Saturday 27th August 2005

Special Story

"Local authorities had been raiding the homes of families with two children and demanding at least one parent be sterilized. Women pregnant with a third child were forced to have abortions. And if people tried to hide, the officials jailed their relatives and neighbors, beating them and holding them hostage until the fugitives turned themselves in."

Blind Activist Leads Peasants in Legal Challenge To Abuses of China's Population-Growth Policy - Washington Post - click here.

Blogs

Leadership Blog: A new 'Telegraph Ten' stand up for rank-and-file members' voting rights

Conservative News & Commentary

"Trust of people is a fundamental Conservative belief - we have a history of extending, not narrowing, the franchise. In the 1980s, we brought about the democratisation of the trade union movement. Today, our party supports the spread of democracy around the world and we advocate decentralisation of power at home.  The next Conservative leader should not be elected by the parliamentary party alone. The next leader should have to win the confidence of rank-and-file members in target seats and in the parts of Britain where, currently, there are all too few Conservative MPs.  The Conservative Party is a national party and its leader should enjoy the confidence of the national membership..."

...Ten Conservative MPs write to The Daily Telegraph to defend voting rights of party's grassroots membership

How should the next Tory leader be elected? - Letters to The Times

Ed Vaizey MP: David Cameron will give the Conservative Party a fresh start - Guardian

Other Commentary

John Birt: UK media has become too reliant on "easy cruelty" and "the desire to humiliate" - Guardian

Mark Lawson: The PM lost post-7/7 goodwill by going to a secret location abroad - Guardian

A flatter tax would be fairer and more efficient - Leader in The Australian

How 'Bra War's devastate world's poor - Independent

Other News

'Child drinking' has doubled in last 15 years says NHS - Telegraph

Is the strike at Canada's public broadcaster the first 'blog-strike'? - Guardian online

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Friday 26th August 2005

8pm update: Tories gain North Wilts seat from LibDems by single vote - Guardian/PA

Blogs

Leadership Blog: David Davis plays down Clarke threat

Leadership Blog - Party democrats face "chaos" threats as ballot papers are despatched on leadership process

Conservative News & Commentary

David Cameron now denies plans to quit Tiger Tiger pub chain - Guardian

"[David Cameron's] speeches, said to be drafted by the Tory MP and Blair apologist Michael Gove, have been laboriously modelled on the Prime Minister’s early efforts. They are so close in style as to be almost identical: the same piety of tone, staccato delivery and mania for verbless sentences..."

...Peter Oborne: Why David Cameron has decided to copy Tony Blair - Spectator

Tory association chairmen may reject proposed changes to leadership election - Guardian

Guardian leader: Tories should embrace structural reform that will deliver a less white, less male party

'Young' Rifkind claims a dozen parliamentary supporters - Telegraph

"If Ken won, we would all be enormously entertained. He would knock spots off both Mr Blair and Gordon Brown in the House of Commons. He might, for a time, engage with the public better than any Tory leader since Margaret Thatcher. But his arrogance and closed-mindedness would show through in the end. Whatever he thinks, one more heave is not enough..."

...Mary Ann Sieghart: The Tories will be better off without Ken Clarke - Times

"Big challenges are what Clarke does. He came into politics, old friends remember, because he loved a brawl and he'd cross the road for a fight. That is more or less what he did as education secretary, then health secretary, and finally as home secretary, a career strewn with the bloodied casualties of doctors, ambulance drivers, teachers and police, victims of his penchant for doing over public servants.  Only the thickest-skinned pro-European one-nation Tory and protege of the late Sir Edward Heath could prosper under Margaret Thatcher and emerge from the wreckage of Black Wednesday as one of the Conservatives' most successful chancellors..."

...Profile of Kenneth Clarke - Guardian

Obituary of Maurice Cowling - Telegraph

Bill Deedes: Tories should learn from Australia's private health insurance system - Telegraph

Other Commentary

Clinton W Taylor: The unpunished Moqtada Al-Sadr’s influence has undermined the Iraq mission - National Review Online

Other News

Adam Smith Institute calls for deregulation of inappropriately politicised railways - ePolitix.com

Poorly communicating MPs must learn to speak 'fluent human' warns Andrew Marr - Times

238,000 immigration-fuelled population increase puts England over 50 million threshold - Telegraph

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Thursday 25th August 2005

"Doctors and religious leaders have spoken out against it.  A group of leading lawyers says it's close to lunacy and a police chief described it as 'my idea of hell'.  Yet the Government is adamant that it's right to let people drink as much as they like by letting pubs and clubs stay open all day if they choose..."

...1.30pm update: David Davis: 24 hour drinking would be a disaster for Britain - Newcastle's Evening Chronicle

1.30pm update: David Cameron to quit Tiger Tiger pub chain - Leadership Blog

Blogs

Leadership Blog: Jackie Ashley makes the case for Ken Clarke

Conservative Commentary & News

"The Conservatives could quite easily capitalise on a mood of tired irritation with Labour by the next election. For the first time in more than a decade, the economy might well be a point of weakness. Clarke, who was the last Tory chancellor and feels he built the foundations for the sustained growth Gordon Brown inherited, is the man to exploit that..."

...Jackie Ashley: Ken Clarke could be the Tories' Mo Mowlam - Guardian

Matthew d'Ancona: Davids Cameron and Davis are thinking big; Ken Clarke is only thinking of himself - D Tel

Ken Clarke is yesterday's man - Letter to The Guardian

Yesterday's "controversial" Cameron speech positions him firmly on Centre-Right - D Tel

David Willetts "very encouraged" by response to his possible leadership bid - BBCi

David Willetts: The low-paid are the victims of textile protectionism - FT (subscription required)

Sir Malcolm Rifkind (with Alex Salmond): Don't let Labour scrap Scotland's regiments - Scotsman

'Progressive Conservatism' website launched - reported on PRWeb

Other Commentary

Times' leader: The experience of animal rights terrorism suggests that laws are only as good as the energy committed by the police to track criminals

"In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi has consciously encouraged an anti-euro movement designed to blame Italy’s problems on Romano Prodi, the man who took Italy into the single currency, who happens to be his main political opponent in the forthcoming general elections. In the Netherlands, France and Germany, the euro has started to be blamed for inflation, economic instability and unemployment — and while some of these charges may not be intellectually sustainable, nobody can dispute that the European Central Bank has performed poorly, certainly in comparison with the US Federal Reserve Board, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan or the emasculated German Bundesbank..."

...Anatole Kaletsky: Europe's economic performance has gone from bad to worse under the euro - Times

Iraq's draft constitution reflects a remarkable spirit of enlightenment among the country's factions - Wall Street Journal

Marvin Olasky: Jesus wouldn't assissinate Hugo Chavez - TownHall.com

An introduction to libertarianism - TechCentralStation.com

Other News

Labour peer, Lord Haskins, gave £2,500 to successful LibDem general election candidate - Times

500 eminent scientists declare support for animal research - Guardian

ITV will scrap Jonathan Dimbleby's Sunday interview programme in December - Independent

French Socialists may split over attempts to turn party anti-capitalist, anti-European and anti-globalist - Independent

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Wednesday 24th August 2005

8pm update: Tories raised most pre-election cash but still ended up with biggest deficit - Guardian/PA

2.30pm update: David Cameron rejects surrender in Iraq - Leadership Blog

2.30pm update: David Davis blasts all-day drinking - Manchester Evening News

Blogs

Commentators Blog - Stephen Pollard on why the Tories should use state schools and hospitals

Leadership Blog: David Davis - The turnaround expert?

Leadership Blog: Did anyone watch yesterday's Newsnight?

Conservative News & Commentary

David Cameron: Re-asserting faith in our shared British values - Speech on conservatives.com

"The year after the euro was launched, Clarke was triumphant: "The euro has already created wider and deeper capital markets. It has done what I thought it would do: speed up the essential restructuring of western European economies. It has also stimulated trade and investment across borders. It is leading to liberalisation in every area. Euroland economies are achieving rapidly accelerating rates of growth. I never thought that the disadvantages of our having to wait would become apparent so soon."  Now he says that virtually none of this has turned out to be true..."

...Ferdinand Mount: Ken Clarke's euro views and his famous intellectual laziness - D Tel

The Sun issues Ken Clarke a fixed penalty for unpersuasive euro u-turn

"Clarke, leopard, spots." and other Letters to The Daily Telegraph

Are Clarke & Cameron a 'dream ticket'? - Take part in 'The Times Debate'

Who should be the next Tory leader? - BBCi 'Talking Point'

George Trefgarne: What David Davis learnt from his time at Tate & Lyle - D Tel

"I think we have lost sight of something of importance, something which has always been at the heart of Conservatism which is the family - functioning as a family unit with legal rights and responsibilities and being able to make its choices and let its children grow strong..."

...Ann Widdecombe calls for Tory focus on family values - Interview with ePolitix.com

Other Commentary

Jonathan Freedland: Tony Blair has got 24's Jack Bauer syndrome in his plans for fighting terror - Guardian

Polly Toynbee: Only rising prices will end our love affair with booze - Guardian

Daniel McCarthy: Pope Benedict's vision for the world does not include wars of the sort waged against Iraq - American Conservative

Other News

Britain shooting up European alcohol consumption league - D Tel

Inequality widens under New Labour - D Tel

Animal rights activists condemned as guinea pig farm gives up fight - Independent

Nine American states take joint action against global warming - New York Times

Russia may punish Western-leaning CIS countries by ending discounted energy supplies - Moscow Times

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