ConservativeHome: Tuesday 11th March 2008

6pm ToryDiary: What should the Conservatives do next?

Alex Deane on the welfare trap.
Tom Clougherty responds to Matt Sinclair's concerns about the ASI report on waste
Edward McMillan-Scott MEP advocates having a female EU Commissioner
Michael Fallon for the frontbench, urges Conor Burns

ToryDiary: Michael Fallon is your Parliamentarian of the Year and Tories 5.2% ahead in ConservativeHome's poll of polls

Platform: Ashley Fox, a Conservative candidate in the South West European Elections, wants the Conservatives to commit to a retrospective referendum on the Lisbon Treaty if that is what is necessary.

CentreRight: Dan Hamilton highlights a must-watch video that Eliot Spitzer, now caught in a prostitution scandal, used for his campaign to become New York's Governor.

Tax relief is priority number three for Tories given focus on matching Labour's spending and controlling borrowing

"The Tories on Monday refused to commit themselves to cutting taxes during the first term of a Conservative government, in a change in economic emphasis that will alarm those on the right of the party who want concrete pledges of lower spending and taxation. Philip Hammond, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said the poor state of the public finances meant that cutting borrowing would have to be a high priority for an incoming Conservative government." - FT

"Isn’t it the case, Hammond was asked, that a Tory government could well finish an economic cycle without lowering any tax at all as it would have so much debt to repay? Hammond would not give a firm answer. Bingo. So in addition to the Tory pledge for no up-front tax cuts, there is also no promise to cut taxes in office either. Hammond says the Tories are, instinctively, a tax-cutting party. A promise which I suspect few voters would bank on." - Fraser Nelson, Coffee House

Budget countdown

"Extra money to help failing inner-city schools is expected to be made available in the budget tomorrow as part of the government's drive to push up standards." - Guardian

"Alistair Darling is poised to postpone a 2p rise in fuel duty in the Budget following a backlash from motorists. The Chancellor is understood to be sympathetic to concerns about the soaring cost of living." - Telegraph

"Mr Darling, who is expected to forecast growth of 1.75 per cent this year, is confident that Britain will emerge from the global economic slowdown in better shape than most of its competitors." - Independent

CentreRight's Andrew Lilico sets out his hopes for the Budget and asks for your ideas.

The rising cost of war is stretching our armed forces

"The forecast cost of operations in Iraq has gone up by 52% to £1.449 billion for the financial year 2007-2008, despite the drawdown of UK Forces. The Commons Defence Committee also says the forecast cost of operations in Afghanistan is up by 48% to £1.424bn" - Sky

"The Ministry of Defence says that by 2010-11, spending will be 11 per cent higher in real terms than in 1997, which amounts to an increase of less than one per cent a year. Given that defence inflation runs far ahead of general inflation, that amounts to stagnation, or worse. Yet during this decade of a flat-lining defence budget, greater demands have been placed on the military than in any comparable period since the Second World War." - Telegraph leader

Yesterday ConservativeHome called for a flexible freeze in civil service recruitment that could deliver £3bn extra for Britain's overstretched armed forces.

Telegraph attacks Cameron's aspiration for a third of ministers to be women

"Able women do not want to feel that they have won their positions by any means other than their own merit, nor that patronising allowances have had to be made for their shortcomings. Mr Cameron's comments yesterday seemed to reflect the ambivalence and confusion that is bound to arise over any policy that sets out to elevate what Americans call "identity politics" (of sex, race, or sexual orientation) over ability." - Telegraph leader

George Osborne's ambitions

"Cameron is a family man, likes being at home on Sunday with Sam and the kids. At heart he's what the 19th century would still have called an 18th century Whig - a socially leftish Tory who believes in work-life balance and would happily give up the premiership after, say, one and a half terms at No 10. The Osbornes, on the other hand, are "networker's networkers". George and Frances, daughter of Lord (David) Howell (a dull but decent dog who was a Telegraph leader-writer turned 1979-83 Thatcher cabinet member) use Sundays for power lunches at home with guests worth cultivating." - Michael White, Guardian blogs

City fund manager David Pitt-Watson is to be Labour's new general secretary - BBC | Guido

LibDem options in the event of a hung parliament

"If the Liberal Democrats cannot agree on a referendum for the Lisbon Treaty, there is unlikely to be unity over which party it could work with in a coalition." - Steve Richards in The Independent

"At present, all the Conservatives have in common with the Liberals is a strong stand in favour of civil liberties - against ID cards and such like - but is this enough to form a real progressive alliance?" - Robert Halfon on CentreRight

Whitehall crackdown on bloggers and social networks after Civil Serf is forced to close - Times

Events at Spring Forum

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