Monday 28th November 2005

3pm update on the Leadership blog: Is 'National Service' David Cameron's big idea?

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A NEW YORK TIMES LEADER: "Who says George W. Bush and Bill Clinton have nothing in common? Just as President Clinton did on Rwanda, President Bush is doing precious little to try to stop a genocide in Darfur. Indeed, this entire generation of world leaders has a dismal record at intervening in this kind of wholesale murder, and now they are failing to stop the elimination of entire African tribes in the Sudan countryside."

Also see Nicholas Kristof on the Commentators Blog.

BLOGS

Platform blog: Alex Singleton on the intellectual revolution that is necessary for a Conservative agenda on international development.

Leadership blog: David Davis insists that he can still win leadership

JEFFREY ARCHER

The Guardian: Cameron rejects Archer as Tory peer but Alan Duncan thinks "the period of condemning him is over".

Max Hastings in The Guardian wonders why we welcome "crooks and bounders" back into public life: "I feel a worm of discomfort, believing that a society that tolerates Mandelson as the nation's representative in Brussels and still throngs Archer's Christmas parties has lost its compass."

CBI CONFERENCE

BBCi: "The CBI has called on the government to spend an extra £1bn on transport over the next two years, claiming delays are hitting output and stressing-out staff."

The Guardian: Speaking to the CBI today, "Mr Davis will allege that "Enron-style accounting" has become the "order of the day" in the Treasury, pointing to the way Network Rail's £20 billion of debt is kept off the national balance sheet, and what he will brand the "far bigger scam" of unfunded public sector pension liabilities. Mr Davis will cite estimates that at the end of last year they amounted to an off-balance-sheet liability of £500 billion."

OTHER CONSERVATIVE NEWS & COMMENTARY

The Times: "The Tory contest has exposed the two candidates’ personal qualities and voter appeal to endless media scrutiny and public exposure; their relative charm, charisma, rhetoric and “electability” have been tested, assessed and measured by every conceivable metric, through focus groups, hustings and opinion polls. But their ideas and policy proposals have hardly been considered..." Anatole Kaletsky goes on to to consider what the two Davids really stand for...

420 Tory donors pay £300 a head to say goodbye to Michael Howard - Independent

Brighton's The Argus: "Tories are taking full advantage of new longer drinking hours despite the Conservative Party warning that extended licences would result in mayhem.  Conservative clubs in Sussex, which provide meeting places for grass-roots Tories, have applied for late opening times just after the party they support vowed to "fight licensing laws to the end".  The Hove and Newhaven clubs have had their hours extended to 1am and midnight."

MONTREAL ENVIRONMENT CONFERENCE

BBCi: Montreal "is the first United Nations climate conference since the Kyoto agreement came into force earlier this year."

Times: Host Canadian government expected to fall in no-confidence vote.

OTHER NEWS

The Telegraph: "With the closure of most independent newspapers and magazines in Iran, blogging - publishing an online diary - has become a powerful tool in the dissidents' arsenal by providing individuals with a public voice."

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