Sunday 11th May 2008

8.30pm: Over at WebCameron David Cameron reviews his conversations with members of London's Burma community, from a little earlier today.

7.45pm ToryDiary: What will a Cameron premiership be like?

6pm PlayPolitical video: Sky News notes how autobiographies from Cherie Blair, Lord Levy and John Prescott are only compounding the Prime Minister's difficulties

Noon ToryDiary: England and Scotland should vote on the future of the Union in May 2009, says Lord Forsyth

Seats and candidates: News of the World attacks "greedy" Tory MEPs

Oberon Houston on Platform: A vision for Britain

Simon Chapman on CentreRight: Labour plays the race card in Crewe

Tories are 4% ahead in Crewe by-election

"The Tories are poised to achieve their first parliamentary by-election gain since the heyday of Margaret Thatcher, dealing a hammer blow to Gordon Brown's hopes of survival... The ICM survey for The Mail on Sunday puts the Tories on 43 per cent with Labour trailing on 39 – a dramatic ten per cent swing in the Cheshire constituency since the last General Election." - Mail on Sunday

> How you can help deliver Tory victory

Brown's ratings collapse in PoliticsHome.com survey of 5,000 voters

"Respect for Gordon Brown has dropped so calamitously that only one in five voters now reckons the Prime Minister is doing a good job while three-quarters of them think he is doing a bad one... It is not just the depth of this collapse that is stunning. It is the sheer width of it, the comprehensive shattering of his reputation in all the areas that matter to the public. On every leadership quality that is important, the Prime Minister is now regarded less favourably than David Cameron... The brutal but inescapable truth revealed by this survey is that the voters do not want to change anything about Gordon Brown. They want to change absolutely everything." - Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer

There is much more about this new opinion tracker at PoliticsHome.com.

Boris Johnson accused of hiring mates

The Sunday Times profiles 'Team Boris'

Member of Boris' financial audit committee predicts savings of tens of millions of pounds - Sunday Telegraph

Brian Paddick's farcical London campaign diary - Mail on Sunday

...And - it's proving to be a Mirror speciality - the red top accuses Boris of cycling through red lights...

"The blundering Tory zipped through SIX red lights, one pedestrian crossing and cycled on the pavement - on his 20-minute journey to and from work." - Sunday MIrror

Another day, another Labour autobiography bashing Brown

"Brown was “frustrating, annoying, bewildering and prickly”. He sulked so often during meetings that they had to be abandoned. On other occasions he could “go off like a bloody volcano”." - The Sunday Times serialises John Prescott's account of tensions between Blair and Brown

"John Prescott urged Tony Blair to sack Gordon Brown as chancellor when tensions ran high after their frequent rows," - Independent on Sunday

And there's one very good reason why all the memoirs are being published now: "Cherie surely shares the Blairite view – even if her husband's opinion remains inscrutable – that Brown's chances of leading the party into the next election are no better than 50-50. Best to publish now before her account becomes the dry-as-dust history of two prime ministers ago. That is her book's most wounding judgement about her husband's rival and successor." - John Rentoul in The Independent on Sunday

Labour MPs launch rival attempt to cut abortion limit - The Sunday Telegraph

Wendy Alexander ordered by Brown to shut up about independence vote - Scotland on Sunday

Controversial Scottish plans to decriminalise sex for 13 to 15 year-olds - The Herald

And finally...

Michael and Sandra Howard appear on ITV1's revival of Mr & Mrs (but get most questions about each other wrong) - The Sunday Times

Please use this thread to highlight other interesting news and commentary and visit PoliticsHome.com for breaking political news and views throughout the day.

Comments

[nobody]

From the Times story on Boris. They can't even get MT's former constituency right!

Boles, a leading light in Cameron’s “Notting Hill” set of bright young Tories, is tipped for a cabinet role in the next Conservative government. He was applauded when he announced he was gay during the selection meeting when he was being chosen to fight Margaret Thatcher’s old seat at Grantham. This is as much a testing ground for him as it is for Johnson and any future Tory government.

[michael mcgough]

"The blundering Tory zipped through SIX red lights, one pedestrian crossing and cycled on the pavement - on his 20-minute journey to and from work.

If he were prosecuted he might learn the lesson that laws are there and should be applied.He might then propose that transgressors of standing laws are prosecuted rather than making new authoritarian laws on the hoof as he has done re alcohol on the tube.

Remember less than 20% of the electorate vote for Boris.

[Neil Reddin]

On the C&N poll - I know they've adjusted for the "spiral of silence" factor - but have they done so for likelihood to vote?

4% isn't much, but that's probably a good thing - it would be worse if it looked like a walkover for us and expectations were raised too high (and Conservative turnover depressed also).

[Dave B]

"Computer analyses of global climate have consistently overstated warming in Antarctica, concludes new research by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and Ohio State University. " Geology Times

[Richard ROBINSON]

The following story from the Sunday Times is astonishing if true:

"Children will be banned from starting school until they receive the MMR jab, under new Labour party proposals.

Parents will have to provide proof their offspring have had a full range of vaccinations when they put in applications for primary schools.

The plan, designed to increase the take-up of the measles, mumps and rubella triple jab, has been drawn up by Mary Creagh, the Labour MP in charge of the party’s health manifesto for the next general election.

“Parents need to protect their children and science gives them a way to do that,” said Creagh. “We need to get that message across.”

However, doctors’ leaders warned that the idea was “morally dubious”.

Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the British Medical Association, said: “A Stalinist approach like this would be likely to backfire.”

Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, accused Labour of “playing politics” with children’s lives.

Take-up of the MMR jab fell dramatically after research – now discredited – appeared to show a link between the triple vaccination and autism. "

[christina Speight]

This new mass focus group is fascinating, and we shall hear much of it It will be hyped to the rafters and is well worth noticing. BUT-----

BUT it must be always remembered that it does not measure opinion in total , it does not pretend to any form of accuracy and it cannot be compared to opinion polls. What it will do is measure changes in opinion from a self-selected panel of people willing continuously to be quizzed. Now YouGov is extremely skilled in opinion polling but it has to make major ‘weightings’ to compensate for the somewhat skewed nature of a sample of those who are ‘online’ computer users. Results are proving that they have largely been successful in doing this. Other methods of polling have their problems. But it worries me that people with computers - a non-representative group (eg in how many households with a computer is that computer’s usage dominated by one person?) - are further narrowed down to those ‘obsessives’ willing to be polled as frequently as the Index says (“who answer a survey every day for PoliticsHome.com”) . cannot possibly represent anything but a totally atypical group. Treat it with great caution.

============
I wrote that before reading the Observer. Above I caution against misinterpretation of the new “Tracker Index” which forms the basis of this article. The Observer article illustrates clearly the dangers.. This Index cannot measure what the paper claims it does..... “Brown's overall satisfaction rating has crashed to minus 55 per cent”

The Observer cannot have understood what it was using!!! What it will be able to measure next time is that amongst its panel of 5,000 obsessive questionnaire addicts Brown’s standing is ‘worse’/’better’ than two weeks ago. NO MORE!

[Alex R]

Did anyone else see the piece in the News of the World about Tory MEP expenses claims. It appears that a number of them are doing a Conway and paying their wives/children.

These people need to be hounded out of public office. David Cameron must take a tough line.

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/1105_brussels_exposed.shtml
(this is man story, but there is a side bar focusing on other tories)

[Alex R]

found it:

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/1105_brussels_exposed_2.shtml

David Sumberg is paying his wife £95k a year to be his secretary.

Robert Atkins is employing his wife, even though she's a local councillor and his son.

outrageous.

[christina Speight]

I cannot understand why anybody should mind if husbands and wives employ one another when they are engaged on a joint enterprise as being an MP certainly is. The MP's spouse is for ever taking phone calls forwarding messages and it is conducive to marital solidarity that de facto assistance is recognised de jure.

It's sheer daftness to try and outlaw what's both beneficial and natural.

"Who? Oh you want my husband? In connection with being an MP? Oh you'll have to ask his secretary who you can reach on 01xxx ....... No I don't take messages for my husband's work."

[Jack Stone]

Michael mcgough. Please can you play another record. Its getting really tedious for ever reading your silly attempts to do down Conservatives and the Conservative Party.

[Editor]

Hi Alex, I posted on the NotW story much earlier today.

[Mary Abbot]

Jack stone;Do you approve of Boris and Dave ignoring the law?Why should it be OK for them to ignore traffic lights whilst cycle couriers in the City are ,rightfully,apprehended.If the Capital's leading light and his less bright leader don't obey the law who else will?That this lawbreaker,voted in by less than 20% of voters should then impose draconian new rules whilst (again)ignoring existing law this should be flagged.I thought these two were 'one collection of EU region' Conservatives not 'do as you are told Tory toff tyrants'

[Abdul-Rahim]

Considering the national polling figures, Labour is not doing that badly. I think it is very likely that Brown could do well in both constituencies if they campaign hard enough.

[Geoff]

There is an interesting article in the Gibraltar Chronicle ( www.chronicle.gi )

GIB EXPERTS SEE EU JUDGE'S FORMAL OPINION ON BASQUE TAX AS POSITIVE

"...the Basque Country can have its own Basque tax system because it fulfils the three requirements needed to regulate and manage taxes usually available to countries with a Treasury system..."

This might entertainingly mean that under new EU (potential) law all devolved assemblies and all EU "regions" in the UK have the same rights to impose extra local taxes without requiring any permission from our UK parliament.

Brilliant here in Gib but I'm guessing that the EU random region of Yorkshire-ish isn't going to be happy about being taxed more than whichever region covers EU Lancashire-ish.