Newslinks for Thursday 17th May 2012

6.30pm ToryDiary: Alan Duncan launches push for UN treaty on the arms trade

5.15pm MPsETC: Peter Bone and Philip Hollobone can be proud of their work on the BackBench Business Committee --- but it may never be as powerful/ awkward for the govt again if the new members get their way...

4.15pm WATCH: Graham Brady MP: Elections have produced "good spectrum" of opinion on 1922 Committee

2.30pm WATCH: Charles Hendry accidentally sits on Ed Davey in House of Commons

1pm WATCH: A collection of political attacks from Blair, Cable, Watson, Trumpington and Farage

11.45am Damian Hinds MP on Comment: Credit unions are a real alternative to the door-step lenders

ToryDiary: David Cameron will give his "No Turning Back" speech today

ToryDiary: The reasonable Right as well as the 301 Group won yesterday's 1922 elections

Columnist Andrew Lilico: Greek €uro membership - It's about time to put Frank Sinatra on the record player

Grant Shapps MP on Comment: The vital phase III of this Government is now underway --- turning legislation into action

Local government: Pickles replaces "one in, one out" regulation rule with "one in, two out"

The Deep End: The trouble with Keynesianism

WATCH: Theresa May gets rough reception at Police Federation conference, but explains her reforms to the BBC's James Landale (SHE ALSO GETS THE BACKING OF SUN, TELEGRAPH AND EXPRESS)

David Cameron is to insist it is his job to "keep Britain safe" whatever the fate of the eurozone - BBC

"Reinforcing his "make up or break up" message to MPs on Wednesday, the Prime Minister will say: "The eurozone is at a crossroad. It either has to make up or it is looking at a potential break up. Either Europe has a committed, stable, successful eurozone with an effective firewall, well capitalised and regulated banks, a system of fiscal burden sharing, and supportive monetary policy across the eurozone. Or we are in unchartered territory which carries huge risks for everybody." - Sky News

• Ed Miliband is peddling the line that government can steer a pain-free course back to prosperity. It is a lie says The Telegraph

Cost of Greek exit from euro put at $1 TRILLION - Guardian

• Withdrawal from the single currency would cause short-term pain, but long-term gain - Dan Hannan in the Daily Mail
• What on earth is Britain doing trying to save the euro? - Peter Oborne in The Daily Telegraph
• "The cost of euro break-up will range from 2 to 5 per cent of Eurozone GDP, the CEBR estimates, and could even reach $1 trillion at worst, depending on whether it is orderly and on how many countries leave. But whatever the cost, growth will be faster afterwards than it would be under the current set of policies. Intense disruption could be imminent – it’s time to fasten your seatbelts." - Allister Heath for City AM

Can this crisis change Europe for the better? - Daily Mail leader

• Labour could make EU referendum promise BEFORE Cameron - Andrew Pierce in the Daily Mail
• More than half of voters (54 per cent) think we should now quit the EU, while barely a third (34 per cent) want to stay in - Express
• Cameron would be a hero if he led Britain out of EU - Express leader

Modernisers gain ground but fail to take key posts in Tory party's 12-strong executive - Guardian

"The one setback for the 301 Group was that loyalist Charlie Elphicke failed to secure a post. The result amounted to a generational shift in Tory politics, with 11 of the 12 members of the committee executive from the 2010 intake. Only arch-eurosceptic Bernard Jenkin survived from the older generation. In another key win for the Prime Minister, two of his harshest critics – Peter Bone and Philip Hollobone – were voted off the cross-party Commons Backbench Business Committee." - Daily Mail

"Among the few victories for the committee’s old guard was the failure of core 301 candidate Charlie Elphicke to win a secretary position with the election of Nick de Bois, a non-301 candidate to the post instead. Senior backbencher Bernard Jenkin was also re-elected to the executive, in defiance of moves by modernisers eject him." - FT (£)

James Forsyth at Coffee House: "This election, which had 93.8% turnout, makes the ’22 a far more powerful body than it was before. No one can now claim that it is not representative of the parliamentary party."

Steve Richards: The Conservative Party has lost its secret weapon called unity - Independent

> Yesterday evening on ConHome:

• It's a change of generation at the '22: "The results don't break comfortably down into party left or right.  The 301 was a mixed ticket. I would not myself place George Eustice, say, left-of-party centre.  Priti Patel, and out-and-ought right-winger, was on both slates.  Douglas Carswell points out that 11 of the 18 members of the new '22 voted for an EU referendum last year - against the Whip."
• MPsETC: Full 1922 results

Alan Duncan says arms trade 'has become the greatest threat to development, beyond disease and disaster' - Guardian

"Teachers’ pay should be completely deregulated, with salaries negotiated and set within each school, Michael Gove suggested yesterday" - Times (£)

"In its submission to the teachers' pay review body, the Department for Education argued that it was easier to recruit staff in some areas than others – fuelling fears that teachers in regions where there is less trouble recruiting staff will face a pay cut or years of pay freezes." - Independent

The Public Accounts Committee said that a fifth of Apprenticeship schemes last six months or less and are of "no real benefit" - BBC

The Committee called for more research into the £451m programme – particularly into whether “employers would have paid for training anyway” and “whether it is subsidising some apprenticeships more than others” - FT (£)

Ministers unveil first results of £156 million National Service for 16 year-olds - Independent

Sir Bob Kerslake, head of the civil service, has publicly rejected suggestions by ministers that civil servants are ‘lazy’ - Daily Mail

• "One of the most senior civil servants stunned Whitehall by resigning yesterday amid signs of deteriorating relations between ministers and officials. Ian Watmore, 53, who was in charge of cutting costs across government departments, quit six months after he was appointed as a permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office." - Times (£)
• "Instead of blaming civil servants, the Coalition needs to employ political advisers who are media savvy and who will prevent ministers from taking bad policy decisions." - Sue Cameron in The Telegraph

Guardian writers on the future of the Conservative Party

• "The Cameron effort to remake the Tory party in a modern liberal conservative mould was initially effective but remains superficial. Now it has stalled. Cameron remains a stronger leader than the rightwing commentators like to think, but his failure to win in 2010 persuades too many Conservatives that his liberalism went too far, rather than not far enough." - Martin Kettle in The Guardian
• "No Tory backbencher is (yet) publicly questioning the austerity strategy... The question that really divides the party is whether in the face of austerity it returns to an enhanced core-vote strategy of shoring up the right flank from Ukip by focusing on the traditional crime, immigration and Europe agenda, or whether to keep faith, despite the vastly altered circumstances, in Cameron's modernising programme and anchor the party to the centre-right." - Guardian leader

Cameron is quite conservative enough, thank you - Hugo Rifkind in The Spectator

Scots Tories' anger over Cameron's U-turn on date for independence referendum

"Despairing MSPs accused Mr Cameron of hanging Scots leader Ruth Davidson "out to dry". The angry comments came after the Prime Minister told a reception at the Scotland Office in London on Tuesday night he was not "too fussy" about the timing of the referendum – effectively conceding to the Nationalists' wish for a vote on separation in the autumn of 2014. He made his comments even though Ms Davidson has fought to hold the public line that delaying the referendum date for more than two years is unacceptable." - The Herald

• "Scottish independence could see the UK kicked out of the European Union and forced to surrender its £3 billion annual rebate if it wanted to rejoin, a senior constitutional lawyer has told MPs" - Telegraph

Once it was the unemployed who felt the lash of the Tory tongue, now it is the boss class - Robert Shrimsley in the FT

Government receiving tip-offs about illegal immigration every six minutes - Daily Mail

And finally... Greg Barker MP uses office miscrowave to warm up his dog's cushion - Daily Mail

And finally 2... The Daily Mail seems to think it incompatible for David Cameron to work hard and take Samantha to French restaurant

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