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Thursday 27th April 2006

5.45pm updates:

Late morning updates on ToryDiary: A bad day at the Office and Triple whammy Wednesday

BLOGS

ToryDiary: London Mayoral candidate faces big decision on congestion charge and Nominations for Local Hero

Platform: Martin Curtis writes about Key Stage testing in schools

Charles_clarkeBLACK WEDNESDAY (Mk II)

"There comes a time in the life of most governments when one event can transform public indifference to, or even mild disdain for, its perceived failures into incandescent fury."
- Philip Johnston in The Telegraph

"Mr Blair has sown a wind of prejudice, misgovernment and wanton stupidity in the past nine years, and now he reaps the whirlwind. He might not see the moral and political failure contingent on not sacking Mr Clarke, but the public, in its anger, does." - Telegraph Leader

"It is possible that Tony Blair has had worse days as Prime Minister. It is not immediately evident when they might have been. It has left the collective impression of a government that is out of touch in the first case, astonishingly incompetent in the second and morally unhinged in the third." - Times Leader

"For all ministers, not just Mr Clarke, this episode should be taken as a painful lesson in the difficult and ineffectual nature of much government activity. Since 1997 Labour's language has often cantered well ahead of what is actually being done." - Guardian Leader 

Blair_1 "How can such unbelievable lassitude afflict a government that is supposed to be tough on crime? The answer, of course, is that the Government is not so much interested in being tough on crime, as in being seen to be tough." Boris Johnson in The Telegraph

"Hardly anybody seems to view this as a challenge that ministers can constructively respond to, except with grovelling self-abasement that has absolutely no policy content" - Anatole Kaletsky in The Times

"Once the present mess is under better control, the department's functions should be separated into a ministry of justice and a ministry of the interior. The Home Office is a Whitehall conglomerate that would do better broken up." - FT Editorial

"One minister said there was now a feeling of desperation within the government. "There's just a really miserable atmosphere at the moment - people are walking around with these grim, grim faces," he said. "No-one believes the polls - we feel like we're miles behind and nothing goes right. This must be how the Tories felt towards the end." - Scotsman

"Tony Blair will try to move on from one of his toughest days as prime minister when he meets Cabinet colleagues later." - BBCi

CONSERVATIVES FOR CONGESTION CHARGING?

"Having fought two elections opposing the congestion charge, David Cameron's new all-green Tories revealed yesterday morning that they would change tack and support the scheme." - Guardian Diary

Tony_snowBUSH REPLACES McCLELLAN

"President Bush today named conservative commentator Tony Snow as White House press secretary, putting a new face on a troubled administration. Mr. Snow, a Fox news pundit and former speechwriter in the White House under Mr. Bush's father, replaced Scott McClellan who resigned in a personnel shuffle intended to re-energize the White House and lift the president's record-low approval ratings." - Washington Times

CAMPBELL ATTACKS CAMERON'S GREEN CREDENTIALS

"I welcome the conversion of David Cameron to the cause of environmentalism. But he will have to forgive a little cynicism on the part of those, such as the Liberal Democrats, who discovered green values and worked out ecological policies when his nanny was still tying his shoelaces." - Independent

"HAIN MISLED PUBLIC"

"Welsh Tories last night claimed Peter Hain's bid to stop candidates standing in both sections of the ballot in National Assembly elections had been exposed as a sham. They made the claim after the Assembly Government confirmed it held no evidence that regional list AMs were abusing their positions." - icWales

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