top Totty ale feature in our Teatime news round up

4pm ToryDiary: Government sends another signal that it's about to (again) increase our contribution to the IMF bailout fund

3.30pm Local government: Morale at DCLG "lowest in Whitehall" says survey

3pm John Baron MP on Comment: We must talk to the Taliban without preconditions

2.30pm Local government: Socialist Workers choose not to run a candidate against Ken Livingstone

2.30pm WATCH: Damian Green talks to the Daily Politics about his new emphasis on the quality of immigration

2pm Ed Holmes on ThinkTankCentral: Are Labour ministers being consistent on regional pay and benefits?

1pm John Stevens on Comment: If we want to increase trade with India we need to get closer to the EU

Noon ConHomeUSA: Santorum turns fire on Gingrich; while Romney catches Obama's money machine

ToryDiary: The ten reasons why Cameron expects he'll still need the Liberal Democrats AFTER the next election

Also on ToryDiary: Introducing the Conservative Baldemorts

Columnist Andrew Lilico: The FU Treaty significantly changes our relationship with the EU so when's that referendum coming?

On Comment, publishing new and exclusive polling Lord Ashcroft warns that the question of Scottish independence is too important to be asked in such a partisan way

Mark Prisk MP on Comment: Businesses will save billions of pounds because of our war on red tape

Local government: Labour-run Chesterfield Borough Council is proposing a Council Tax rise of 3.5% but is first holding a consultation to test if residents agree and Peter Walker explains why he's standing as Police and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire

VIDEO: Britain gives aid to India but India buys French military jets. BBC Newsnight investigates...

Jeremy Warner launches a massive attack on Cameron's business credentials

"Mr Cameron likes to think of Britain as “open for business”, but the message he and his colleagues have been sending to the world in recent months has been the very reverse – confused and incoherent, it seems to read “not welcome here”. This is a government that appears every bit as compromised and paralysed by the pursuit of narrow political populism as its Continental counterparts." - Jeremy Warner in The Telegraph

• Britain is now an anti-business nation - Allister Heath lists the reasons over at City AM

Senior Tories are urging David Cameron to SACK Vince Cable as Business Secretary — because he is stunting economic growth

"A group of Conservative Ministers blame the veteran Lib Dem for hampering the recovery by blocking radical tax cuts for firms" - Sun

Senior Tories say former Lloyds TSB chair Sir Victor Blank and ex-HBOS chief Sir James Crosby should also lose knighthoods - Guardian | Daily Mail

...But the FT (£) reports: "The decision to strip Fred Goodwin of his knighthood was initially well received at Westminster, but many MPs believe it must not be the start of a trend. One Tory MP said he felt “unsettled” by the decision while another said the whole episode had been “tawdry”.

• The political class, led by a Conservative Prime Minister, has shown an unhealthy enthusiasm for playing to the mob in the Fred Goodwin affair - Telegraph leader
• In The Times (£) Matthew Parris applauds the decision to strip Fred Goodwin of his knighthood: "Symbolism matters. Sometimes an example has to be made of somebody. The State is entitled to point the way. Sometimes it’s right that the sucker holding the parcel when the music stops does get kicked out of the game."

Peers who are imprisoned for more than a year could be thrown out of the House of Lords under coalition plans to end the “no expulsion” culture in the upper house - FT (£)

MPs have overturned a series of defeats inflicted on the government's welfare reform bill in the House of Lords - BBC

Downing Street last night confirmed ancient parliamentary rules on “financial privilege” could be used to force welfare measures into law in the face of continuing Lords opposition - Express

IFS criticises George Osborne's “bizarre and economically damaging” plans to restrict child benefit - Times (£)

Immigration minister to signal more selective policy under which only the right kind of migrants are allowed to enter Britain - Guardian

"Damian Green will tell newcomers they must show how they can “benefit Britain” rather than just benefit by it. In a key speech spelling out the ground rules for a more selective immigration policy, he will redefine the “points-based system” as a “contribution-based system”. And he will attack as “unacceptable” any notion of migrants “importing economic dependency on the state”." - Telegraph

Osborne 'has scope for £20bn tax boost'... but it might undermine investor confidence, IFS warns - Daily Mail

Government departments hits own cost-cutting targets

"Analysis by the National Audit Office found departments spent £7.9bn less in 2010-11, as capital, administrative and programme budgets were all reduced. Departments "successfully managed" within the new limits, it said. But it warned most had "no detailed plan" on how to meet tougher targets by 2015." - BBC

"The National Audit Office says that short-term measures such as streamlining back offices, which have saved £7.9 billion so far, will not be nearly enough. It argues that big “operational change” is needed, which could include merging departments to ensure permanent staff cuts. Most departments must cut adminstrative costs by a third by 2014 but redundancy costs have been high and many former quangos have been subsumed into Whitehall rather than abolished." - Times (£)

• "It is sobering to be reminded that 94% of Mr Osborne's departmental spending cuts are still to come, along with another 88% of the planned reductions to benefits" - Guardian leader
• Are we in this together? London and North worst hit by spending cuts - Independent
• This may be an era of economic turmoil, but people have little appetite for a radical alternative - Martin Kettle in The Guardian

Cameron HAS renewed his EU veto, insists John Redwood

'Where's Baldemort?' David Cameron goads Liam Byrne at PMQs with villainous Harry Potter reference - Daily Mail

> WHAT TOP TORIES LOOK LIKE WITHOUT HAIR

David Miliband outlines a seven-point plan for Labour's future - BBC

"David Miliband launched a thinly veiled attack on his brother Ed's leadership yesterday, denouncing Labour's tendency to wallow in its 'comfort zone'. Condemning what he called 'Reassurance Labour', the former foreign secretary said many in the party were still seduced by the 'political dead end of the big state'. In his most important intervention since losing the bitter leadership contest, Mr Miliband penned a 3,000-word plan to revive the party for the leftwing New Statesman magazine." - Daily Mail

Read the New Statesman article.

Ed Miliband's response to events - Murdoch and the banking crisis - has had more impact than that ofany leader of the opposition in recent times - Steve Richards in The Independent

In The Sun, Trevor Kavanagh looks at Yvette Cooper's credentials: "Unlike her bulldozer husband, she is happily free of contamination by toxic Gordon Brown. Indeed, with her campaign to portray Labour as the party of law and order, she could almost pass as a Blairite. Yet her credentials are pure Old Labour."

Scotland can go it alone and keep its triple A status - John Swinney MSP for the FT (£)

Dr Giles Fraser, ex of St Paul's Cathedral, dismisses George Carey as a “Thatcherite yesterday’s man” - Telegraph

 > Please use the thread below to provide links to news topics likely to be of interest to ConservativeHome readers and to comment on political topics that haven't been given their own blog. Read our comments policy here.

Newslinks for Wednesday 1st February 2012

7.45pm WATCH: Mark Field MP: The anti-banker lynch mob mentality of the last few days makes Britain seem unfriendly for business

5pm Reaction to PMQs and the welfare reforms being voted on by MPs lead our 5pm newslinks

4.45pm Local government: Labour attack Boris for Council Tax cut

2.45pm On ThinkTankCentral, Tim Knox of the Centre for Policy Studies argues: A substantial Corporation Tax cut would send a bold pro-growth, pro-enterprise message

1.30pm WATCH: David Cameron: "It was the last Labour government... that agreed an RBS bonus pool of £1.3billion"

1pm ToryDiary: PMQs: Miliband attacks on health and banking, but Conservatives launch benefits cap counter-attack

11.45am ConHomeUSA: Your guide to the best commentary on Romney's big win in Florida

11.30am Local government: Councils to keep council rents - not hand them over to Whitehall

11.15am Roger Helmer MEP on Comment: Climate alarmism is falling out of favour in the rest of the world - but Europe hasn't noticed

10.45am WATCH: George Osborne: "I think it's appropriate that [Fred Goodwin] loses his knighthood"

10.30am Local government: Boris to cut the Council Tax precept by 1%

10am Lord Ashcroft on Comment: Farewell to one of the true greats of the early SAS

ToryDiary: Some good news from (and for) David Willetts, who declares that "our University revolution has only just begun"

Also on ToryDiary: Let's remove honours by X-Factor

Columnist Jill Kirby: Tories need to “own” plans to increase the personal allowance

Chris Kelly MP on Comment: Why we urgently need a Euro-sceptic business campaign

Cllr Ravi Govindia on Local Government: Wandsworth publish performance information

WATCH: William Hague: How many people have to die before the world wakes up to the brutality of the Syrian regime?

David Cameron abandons attempts to stop €urozone leaders using EU institutions

"Senior Liberal Democrats have lined up to praise David Cameron after the prime minister bowed to pressure from Nick Clegg and abandoned attempts to block eurozone leaders from enforcing a new fiscal compact through EU institutions." - Guardian

• "Sir Menzies said he welcomed Mr Cameron’s ‘pragmatism’, saying he had ‘pursued a policy of re-engagement with our European partners’. Mr Hughes welcomed the Prime Minister’s actions at ‘a much more successful and satisfactory summit’ than the December meeting." - Daily Mail
• "Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, told the Commons the veto had been exposed as a “phantom”. He said: “With this Prime Minister a veto is not just for life, it's for Christmas…It talks like a European treaty, it walks like a European treaty, it is a European treaty.”" - Independent
• David Cameron is drawing his battle lines firmly in the centre ground - Benedict Brogan for the Daily Telegraph

> From yesterday:

• MPsETC: Cameron today: Off the hook on the veto.  On it over more IMF money.
• WATCH: David Cameron: "We are not signing it, we are not ratifying it, we are not part of it"
• LeftWatch: Now pandering Miliband poses as a Euro-sceptic

Tim Montgomerie: Tory rebels are keeping their powder dry for larger European battles

"Battle number one will be over the looming possibility that British taxpayers will be asked to pour billions more into the International Monetary Fund’s bailout fund... Battle two will come over the European Court of Human Rights... Battle three is the big one. If the eurozone collapses the European Union will be changed for ever... Countries will then choose different degrees of European integration – some will want lots and others, notably Britain, will want less." - Tim Montgomerie for the Daily Mail

• The decision to let EU institutions police fiscal union is a massive missed opportunity for Cameron, and for Britain - Daniel Hannan MEP for the Guardian

Mr Fred Goodwin: RBS boss loses knighthood

"A Whitehall committee of senior civil servants ruled that he was an “exceptional case” and previous precedent should be overridden. Mr Goodwin lost his honour for “services to banking” despite not having been convicted of any criminal offence nor being professionally censured, the normal requirements for annulling a knighthood, CBE, OBE or MBE." - Daily Telegraph

• "It sends out the profoundly off-putting signal that Britain is anti-business and anti-wealth, a culture of harboured grudges, public vindictiveness and mob rule." - Independent editorial
• Don’t penalise RBS just because we own it - Alistair Darling for the Times (£)
• Ban bonuses, and Fred Goodwin could have kept his knighthood - Sir Simon Jenkins for the Guardian

Coalition attempts to draw up legislative programme for the rest of this Parliament

"The next Queen’s Speech is expected in May and will be dominated by a House of Lords reform Bill... MPs from both parties have been holding “Coalition 2.0” talks throughout the past year, ordered by Mr Clegg and David Cameron to draw up areas on which they can base a legislative programme for next year onwards. The group includes, for the Tories, Michael Gove... Owen Paterson... Greg Clark... and for the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey, the Business Minister, and David Laws, the former Cabinet minister." - The Times (£)

David Willetts: The Government's higher education reforms have not deterred applications

"Despite some dire warnings about the Coalition’s student finance reforms, we’ve already had more applications to university than in any year under the previous government. Once the decline in the total number of 18 year olds has been accounted for, their application rate is down only 1 per cent on last year, when a record number of people applied to get in... Already, more people have applied to start university in 2012 than there are places available. So yet again it will be very competitive." - David Willetts for the Daily Telegraph

> From yesterday - David T Breaker on Comment: At last, students are thinking before attending university

Welfare reforms suffer a seventh Lords defeat

"The government has suffered a seventh defeat in the House of Lords over proposed changes to the welfare system. Peers rejected plans to cut some of the benefits given to children on the lower rate of Disability Living Allowance. Ministers had wanted to reduce the amount of money paid to disabled children who do not need care at night... But peers backed an amendment limiting the cuts by 246 votes to 230." - BBC

• "The government will seek to overturn seven defeats inflicted by the House of Lords to its Welfare Reform Bill later. Ministers will urge the Commons to reject peers' amendments to the bill, including those to disability allowances proposed on Tuesday." - BBC
• David Cameron: I’ll fight all the way for dole cap - The Sun

Government to create first SNP peer in new wave of peerages to help combat Labour Lords majority

"The new round of peers is also likely to include one from the Scottish National Party for the first time in a bid to reach out to Scottish first minister Alex Salmond. ... the Prime Minister is looking at creating between 10 and 20 peers later this year. It comes after a series of amendments by peers to health and welfare policies have threatened to throw the Government’s reforms off course." - Daily Telegraph

Charles Hendry: North Sea oil risks European meddling in an independent Scotland

"Charles Hendry, Minister of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change, said the strength of the United Kingdom means ministers can “fight hard” to ensure the EU does not introduce regulations that hit profits. He used a letter to Oil and Gas UK, which represents the industry, to emphasise the Government’s success in opposing a European ban on drilling in the aftermath of the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster." - Daily Telegraph

• Oil set to become battleground in Scottish independence referendum - Guardian
• Ministers 'misled MPs over need for nuclear power stations' - Guardian

Daniel Finkelstein: Directly-elected mayors will bring Britain closer to the American political system

"[C]andidates will have a direct relationship with voters and there will be a premium on independence. Mayors will experiment and compete with each other. There will also be more open competition within parties, as candidates attempt to win the nomination. Mayors will be judged on their executive ability, on their success in getting their cities to thrive economically and socially. And cities all over Britain will gain champions, identifiable and controversial champions." - Daniel Finkelstein for the Times (£)

Lansley pledges a million more people will have access to an NHS dentist - Daily Mail

• The Health Bill has been a catastrophic mess – poorly presented, criticised from all corners and now emasculated. But the reforms at its heart are still urgently needed - Andrew Haldenby for the Daily Telegraph

Army to cut 20,000 jobs two years earlier than expected - Guardian

MoJ to use private debt collectors to help recover unpaid court fines - Guardian

Britain misses out on £10bn contract to sell jets to India... and France benefits - The Times (£)

> Please use the thread below to provide links to news topics likely to be of interest to ConservativeHome readers and to comment on political topics that haven't been given their own blog. Read our comments policy here.