Newslinks for Thursday 14th June 2012

6.30pm MPsETC: Read the whole of Charles Walker MP's brave Commons speech today about his mental health history

5pm WATCH:

• Leveson 1) That Rebekah Brooks text: "Professionally, we're definitely in this together", and Cameron's response
• Leveson 2) Cameron: "I was giving Coulson a second chance."
• Tony Blair is heckled at a lecture at inaugural Faith Foundation speech‬

2pm Local Government: Labour win councillor defections from Lib Dems and Greens

1.30pm ToryDiary: A fisk of Rebekah Brooks's text to David Cameron - proving the terrible friendlessness of politics. "This is not a text that any friend would send to another. Its real message is: 'We want to own you"."

11.30am Local Government: Pickles flies Falklands flag to mark 30th anniversary of liberation

10.30am ToryDiary: If compassion is no longer about how much money governments spend, Labour stops winning elections

ToryDiary: Enoch Powell, the dazzling man who won only 15 votes in a Tory leadership election

Columnist Andrew Lilico: With our EU membership probably drawing to an end, what should we consider instead?

Nick Pickles on Comment: Under the cover of David Cameron's Leveson evidence today, the Government slips out its plans to log every website visit you make

Local Government: What Eric Pickles did over the Jubilee break

TTC: The Government needs a new Coalition Agreement to renew its purpose, says the Institute for Government

The Deep End: Edmund Burke, the man

WATCH: FSA head says British banks could cope with Grexit

Cameron appears before Leveson today

"In extensive "prep" sessions, which have been reminiscent of Cameron's preparations for the television debates during the election, the prime minister's university tennis partner and Tory co-chair Lord Feldman of Elstree is reported to have played the role of Robert Jay, counsel for the inquiry. Cameron will again insist there was no grand bargain with News Corp to wave through the bid in return for support from Murdoch newspapers at the 2010 election." - The Guardian

• Alex Salmond: The Observer hacked my phone- Scotsman

> Yesterday: Lord Ashcroft on Comment - Ed Miliband misled the Leveson Inquiry over my revelations about his tawdry PR Chief

Speaker abruptly overturns Commons conventions to rule that accusations of lying are in order...

"During a fiery debate, Conservative MPs protested after a Labour MP was allowed to make the highly serious accusation of lying - one which is usually ruled out of order in the Commons - without being challenged by the Speaker…Chris Bryant, the MP for Rhondda, said that Mr Hunt had excused himself last year from exhaustive disclosure to Parliament on the grounds that it would be too expensive…“There is a huge difference between misleading Parliament inadvertently and lying,” retorted Mr Hunt." - The Times (£)

• Sally Bercow in blue bikini in Barbados - The Sun

...As Hunt survives vote and Yellow B*****d backlash begins...

"Coalition relations hit an all-time low yesterday after Liberal Democrats refused to back Jeremy Hunt as he was  branded a ‘liar’ in Parliament. Tory MPs called their partners ‘traitors’ and vowed revenge – promising to vote against Nick Clegg’s plans to reform the Lords and to withdraw support for Lib Dem ministers in difficulty…A Labour motion calling for Mr Hunt to be referred for investigation by Sir Alex Allan, the independent adviser on the Ministerial Code, was defeated by 290 to 252 votes." - Daily Mail

• Examining the mysteries of Nick Clegg's brain - Dan Hodges, Daily Telegraph

...Though John Baron and Sarah Wollaston fail to back the Culture Secretary

"Eighteen Tory MPs failed to back Mr Hunt. Many were overseas, however at least two Tory MPs – John Baron and Sarah Wollaston – were able to vote and chose not to. One Tory MP was recalled from his honeymoon in Mauritius to vote, while another MP got up from his sick bed in St Thomas’s Hospital to walk across Westminster Bridge to pledge his support for Mr Hunt. There was anger that some Conservative MPs had failed to back Mr Hunt. One Tory MP said: “Unless you had a really good excuse it was a disgrace not to be there.” - Daily Telegraph

• "This paper believes Mr Hunt should go. With his firm commitment to Rupert Murdoch’s cause, he could never be seen as an impartial judge of the BSkyB bid." - Daily Mail Editorial
• An unedifying spectacle - Daily Telegraph Editorial
• "The media industry will never forgive Mr Cameron if, after this saga, we find ourselves burdened with new regulations and inhibitions, while the longstanding tradition of private dialogue is shattered." - Max Hastings, Financial Times (£)

> Yesterday:

• ToryDiary: Hunt puts in strong performance, as Government wins vote of confidence (And the DUP votes with the Government.)
• MPsETC: Full list of Tory abstainers on Hunt vote - and DUP MPs supporting the Government
• WATCH: After the Speaker allows Labour MP Chris Bryant to call Jeremy Hunt a "liar", Jacob Rees-Mogg strikes back.  He asks if it would be in order to call Labour's frontbench "the most sanctimonious, hypocritical humbugs in recent political memory".
• ToryDiary: PMQs - Miliband's Leveson attacks fall flat
• ToryDiary: Are Liberal Democrat MPs now free to abstain if Ed Miliband tables a no-confidence vote in the Government?

Rebekah Brooks in court charged with perverting the course of justice - Daily Mail

Police line up with May as Government launches plans for further police powers to spy on websites, e-mails and texts

"Bernard Hogan-Howe warns that police will lose the fight against crime unless Parliament passes a controversial new law enabling officers to collect more communications data. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner runs the risk that critics will accuse him of meddling in politics. But Mr Hogan-Howe is passionate about the issue and believes that greater powers to access data are essential to waging a “total war on crime”." - The Times (£)

• Online tracking isn’t snoopers’ charter...it is crooks’ nightmare - Theresa May, The Sun
• Trust me, I need to know about your e-mails - Bernard Hogan-Howe, The Times (£)

Nick Herbert says that police spies have sex permission - Daily Mail

Cameron hints at Heathrow U-turn...

"The Prime Minister pointedly refused to wed himself to the Tories’ commitment at the last election of ruling out an extra runway at the UK’s largest airport. His comments come as senior ministers weigh up the political cost of reversing their stance in time for the Tories’ election manifesto in 2015. Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, added to the current internal debate when he said there was no chance of re-opening the issue of a third runway “in this Parliament”." - The Times (£)

• Modern Britain demands a modern airport - David Aaronovitch, The Times (£)

> Yesterday: WATCH - David Cameron tells Zac Goldsmith MP: "The Coalition position has not changed" - there will be no third runway at Heathrow

As the Spectator claims he's ready to junk HS2 (Remember: you read first here that this will happen)

"This week’s Spectator magazine quotes an unnamed Tory minister saying the  HS2 scheme is ‘effectively dead’ because of opposition from Conservative MPs. The magazine also claims Treasury civil servants are nervous about committing money to the project – predicted to cost up to £34billion – at a time when the economy is under threat from the euro crisis and other parts of the railway network are desperate for investment." - Daily Mail

> Tim Montgomerie's ToryDiary from last weekend: A firm prediction... HS2 will never happen

Britain opts out of new EU directive on confiscating criminal assets

"Home Office minister James Brokenshire told MPs that Britain would not accept the proceeds of crime directive because it could undermine domestic rules. Under the Lisbon treaty, which was formally agreed in December 2009, the UK won the right to opt in or out of any law and order policies by 2014. The Government’s decision to use the opt out is the first time that ministers have used it on one of the 130 new EU measures that the UK must accept or reject by 2014." - Daily Telegraph

Martin Callanan MEP compares Spanish bailout to urinating in one's pants at the North Pole - Daily Express

> Yesterday: WATCH - Martin Callanan MEP: The EU needs to "respond to the needs of the people, and not impose ideas upon them"

Osborne to back Vickers in Mansion House speech

"The chancellor is to vow to stop problems created by the financial services industry from threatening ordinary taxpayers as he sets out plans for a reform of British banking. In the annual Mansion House speech on Thursday evening, George Osborne will commit to implementing measures recommended by Sir John Vickers late last year, including proposals to force banks to ringfence their retail operations." - Financial Times (£)

• Osborne VAT levy "putting finest buildings at risk" - The Times (£)

IDS to question child poverty target

"Tackling poverty is “not about income alone”, Iain Duncan Smith, work and pensions secretary, will say on Thursday as official figures look set to show a rise in the number of poor Britons and a separate report shows the poor are bearing the brunt of the government’s austerity programme. With Labour’s goal of wiping out child poverty in 20 years at the halfway mark, the government data are likely to show that it has been missed." - Financial Times (£)

• Get a job, Iain Duncan Smith tells parents on the dole - Daily Telegraph

Tory MPs tell Cameron to demand EU budget cuts

"Andrea Leadsom, a key member of the Fresh Start group of Eurosceptic MPs, which includes George Eustice and Chris Heaton-Harris, will urge Mr Cameron to press for a reduction in the EU structural funds budget, designed to fund projects in deprived regions. Between 2007 and 2013, provision for EU spending through the structural funds amounts to about €280 billion (£225 billion), almost 30 per cent of the total EU budget." - The Times (£)

Gove to by-pass teaching colleges by paying trainees more to learn in schools

"Education Secretary Michael Gove will today unveil a training ‘revolution’ designed to decrease the influence of Left-wing courses and give schools a bigger say in how teachers learn their craft. More than half of student teachers will be trained by schools within three years, as under-performing colleges are denied funding and shut down. Graduates who go directly to the toughest schools will be eligible for tax-free awards of up to £25,000." - Daily Mail

Institute for Government urges Coalition to draw up renewal plan - Financial Times (£)

"A prophet yet an outcast": the 100th anniversary of Enoch Powell's birth approaches

"Powell was a man of conspicuous moral greatness, something that, alone, made him unsuited for politics, because it meant he could not keep what he perceived to be the truth to himself.  He had a gift denied to most politicians, which was of making prophecies that were right. He was right about Europe; right about the single currency; right about economic management; right about Lords reform; right about devolution; right about American imperialism; and, with even Trevor Phillips, the figurehead of the Equalities Commission, now arguing that multiculturalism has failed, right about that, too." - Simon Heffer, Daily Mail

• "Simply by lending his name to [a set of essays to mark the centenary][, Mr Duncan Smith is making an implicit claim to stand in some part of the Powell tradition." - Peter Oborne, Daily Telegraph

Cable to unveil revised executive pay plans - Financial Times (£)

Military accuse Cameron of "dithering" over defence cuts - The Sun

Cameron in £500,000 Bomber Command aid pledge - Daily Express

Rain goddess Spelman to unleash storms and hurricane-force 80mph winds from lunchtime today - Daily Express

On 30th anniversary of the Falklands, veterans take emotional journey back to the site of the battle of Goose Green. At the going down of the sun and in the morning... - Daily Mail

...We will remember them: The Falklands message that still holds true - Daily Telegraph Editorial

> Please use the thread below to provide links to news topics likely to be of interest to ConservativeHome readers and to comment on political topics that haven't been given their own blog. Read our comments policy here.