Friday 7th December 2007

3.30pm ToryDiary: CCHQ lose two star employees

3.15pm ToryDiary: Heseltine warns of difficult times ahead

3pm ToryDiary: Hague calls for Mugabe, and those who welcome him, to be shamed in Lisbon

10.45am ToryDiary: Two years of David Cameron

ToryDiary: Geoffrey Van Orden given task of negotiating new partners for Tory MEPs

Columnist Theresa May: Nevermind John Darwin, where have Jacqui, Harriet, Ed, Douglas and Gordon been?

Platform: Tony Makara believes we should be worried about decadent role models

Seats and candidates: Richard Normington selected for Cambridge

BritainAndAmerica: Mitt Romney's step of faith

Banning gazumping

"The making and accepting of an offer on a house would be made legally binding under Tory proposals. The plans could end gazumping, when a seller agrees to an offer on a house only to accept a higher bid at the last minute. They would also cut how long it takes to exchange contracts, according to Conservative housing spokesman Grant Shapps. He hopes to bring down the average time it takes to buy a home from three months to one." - Mail

Cameron speech to Cardiff Business Club

"David Cameron has launched his strongest attack on Gordon Brown's economic record, accusing him of leaving Britain "ill-prepared" to weather the current storms in the global economy. The Tory leader said last night that, despite 15 years of growth, the British economy was now seen as more vulnerable to a slowdown than its competitors." - Independent

More fiscal autonomy to Scotland to avoid total independence

"Scotland could be given greater tax and spending powers in an attempt to thwart demands for a vote on independence. A "constitutional commission" is to be set up after Labour, Liberal Democrat and Tory MSPs supported a "pro-union" pact at Holyrood in Edinburgh yesterday." - Guardian

Reaction to energy revolution

"Britain's power generators have reacted sharply to Tory proposals to boost micro-generation, saying that the plans represented a call for a "revolution". Under the proposals published yesterday by the Conservative leader, David Cameron, homes and businesses would be given incentives, through feed-in tariffs, to switch to micro-generation, producing their own electricity from equipment such as solar panels or small wind turbines." - Guardian

A bonfire of bureaucrats

"The Conservatives must come up with policy initiatives that weaken the power of the state rather than entrench it. The first step is to adopt a slash-and-burn approach to bureaucracy - and that means firing bureaucrats. If you employ hundreds of thousands of extra bureaucrats - as Gordon Brown has - do not be surprised if they come up with hundred of thousands of extra regulations. It's what bureaucrats do. The only way to stop them is to get rid of them." - Iain Dale in the Telegraph

Government effectively admits prison works

"The decision of the Government to increase the number of prison places to 100,000 is a tacit admission that the criminal justice policy of all British governments for the past half-century has been based upon lies and deceptions. The consistent failure to immobilise criminals properly has been a wicked and sanctimonious betrayal of the working class by middle-class intellectuals" - Theodore Dalrymple in the Times

Government not stopping fish wastage

"The government was yesterday accused of having "no intention" of stopping fishermen being forced to dump valuable fish overboard. A Tory MP, Bill Wiggin, said the junior environment minister Jonathan Shaw was attacking the practice but his department was not going to halt it." - Scotsman

Please use this thread to highlight other interesting news and commentary...

Comments

[Comstock]

**STOP PRESS**

Never mind that little lot-Here's the real news story of the day- you are getting rid of me! It looks like a house move is going to succeed where various IP bans have failed, and since my new houseshare doesn't have a landline, let alone broadband it could be quite sometime before I darken your doors again.

So before I go, could I just say this....It's been great fun on here the last 2 years. Whilst I regard you all as my enemies, I realise some of you ain't such bad people underneath. Although fate has bunged us on the opposite sides of the class and wealth divide, deep down I suspect we have more in common that those who say 'I can't be bovvered with politics'.

Should, therefore, the Red Revolution come along before we speak again, I'll do my best to ensure none of you get beheaded, and you don't have to work more than a 14 hour day labouring in the fields. Well OK then twelve.

If I've annoyed you, good, for the handful of times I've gone too far I apologise.

So, a rather ridiculously early Merry Christmas to everyone, may the new year bring you all political failure but personal happiness.

I shall surely return....sometime

Well I shall have to- at least two of you will owe me money ;)

[David Belchamber]

Comstock, we will miss you. The great thing about ConHome is that we posters are not slaves to the party line and it is excellent to have totally contrary opinions represented here, particularly when they are well argued. They should make us search for a rational reply, rather than an emotive one.
Happy Christmas.
David

[David Belchamber]

Editor, any time from soon to about 2 years' time, our Party might be called upon to form the government.

It is time, I believe, to reflect on what good we do at ConHome; do we impinge on shadow ministers and CCHQ at all or are all our opinions purely ephemeral - here today and gone tomorrow?

If the latter, it is just a form of self-indulgence but I feel that there is a lot of valuable information, comment and expertise in among all the froth and splentic comment.

Unless comments are made in the form of an article or policy (what did happen to those?), they disappear from sight and mind.

Does CCHQ regularly monitor what goes on here or is there a case for summarising at the end of a week important comments and views that have been expressed?

[David Cooper]

Disappointing to note that the full article highlighted above under "Banning gazumping" includes the comment "But the Tories will retain the energy performance certificate from HIPs, because the EU requires them to be introduced." Given that hostility to HIPs arises mainly from the compulsion to spend time and money upon what is perceived as a useless product, when the purchasers will ignore them and the conveyancing will not be accelerated as a result of their production, how is it going to make any difference simply to abolish the requirement to assemble a set of searches? Annoying as usual that the diktat of the EU seems to be ever present.

[Richard ROBINSON]

Grant Shapps on the Today programme this morning was explaining that, although a Conservative Government would abolish HIPs, we would retain the requirement to provide an Energy Performance Certificate. Do property buyers really need an inspector to tell them that their property contains thermostatically-controlled radiator valves, low-energy light bulbs or loft insulation?

[Richard ROBINSON]

Sorry, just seen David Cooper's post.

He is right - the requirement to have Energy Performance Certificates comes for the The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive passed by the EU in 2002 which requires all buildings to have an EPC when they are sold or rented.

[bill]

I would have thought any perceived problem is more likely to be one of "gazundering" in the current market. Will buyers also be obliged to stick to their offer price regardless of circumstances (e.g. survey results, loss of finace etc)? The Tories should leave people free to contract as they see fit.

[Dave Bartlett]

"London is poised to move on to the next iteration of virtualising its policing, following the publication of the first of a series of consultations on police basing requirements in the capital. The plans effectively place community support officers, aka 'Blunkett's Bobbies' as the primary 'customer interface' for policing in London, while the 'real' police take a further step back, away from the public." The Register

[Malcolm Dunn]

Excellent article by Alice Thomson in the Telegraph today about the covenant between our Armed forces and the people (not just the government) of Britain. I would urge anyone who hasn't seen it to read it.

[Brandin]

I was wondering if you were going to post By-election results as you had two weeks ago. The Conservatives held Barnes, Richmond Upon Thames, LBC - Rita Palmer and Remenham, Wargrave and Ruscombe, Wokingham Unitary - John Kersley. The Conservatives gained two from Labour being Masson, Derbyshire Dales, DC - Garry Purdy and Shepway South, Maidstone, BC - Sheena Williams. Labour gained Princess End, Sandwell, MBC from BNP, which I would state is a good thing. I hope I am not imposing.

[Bethechange]

Editor, two weeks ago on 23/11/07 you posted that week's council byelection results (two Lib Dem gains from us) and said "We'll now post these results every Friday and add a running summary."

As we gained two last night are you going to post this weeks results?

[Bethechange]

Sorry - should have read Brandin at 15:14

[HF]

Good point Bethechange we had a great result in Richmond Barnes with a 5% swing from the LDs. Well done to those who worked on that campaign? What did they do right?

[Sean Fear]

The EU only requires the Energy Performance certificates to be updated once every ten years, not annually, as this government does. This is an excellent example of the way that we gold-plate EU laws.

[David Belchamber]

Two points about buying and selling properties:

(i) a formal verbal offer is a contract but if it is "subject to contract", there is an easy getout. Gazumping normally occurs late on in the deal, so, if a cooling off period of, say, 14 days is introduced (as with credit deals), then after that period the contract would be binding on both parties and could only be got out of if there were serious legal or structural problems.

(ii) any surveyor who is a FRICS or ARICS is bound by a code of conduct to act professionally, so the owner could be required, when putting the property on the market, to have a house purchase survey carried out and attached to the sale details.

If the buyer wants a more in-depth survey, he could commission one at his cost.