Tuesday 6th May 2008
8.30pm BREAKING NEWS: 55% of LABOUR voters want Brown to resign
8pm (until 9pm): Iain Dale is hosting a live chat with Eric Pickles MP
6.15pm CF Diary: Student wing of CF launched
6pm PlayPolitical: Alan Duncan says Labour's young guns are a liability and John McCain argues that only he will stop activist judges being appointed
5.30pm CentreRight: Samuel Coates reviews Diary of an On-Call Girl and Lee Rotherham notes the benefits to be had for a country holding an EU referendum
2.45pm ToryDiary: Boris and Ray Lewis to introduce "respect schooling" as part of the war against knife crime
1.30pm ToryDiary: Nadine Dorries MP launches cross-party campaign to reduce abortion limit to twenty weeks
Noon ToryDiary: 1st May, a celebration in pictures
ToryDiary: Tories accuse Wendy Alexander of "knee-jerk panic" after she supports early referendum on Scottish independence
Seats and candidates: Conservatives can win Crewe (with YOUR help)
Dan Hannan MEP on Platform: Four pro-EU "Charities" got £34,597,219.16 last year
Local government: Wakefield's Cllr Mike Walker explains how he turned wards run by Labour for 26 years into Tory wards with four figure majorities
Boris Johnson's mayoralty begins with inspirational appointment...
"Mr Johnson, elected on Friday, announced the appointment of Ray Lewis, an inspirational black community leader, as a deputy mayor with a key role in tackling youth violence. Mr Lewis, a former prison governor, runs a successful school for troubled youths, which he predicts will educate Britain's first black prime minister." - Telegraph
"On his first official day in office, Johnson asked the "inspirational" Ray Lewis to deliver his "dynamic but strict approach" across London. Lewis, 44, who was educated in Walthamstow, north-east London, after moving to Britain from Guyana, is a former governor of Woodhill prison in Milton Keynes. He set up the Eastside Young Leaders' Academy, which encourages black boys to be leaders in business and law, after being appalled by the number of black youngsters who end up in prison." - Guardian
...and he may bring in New York police guru
"Mr Johnson is reportedly considering taking on Bill Bratton, the US police chief, to advise on policies to cut crime rates in London, which would further strain relations with Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. None of Mr Livingstone’s key advisers is expected to be retained." - Times
Will there be tensions between Cameron and Johnson on immigration and the environment? - Daily Mail
Talksport sack James Whale for urging listeners to vote for Boris - Daily Mail
Tories vow to save £100m from lottery waste
"New figures seen by The Daily Telegraph show that hundreds of millions of lottery tickets have to be sold to pay for the running costs of the 15 organisations which distribute the money. The costs have grown from £145 million in 2003 to £205 million this year. This means that for two months every penny spent on tickets is absorbed by the bureaucrats." - Telegraph
The Tories need to behave like a government-in-waiting
"The challenge for the Conservatives is to position themselves to take maximum advantage of the new interest in them, to create a sense of inevitable momentum sweeping them to power. They need to form broad alliances with charities, businesses and leading personalities, taking them on board on commissions and policy groups, creating as wide a buy-in as possible to the Conservatives forming the new government." - Telegraph
Brown accelerates help for losers from 10p tax abolition - Independent
Polly Toynbee: Labour has become the stupid party
"It is Labour that has become the stupid party - dumb, directionless, depressing. That's why the voters gave them that 24% sucker punch: it wasn't about ideology, it was about basic political competence." - Guardian
The world needs a Britain in control of her own destiny
"It remains to be seen whether David Cameron as prime minister would embark upon a major confrontation with the European Union, but if he does so he will be remembered as a leader who changed the course of British history and reasserted Britain's place as an independent nation state. He must also be prepared to reverse years of defense cuts that threaten to cripple Britain's hugely overstretched armed services, currently suffering from the lowest levels of defense spending since the 1930s. And Cameron must work to strengthen the Anglo-American Special Relationship, a unique partnership between two great nations that has been considerably weakened under Gordon Brown. The world needs a Britain that is more powerful, self-confident, and in control of her own destiny, and for the next prime minister these must be top priorities." - Nile Gardiner writing for The Weekly Standard
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