10.30pm: BBC has a report on tonight's first Mayoral hustings (Samuel Coates will post his report in the morning) | MayorWatch has this (11pm)
7.30pm ToryDiary: Hague responds to Petraeus report
5.45pm: The Petraeus Report on Progress in Iraq
3.30pm ToryDiary: Ousting Maggie or Black Wednesday - Which event hurt the Tories most?
12.30pm London Mayor: LibDem shortlist announced
Noon Platform: Nick Wood's overview of last week's media coverage
10.30am ToryDiary: Cameron explains why he wants to measure 'General Well Being'
9.45am ToryDiary: 'We will raise green taxes but they will be replacement taxes' says Cameron
Columnist Stephan Shakespeare: The Tories aren't doing better in the marginals
Seats and candidates: Deselection speculation about Bercow and Mercer
William Norton begins a five part series: How to fight a referendum
- Part 1: Get the structure right, and enforce it
Duncan Flynn: The Ashley Mote affair shames the whole European Union
Yesterday's important ToryDiary announcement: All comment threads are now being moderated
The Gummer-Goldsmith report
"David Cameron will be urged this week to increase green taxes, suspend road-building programmes and beware the “darker side of wealth” by a Tory policy commission." - Times
"Taxes on short-haul domestic flights, a doubling of landfill tax for business, and new requirements on supermarkets to take back unnecessarily wasteful packaging, including plastic bags, are to be proposed in an attempt to give substance to David Cameron's appeal to green voters." - The Guardian
"The radical proposal for a graded tax on car sales - which could add up to £2,000 to the cost of a family saloon - aims to persuade drivers to opt for low carbon options such as the Toyota Prius or a new generation of all-electric cars." - Telegraph
Charles Glover, The Telegraph's Environment Editor, welcomes the report calling its recommendations "sensible" and describing plans for a showroom tax as "years ahead of Labour".
"Mr Cameron's team are clear about the message which they wish to project. They believe that much of the text can be summarised in traditional Tory terms: choice, incentives and markets. Mr Cameron does not want to use the language of bans and prohibitions. He merely wants to make it easier and cheaper for people to make green choices, while brown ones become harder and dearer." - Bruce Anderson in The Independent
Green taxation as a percentage of national income (shouldn't that be the Happy Index?) is lowest since 1981 according to a LibDem survey - The Guardian
Yesterday's ToryDiary: The six political dangers of Gummer-Goldsmith
And something lighter from the Daily Mash: "Tory leader David Cameron last night sought to bolster his green credentials by taking his toaster into the street and shooting it at point blank range. Party strategists described Mr Cameron's toaster execution as the first salvo in the Tories' war on appliances. Mr Cameron will today order his shadow cabinet to remove a favourite counter-top appliance from their kitchens and either push it under a bus or take it to the countryside and drown it in a stream."
Janet Daley calls for specifics from David Cameron
Janet Daley says that the nation's problems are obvious: "the state education system is failing a large proportion of children; casual criminality and anti-social behaviour are undermining the quality of life for millions of law-abiding people; the welfare system is permitting too many people to live economically and socially dysfunctional lives." In her Telegraph article she calls for David Cameron to offer "concrete, convincing mechanisms" for addressing these problems.
Mike Jackson attacks National Citizen Service idea
"General Sir Mike Jackson, the former head of the army, has criticised Tory plans to introduce national service saying the military should not be "some sort of social service"." - Daily Mail
The EU wants to purge The Queen from our passports?
"Mention of the Queen could be removed from British passports and replaced by a page explaining why all EU citizens are entitled to use our embassies abroad, it emerged yesterday." - The Mail
Fraternity
"Fraternity cuts across established political categories of left and right, wet and dry, old guard and new generation. It directly addresses our present social recession. While it is no panacea, it has something to offer all sections of the Conservative party. It can thus form the basis of a new internal consensus - if the political will exists to implement it." - Jesse Norman in the FT
Gordon Brown to promise "an extra 500,000 British jobs could be created for British workers" - Telegraph
The Independent notes trade union warnings that Gordon Brown could face an autumn of discontent over public sector pay restraint.
Economic migrants from outside the EU may face language test - ePolitix.com
"The "super-rich" should pay more tax in an effort to reduce child poverty and fight crime, says the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC)." - BBC
Away from politics: The Telegraph has a great feature on Britain's best landscape views.
Please use this thread to highlight other interesting news and commentary...
