Friday 6th January 2006

2.45pm update:
John Gummer and Iain Duncan Smith write for The Tablet on the work of their respective policy groups.

BLOGS

ToryDiary:

• Tory membership up 16,000 under David Cameron
• Leader of LibDem MPs describes Charles Kennedy as a "dead man walking"

CONSERVATIVE NEWS AND COMMENTARY

You can get both views of David Cameron in this week's Spectator...

• Peter Oborne has clearly put away his old doubts and now regards the Tory leader as comparable to Disraeli.
• Geoffrey Wheatcroft asks to be spared from the "touchy-feely" Tories.

In a letter to The Guardian Philip Gould claims that New Labour  have won the key arguments: 

"What has happened to the Conservative party in recent weeks is the political equivalent of the collapse of the Berlin wall. New Labour has pushed and they have capitulated; turned, in a decade, from conquering army to hapless would-be clones, proving that in the long march of British politics, we were right and they were wrong. It is a great mistake to underestimate your enemy; it is a greater mistake to fear them unnecessarily. The greatest mistake of all is to do so at the moment of victory."

Mirror: "New Tory boss David Cameron bashfully admitted to fancying Girls Aloud star Cheryl Tweedy yesterday as he tried to flaunt his pop knowledge.  Desperate to reveal "yoof" credentials, Lord Charlie went on the Radio 1's Colin and Edith Show to boast about his love of music.  He revealed wife Samantha had given him an iPod for Christmas and he had loaded it with "gloomy" numbers from Bob Dylan, Pulp, Radiohead - and the Smiths. But Lord Charlie's attempt to appear cool was blown apart when host Colin Murray demanded he name the member of Girls Aloud he would pick "to get a bit of the Cameron love"."

LORD MERYLN-REES DIES AT 85

The Guardian: "Lord Merlyn-Rees, emollient home secretary during some of the toughest years of the 1970s Labour government, died yesterday after a long struggle with Parkinson's disease which did not prevent him from leading an active political life in the Lords until a few weeks ago."

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